Conclusion
We've looked at a number of mini-ITX products to get a feeling for what customers can expect if they decide to miniaturize their machines. Two cases by Antec and SilverStone, as well as four motherboards by iBase, Intel, and Zotac, made it into our lab. The enclosures differ in size and power supply, but we found more significant differences between the motherboards. None is suitable for serious overclocking and most aren’t particularly efficient on power.
Cases
The two cases by Antec and SilverStone are completely different. Antec goes for minimum dimensions and a relatively weak external power supply, which means that it will be perfect for living room PCs or other places where small size matters. But this also means that you can’t use any fast processors. The Antec ISK 300-65 is probably best suited for Atom (cringe) or entry-level Core 2 solutions. SilverStone’s SG05 is a fully-featured PC case able to host a 3.5” hard drive and up to two full-height expansion cards, such as graphics accelerators.
Platforms
On the platform side, the two Intel chipset-based solutions (iBase's MI950AF and Intel’s DQ45EK) are suitable for small form factor desktop replacement PCs. Both feature eSATA, two display outputs, and sufficient connectivity. But they lack support for faster processors and their upgrade path is limited to 32-bit PCI (iBase) and single-lane PCIe (Intel). Performance differences between the Intel solutions are small and only noticeable if you compare Intel with Nvidia graphics.
Zotac provided two platforms for review, one for AMD’s Socket AM2+ processors with a GeForce 8200 chipset and the other for LGA 775-based Core 2 CPUs through Nvidia’s GeForce 9300 graphics chipset. The AMD platform has a general disadvantage when compared to the Intel solution because of the Phenom II X2 processor we used. Despite being AMDs top dual-core model, it provided less performance at higher power consumption than the Core 2 Duo test systems. Therefore the GeForce 8200 ITX WiFi is only a good choice if you want or need an AMD platform.
And the Winner is…
The GeForce 9300 ITX WiFi offers comparably fast 3D performance and a feature set that is far superior to the other solutions. Not only does it feature 802.11 b/g wireless (the AMD counterpart does, as well) but it also comes with HDMI, DVI, and VGA display outputs, eSATA, a reasonable 4-phase processor voltage circuit, and a full x16 PCI Express interface. Since this is the only mini-ITX platform that is truly a desktop replacement, it is the only really flexible product and receives our Recommended Buy Award.
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For HTPC build, I wonder Zotac Gefore 9300 ITX + Intel Celeron E3200 will be a better choice in terms of performance/price and power efficiency.
Celeron E3200 should be powerful enough to play HD video and flash even without the help of GPU acceleration.
this is an article that i do not really see what is trying to achieve. you compare a intel dual core @3.3ghz with and amd x2 550. x2 550 is actually not the most efficient value cpu that amd has to offer. you can actually find a lot less power hungry dual cores and triple or quad cores from amd. it depends on the purpose of the machine. also i don't see anybody using a velociraptor in a system like these. you did not specify what you want to achieve... htpc? home server? light destop system? powerful desktop system? the purpose of this article somehow eludes my comprehension.
Been keeping an eye on mITX boards for some time now, due to my interest in home servers and HTPCs. I also helped a friend of mine build a car PC recently, an idea that has been fascinating me for some time now. He ended up opting for an Atom 330 Gigabyte board, due to power and price considerations.
and an HD 5770 would fit nicely on it.
My eye has been on the Zotac as well. My wife needs a new HTPC anyway
If only they were more affordable, 'cause right now, a micro ATX solution proves more powerful while cheaper.
Antec's Dimension 96mm X 222mm X 328mm
Does anyone know for sure if the Zotac 8200 board will take the 'new' Athlon X4 605e 45w CPu, its AMDs new quad efficiency CPU. I cannot find anywhere including zotac website if their 8200 boards supports this new CPU?
all this will mean little when dfi unleashes it's lga 1156 p55 based mini itx board in Q1 2010. that thing will friggin rock! i have the zotac 9300 board and it's awesome but the new dfi board will be even better.
I don't think you'd have a problem with a 605e 45w processor on the 8200 board.
The below processor compatibility doc from Zotac specifically states "supported processor wattage up to 65W" and it lists other Phenom II based quad cores. This includes the Phenom II X4 900e, which is a 65w part.
http://www.zotac.com/httpdocs/broc [...] 20WiFi.txt
this is an article that i do not really see what is trying to achieve. you compare a intel dual core @3.3ghz with and amd x2 550. x2 550 is actually not the most efficient value cpu that amd has to offer. you can actually find a lot less power hungry dual cores and triple or quad cores from amd. it depends on the purpose of the machine. also i don't see anybody using a velociraptor in a system like these. you did not specify what you want to achieve... htpc? home server? light destop system? powerful desktop system? the purpose of this article somehow eludes my comprehension.
