zotac mini itx

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500012

this thing is sweet, and i definitely want to build a small form factor pc out of it.

i have a few questions that i wasn't able to really answer by reading the specs on zotacs website.

one of the reviewers at newegg said that it doesn't support dual channel... is that true?

secondly, do you think that the onboard graphics is powerful enough to handle hd content without stuttering?

thanks!

BlackEdition said:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500012

this thing is sweet, and i definitely want to build a small form factor pc out of it.

i have a few questions that i wasn't able to really answer by reading the specs on zotacs website.

one of the reviewers at newegg said that it doesn't support dual channel... is that true?

secondly, do you think that the onboard graphics is powerful enough to handle hd content without stuttering?

thanks!

Click to expand...

1. No idea, but wouldn't doubt it
2. No, in my experience with Via and Intel Integrated, they will stutter

i should correct my self here from the other post in another thread. you are right it is a 7000 based onboard graphics, some how i got the 6000 and the 7000 mixed up.

after some digging
http://www.nvidia.com/object/7_series_techspecs.html
the 7000 does support VC1 and H264 decoding. though i recall reading various things in the past stating it was only on the highend boards. maybe something changed with the newer drivers. if worse comes to worse you can always get either a cheap 4000 card or 9000 card.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...048 106792522 1067943539&name=GeForce 9400 GT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0048 106792627 1067944922&name=Radeon HD 4350

i would got with ati since the IQ is dependant on the number of stream proccesors. you could then in theroy lower the clock on the card for a passive use. NV on the other hand for its IQ decoding is more dependant on the clock speed then the number of unified proccesors. as this is what was found out when comparing ATI to NV for avvio vs purevideo for IQ.

i have looked about the single or dual channle but i cant find if it one way or the other. just from looking at the board since both are same color slots would be single channle. different color slots would be dual channle.

well it turns out that the board does not, in fact, support dual channel. that sours me to it a lot.

the problem is that the board only has a pci express x1 slot for expansion. thus, the graphics card would have to have that as its interface, and i've only found a few that do that (and they are expensive for some odd reason).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...E&N=2010380048 1069620108&name=PCI Express x1

just get a card that has x16 slot on it and put some electrical tape on the rest of the slot
as the card will operate at x1 or x4 based on the slot it self. the electrical tape will protect the rest of the slot on the card so it doesnt fry.

i could do that... i don't know, i am pretty put off by the fact that dual channel is not going to be functional with the zotac board...

it is a shame cause that thing is soo cool. hopefully they will make another revision based on chipset that can handle dual channel memory.

i know that dual channel is supposed to be a huge performance increase, but, how noticeable do you think the performance difference will be?

well it makes a bigger difference with the netburst arch then it does with the core 2 arch. if you look at the numbers of say a NV based board vs a INTEL one , overall with less memory bandwidth the all intel is faster vs nv/intel setup. even compare a Amd X2 setup to a inte/intel setup, the amd setup has more memory bandwidth as well from its IMC. though the amd setup loses in alot of apps that we do like gaming for instance and encoding. for a HTPC setup your not going to be able to notice a single vs dual channle setup unless you just look at benches. you could go either direction for a single channle setup to get the most out of it. either at stock speed go with the tightest timings possible or oc it a bit. that way even if you lower the multi you get the higher fsb and faster ram speed to make up for looser timings on the ram. though you will notice with a higher fsb system even at the same clock speed, the faster fsb system will be higher overall performance wise.