The Mini-ITX Mainboard is 10 Years Old

MiniITX = No use for it except MAYBE HTPC, M-ATX ftw

Did a build not too long ago centered on the article talking about small form factor builds in a Lian-Li PC-Q08B case and its a little powerhouse. Used an ASRock A75M-ITX FM1 with an A6 3650 Llano, 8GB XMS3, EVGA GTX 580, Corsair H70 on the CPU, and a SeaSonic X650 Gold and its great. The little MiniITX board has newer I/O inputs too. First MiniITX build and I can understand why people would see little need for it, but for me saved lots of space for my living situation and its a low profile machine because of the board. So happy birthday or belated birthday to MiniITX!

A lot of use.. plenty of use for mITX why should you have a big ugly monster in your office when you use ms word, e-mail and a lot of facebook ?!!? ))
big boards for "big" gamers and render work stations, evrything else should be small
and yes, my newest HTPC uses mini atx 17x17cm board made by Sapphire wit AMD 350 Hudson and all i can say it is a dream! included USB3.0, Bluetooth 3.0... LAN (no wifi) and my HTPC is build in to the shelf i'have fallen in love in that little creature

My file server is mini ITX. Came with an Intel Atom and can house 4 storage drives but can be expanded up to hold a lot more either with SATA splitters or a PCIe x16 expansion card.

I wish I got a mini ITX board for my HTPC, but my only problem with them is they cost more for less features. Also, at the time IGPs weren't that great on the mini ITX boards.

They are not powerhouses, but they are cheap enough for single purpose machines.

I love my little GA-E350. It powers my Car PC. I was shocked when I actually saw an ITX board. Truly amazing.

Now compare these modern ITX boards to... an Apple II or Commodore 64 or even a PC from the 90s... In which the HD Controller card is bigger than an ITX board.

the memory lane link is dead

I still have an Epia 5000 ITX (533MHz Via C3) in use at home. It just sits on the top shelf in the closet, running XP and hosting a few applications. It's virtually maintenance free, being that it has no fans and no moving parts (boots XP off a 16GB CF card). Not to mention, power consumption is somewhere in the 5w-10w range (no fans or ventilation, and the phonebook-sized box never gets even warm.

The build I did in a PC-Q08R is running just fine as my backup PC. It is an i5-650 that right now has a HD6790 in it. In addition to the optical drive, it has an 80GB SSD and a 500GB HDD with room (and the port) for one more drive. Very few people (although they certainly exist, like anyone needing Crossfire or SLI) have needs that exceed what this form factor provides.

What's ITX?

They range from cheap to fairly power house(in relative terms, 1 expansion card is the limit). I mean if you want, you can get a top end graphics card and I7 cpu on a MITX board if needed.

ITX is a board form factor like ATX. Made for more compact systems.

I have a couple ITX systems being used as HTPCs. Couldn't be happier. My favorite ITX rig was one of the original Via based systems right when they hit the market. I used one for a Linux based firewall. Like a Timex, it took a licking and kept on ticking for a very long time.

I have an ITX system as my portable gaming machine with an i5-2500k and a 560ti

http://www.geekbox.com/prodigy/

Thing is so sweet and fits in a backpack they sell as well.

Mini-ITX is a great form factor for an HTPC. Zotac has carved out a nice market niche building solid low power ITX boards. But the big boys are starting to catch up. Unless you are building a multi-drive file server, a rendering powerhouse or a beastly gaming tower, and ITX board gives you pretty much everything you need in a small package.

Micro ATX, mini ITX, and eventually even smaller are the future of PCs. Standard ATX is going the way of the dodo.

HAPPY B-DAY Mini-ITX !!!!

I base most of my builds on Mini ITX boards. Everything from low power Atom and Fusion systems to "high end" gaming systems (ultimate gaming mini itx 2011 on youtube). Clients I show these products too always ask" what is that?" and "thats a computer?" Love seeing the look on their faces when they see the potential of what a small box can do. Happy Birthday Mini ITX and thank you VIA for a sucessful concept.

Nice Silverstone SG06, I had a mini-ITX build with that case and I loved it. Problem was I created so much heat with it that I believe I shortened its life prematurely. Or it could have just been my Zotac motherboard. Even though the build didn't last very long, I would completely build another mini-ITX system. But I would do it with the SG08 which can support cards up to 12.2 inches.

It an SG05

I have one too, nice little case. Built a HTPC in it(also serves as a nice portable lan case)

I5 750
5770
2 x 1TB drives(later dropped to one since it was louder that way)


Also picked up a FT03 mATX case, but it is not good for lans since the side panels are not even held in place(the case is not good for transportation).

Personally I prefer a regular ATX desktop, since I can fit in a full size GPU (got a 550ti in here), multiple HDs (got 2), and 4 sticks of ram (which I currently have), but I can see how a little mini-ITX thing would be fine for the typical user who just wants to web surf and type documents. I've been looking at doing one with an i3 2100T for another family member.

A mini ATX can handle what you have. I wish they would make more Mini-ATX cases that can STILL hold dual graphics cards. Most Mini-ATX boards support 6 drives and 4 sticks of RAM. As long as they have a x16 PCIe SLot - they can handle ANY video card in the market - its only a matter of power and space.

A Mini-ITX board CAN handle a high end video card, etc... not 4 drives usually.

Well, Micro-ATX boards tend to not be great for overclocking (though I don't do that), and many only support 2 sticks of ram (I have seen some that allow 4 though). Quite a few of those cases don't allow bigger gpus and cpu coolers - in this case, the evga 550ti's PCIe 6-pin power connector just barely fits, bumping into the hard drive cage. It wouldn't work if it were smaller.

To make such a small motherboard 10 years ago would not have been an easy feat. Only if VIA can grow to challenge both AMD and Intel...

^ even amd cant challenge intel
you think via can?

I love mini-ITX and i really hope the big players like asus and gigabyte would make a great Z77 motherboard in mini-ITX

Asus ROG in mini-ITX maybe? >.

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,3039.html

If you want something a bit different, Silverstone FT03(but this case has some compromise.) I would have never though of mATX and mITX as options either until i saw the mITX Gigabyte H55N-USB3 board(and later the mATX Asus Maximus Gene-Z).

Not saying they are right for everyone, but i am impressed with how far they have come.
http://www.silverstonetek.com/prod [...] 1&area=usa

What kind of board is it? I don't think I've ever seen any Atom boards with PCIe x16 included. Most just include PCI or PCIe x1.

Also, which case did you use?

This has a X16. and since its ion, the onboard video will be usable for media center as well.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6813500036

If you are interested in a small itx system for a file server, this may interest you
Can hold 6 hard drives, but would need some kind of real low profile controller(full height would hot the hard drive cage) card or a board with more sata ports.
http://www.fractal-design.com/?vie [...] =2&prod=42

Want more power and space? Even room for a good video card?
http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/produ [...] s_index=64