Mini-ITX for fussy people like me

[DanceswithUnix]

I think a 1GHz C7 is roughly equivalent to a 700MHz P3.

Are you after a compact system, or just quiet? You can use something like a Scythe Ninja heatsink to passively cool a normal CPU and undervolting/underclocking can help too.

My worry on the riser card would be compatability problems, but I guess if it works then it works.

[Funkstar]

If you are really woried about sound quality then an external USB or firewire sound card would be your best bet. Keep the audio circuits away from EM noise within the PC.

[joshwa]

Another thing that is unclear to me at present: which of the following mini-ITX CPU types are faster (and, if applicable, faster for what sort of application) per cycle of processing power:

(1) VIA C7;

(2) VIA Eden;

(3) VIA Luke CoreFusion; and

(4) AMD Geode,

and to what extent in each case?

VIA C7 is the fastest VIA CPU product

VIA C3 performs ok, eg 1ghz equiv to p3-500mhz, and VIA Eden is passively cooled version of the C3 or C7

VIA Luke Corefusion is the nano-itx form factor of VIA C3.

AMD Geode (@1ghz) is twice as fast as VIA C7 according to this review: http://www.epiacenter.com/modules.ph...&pid=88&page=4

[jamespetts]

VIA C7 is the fastest VIA CPU product

VIA C3 performs ok, eg 1ghz equiv to p3-500mhz, and VIA Eden is passively cooled version of the C3 or C7

VIA Luke Corefusion is the nano-itx form factor of VIA C3.

AMD Geode (@1ghz) is twice as fast as VIA C7 according to this review: http://www.epiacenter.com/modules.ph...&pid=88&page=4

Thank you, that's very helpful :-)

[jamespetts]

Hmm, I have been looking around: I cannot find any fanless AMD Geode motherboards for sale in the UK: they all seem to be the 1.4/1.5Ghz fanned versions (the CPUs inevitably being bundled with the mohterboards).

Is the 1Ghz fanless Geode (1) available in the UK; and (2) any faster than the 1.2Ghz fanless VIA Eden?

Edit: Also, is it possible to underclock a 1.4Ghz Geode to 1.0Ghz to enable it to run fanless, or does the 1.4Ghz version have a smaller heatsink?

[chrestomanci]

Do watch out, most of the more recent VIA chipsets that they use in their mini ITX boards don't have linux drivers available, especially for the graphics, so it says in the spec sheet that there is hardware assisted mpeg decoding, but you can't in Linux.

I would also consider a board based on an intel G965 chipset that has good Linux drivers. You can fit a Core 2 Duo CPU and underclock it, so that it runs cool and will work with a large passive heat sink.

[jamespetts]

Do watch out, most of the more recent VIA chipsets that they use in their mini ITX boards don't have linux drivers available, especially for the graphics, so it says in the spec sheet that there is hardware assisted mpeg decoding, but you can't in Linux.

I would also consider a board based on an intel G965 chipset that has good Linux drivers. You can fit a Core 2 Duo CPU and underclock it, so that it runs cool and will work with a large passive heat sink.

That seems to me to be an unduly expensive solution given that one will end up underclocking: one of the reasons that I wanted the VIA solution was to save expense. I have read (I now forget where) that Linux driver packages for the most recent VIA chipset have been released in the last month or two, although I cannot recall for which distributions: Mandriva 2007, perhaps. But, really, since my PIII-600, slot 1, can encode MPEG-2 in real time (although it tends to overheat and crash if I do this too much), I doubt that hardware acceleration is a big issue with an Eden 1.2Ghz.

Any further ideas, anybody, about where to find fanless Geode motherboards in the UK?

[MadduckUK]

http://www.ballicom.co.uk/detail.php?id=1197848

one of those, with everything else usb?

[jamespetts]

http://www.ballicom.co.uk/detail.php?id=1197848

one of those, with everything else usb?

That doesn't match the specifications that I gave at the post in the beginning of this thread: it has only 256Mb of RAM (I was after 1Gb), no hard drive at all, no PCI slot capabiliites (I was after two PCI slots), and it is a complete package (for which I should have to pay fully), rather than just a motherboard/CPU combination. Effectively, I'd be buying the case, only to discard it, since I should need a bigger (and probably home-made) case for adding hard drives, optical drives, PCI cards, etc. Also, it is not clear whether there is any possibility of adding a DVI out to that thing: that capability is a prerequisite for me being interested in such a system, since I do not want to be stuck with the obsolete VGA connector until I upgrade the motherboard again.

Thank you for looking, though. It does seem that the only fanless Geodes around are those in pre-built systems. Does anybody know of any fanless geodes available just as motherboard/CPU (either bundles or separately), or know why they are so hard to come by in component form?