Then, obviously it wasn't written, specifically for you. Really...I don't really see what your post is trying to achieve...
How does comparing a $140 mobo + $270 cpu (total=$410) to a
$130 mobo + $270 cpu (total=$400) to a $100 mobo + $102 cpu (total=$202) even work?
This review doesn't accurately show anything, except that the Core 2 Duo 8600 is indeed faster than the Phenom II 550 (this has been known for quite some time). For all we know, the better graphics may be due to the faster cpus powering them.
This review would have worked better if cpus of the same price range were used, such as the Phenom II 550 against a Pentium Dual Core E6500 ($95) or a Core 2 Duo E7400 ($117).
They all SUK! None of them have 802.11n so right away I wouldn't buy one of these yesteryear technology item
true, the comparison of intel dual core processors to amd dual core processors would be an accurate comparison, as compared to a comparison of intel dual core vs amd trip or even quad core, but the price difference is to great to merit a dual core to dual core comparison.
the intel core 2 duo is more than 2x the price of the phenom II x2 at retail pricing. so maybe a better processor choice would be more appropriate..
For anyone interested in some real-world info:
I have the Zotac 9300 board (rev 1.1), and a Pentium (core 2) 6300 65w CPU in my HTPC with an older ITX case that is similar in dimensions to the Sugo case, using a PicoPSU and external 105w power brick, I also have the largest CPU fan/heatsink I could find that would fit in my case, and it is the only fan in the case. Runs nearly silent almost all of the time, is on 24/7 and handles streaming video from Netflix(PlayOn)/Hulu/Youtube/Etc..., or off of my network server with absolutely no problem, as well as local DVD. (Running XBMC on top of Ubuntu 9.04) I can't comment on Blu-ray playback, since it isn't supported under Linux, but I expect it would work just fine in Windows. I was skeptical of the Zotac brand, but the board is built very well, and the documentation is actually pretty good. I have had this system for about 6 months.
Erm, right, go through each comment and down their ratings by one.
I figured some troll would do that eventually, but this is just ugly.
I think the author missed the point in this review. mITX is mostly for HTPC - where are the benchmarks on video playback, ability to keep up with HD content? Flash benchmarks would be good too and some kind of look at usability with Netflix and Hulu. ie, things that are important to someone building an HTPC??
All the testing really shows is that an e8600 is faster than an amd x2 550 albeit at twice the price. But what I really want to know is what the difference is when doing HTPC functions? I don't see that here except possibly by inference, so this article becomes fairly useless.
I can say I am disappointed by this review. 3 Variants of Intel motherboard against 1 AMD, and none with an AMD chipset at that.
What about J&W MINIX 780G-SP128MB (AM2+) Running an AMD Radeon™ HD 3200 or J&W A785GMT-Extreme (AM3) Running an AMD Radeon™ HD 4200.
I sense so bias opinion here.
I would have been interested in seeing video and audio playback results in this review since it was mostly about home theater pc's in a small form factor.
I would have been interested in seeing video and audio playback results in this review since it was mostly about home theater pc's in a small form factor.
I don't understand the usage of the E8600 @ 2x the price of the 550. Was this a mITX comparison or a CPU comparison?
this is an article that i do not really see what is trying to achieve. you compare a intel dual core @3.3ghz with and amd x2 550. x2 550 is actually not the most efficient value cpu that amd has to offer. you can actually find a lot less power hungry dual cores and triple or quad cores from amd. it depends on the purpose of the machine. also i don't see anybody using a velociraptor in a system like these. you did not specify what you want to achieve... htpc? home server? light destop system? powerful desktop system? the purpose of this article somehow eludes my comprehension.
I think the authors made their processor choices in order to highlight the fact that intel is the best solution if you want absolute performance and amd would be for those who might be more budget oriented. Maybe they chose dual cores from both for some sort of apples to apples comparison. This is a case and motherboard review after all.
This article is not a buyers guide, but rather a hardware review. They chose high end components like the velociraptor you mentioned in order to see if any bottlenecks occur in the system. Its the same idea when they use an overclocked i7 to 4.1ghz in graphics card reviews.