I love my little PC

[jackrabbix]

I just wanted to let anyone out there who is/was thinking about getting a miniATX PC that it is the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

Well... that may have been a gross exaggeration, but still, I'm very impressed with it.

I have a Aopen XCCube EZ482 barebones that I modded an intake case fan onto (will post pics if anyone asks). Have 2x SATA HDs, no optical drive (use external). 939 Venice 3200+ 1Gb of PC3200 DCed RAM, and a x800GTO ultimate.

Obviously with my rig the only major problem is heat. Adding the intake fan to the case was pretty easy, and made a good bit of difference. The GTO ultimate is a nice card - I play Oblivion with the setting almost maxed and get very little if any lag. The video cards' giant heatsink/heatpipe array is if nothing else, aesthetically pleasing (google the x800 gto ultimate if you don't know what they look like - it's a serious piece of heatsink). When I'm marathon gaming, and worried about heat build-up, I have a tiny USB fan that I can plug in and point at the semi-exposed side of my vid card.

[OldOne]

Where are the picks?

[UnseenMenace]

i love SFF (small form factor) and own no less than two MiniATX ( 280 x 201mm ), four MiniITX (170 x 170mm) and a NanoITX ( 120mm x 120mm )

These systems make awesome project motherboards with some being able to run at exceptionally low tempratures while being passively cooled, and other having features such as hardware media codecs.
I have made PVR's, File-servers, Firewalls and many a project such as the ones that have featured in my forum signature over time.

[gvblake22]

Yeah, I'm starting to get more and more excited about small form factor computing. I'm working on building a custom mATX case, project log can be seen HERE... (http://forums.hardwarelogic.com/viewtopic.php?t=631)
Although the case isn't REALLY small, it is smaller than anything else I've had before, and it's still pretty compact for what I plan to put into it and will still have great cooling.

UnseenMenace, where do you get your small form factor and ITX parts/hardware? I've tried searching around and it seems the selections are very limited. I'm interested in building a miniITX machine in the future and just wondered what (if any) hardware suggestions you have?
Thanks :thup :)

[Tserrof]

SFF projects get really interesting when u start sticking in procs like Prescott 570Js. :bday:

[UnseenMenace]

UnseenMenace, where do you get your small form factor and ITX parts/hardware? I've tried searching around and it seems the selections are very limited. I'm interested in building a miniITX machine in the future and just wondered what (if any) hardware suggestions you have?
Thanks :thup :)

I generally buy my parts from
Linitx.com which also has a good forum linitx.org
www.mini-itx.com
http://www.icp-epia.co.uk/
http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/

All of these do a decent selection of different products, my favorite is the Linitx sites which are really good

I generally use the Via 'M' series boards (stands for Media) as these require low power and have a hardware mpeg decoder on them which makes media playback exceptional, these system run without issue using XP or Linux and are suitable for a small desktop system providing you do not have a gaming requirement... The can also easily be modified to be passively cooled

For powerfull systems I generally use the Cromwell ITX boards using intel pentium 4's or mobile processors as these boards are exceptionally stable on low power... the one in my project bike runs a 200w PSU and has a voltage mod on the mobo, it still has fantastic voltages

...

[UnseenMenace]

SFF projects get really interesting when u start sticking in procs like Prescott 570Js. :bday:

Im not to bothered about prescotts in SFF and given the choice would rather use a via processor or at least a mobile.
Soon as you start using certain processors the whole project needs to get larger, the prescott for example requires more power and better cooling than a via processor which in turn effects the flexibility in placement.

[gvblake22]

I generally buy my parts from
Linitx.com which also has a good forum linitx.org
www.mini-itx.com
http://www.icp-epia.co.uk/
http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/

All of these do a decent selection of different products, my favorite is the Linitx sites which are really good

I generally use the Via 'M' series boards (stands for Media) as these require low power and have a hardware mpeg decoder on them which makes media playback exceptional, these system run without issue using XP or Linux and are suitable for a small desktop system providing you do not have a gaming requirement... The can also easily be modified to be passively cooled

For powerfull systems I generally use the Cromwell ITX boards using intel pentium 4's or mobile processors as these boards are exceptionally stable on low power... the one in my project bike runs a 200w PSU and has a voltage mod on the mobo, it still has fantastic voltages

...
Great info, thanks man:beer: