Micro ITX case advice

[peterb]

You may want to look at some of these products

http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/productlist.aspx?Cid=42

Although the case that they sell (referenced earlier) does look good!

[pcup]

The Asrock looks the best but still unsure if spending a bit more and getting Mac Mini would be better as it has a better CPU, takes DDR3 ram and has better graphics? Am i right?

[staffsMike]

The Asrock looks the best but still unsure if spending a bit more and getting Mac Mini would be better as it has a better CPU, takes DDR3 ram and has better graphics? Am i right?

Same graphics. DDR3/2 makes little difference given the circumstances. And the CPU's.. well the atom is very low power and still reasonably good, the Core 2 is faster but you will barely notice most of the time.

[pcup]

Thanks. Just got to decide now then!

[format]

pcup, I'm roughly in the same boat as you and I'm getting the Asrock ION. £250 is a fantastic price (sans blueray drive) for its capabilities.

[pcup]

pcup, I'm roughly in the same boat as you and I'm getting the Asrock ION. £250 is a fantastic price (sans blueray drive) for its capabilities.

Do you think it will be even better with4 gig ram and an SSD drive?

I thought the Atom CPU was not as good as the CPU in the Mac Mini?

[format]

Well, considering my Asrock ION will be a HTPC/NAS/Torrentbox, that's all I need it for.

I might consider putting in an SSD when they become cheaper, but ATM I plan on buying a 1TB drive and putting it in an external USB caddy, and running all my media off that.

I don't need anything more powerful than that.

[pcup]

Do you think i would be better off getting a Mac as it will be my main PC.

[format]

Well... you can OC the Atom to 2.0ghz (so I hear), and if you upgrade the RAM and it still comes to less than a Mac Mini then I'd stick with the Atom.

Have a look at this thread... perhaps consider something like that?

http://forums.kustompcs.co.uk/showthread.php?t=47997

[staffsMike]

My MSI overclocks to 2.0GHz and it can be noticable at times Honestly for general purpose my 1.6Ghz single core atom holds it's own, the dual core will be fine.

[pcup]

Ok, cheers. I am very tempted by the ASRock 330. I would definitely get more ram. Would it be worth putting an SSD in there (64g)? Or, would a 7200rpm be ok as i think the current drive is a 5400rpm one?

[staffsMike]

I like my laptop 7200rpm drive, its a 200GB Hitachi which can easily be out done by a western digitial scorpio black now. Personally I wouldn't bother with SSD's just yet.

[oolon]

I am sorry I would have posted urls, however I have not done enough posts yet to be allowed to use them, google however should give you the answers. My system was based around the POV ION 330, unlike the zotac does not wifi however it does have a 16 way gen 2 PCIE socket and is alot cheaper. I am using the slot of a sangoma voip card, at a later date I plan to replace it with a fibre channel card into it for connecting to my shared storage on a san.

Case was a tricky one, and the question however I decided on theJou Jye NU-528i-B Mini-ITX Case 220W. Why? because has an internal power supply, I hate power bricks but wanted a small case and it has lots of layout options internally. I went for option a) and I also cut space for a serial connector the board supported so I could connect to my UPS.

a) 1 HH slot Vertical or 1 FH slot Horizontal and 1 hard drive mounted on side to the front of the case *
b) 1 low profile media device and 1 hard drive mounted under it. **
c) 1 3.5 bay (requires adapter) ***

* I used the vertical mounts from a startech 3.5 to 2.5 double adapter (iii) to stack 2 scorpio black drives (iv) so I could have a mirrored pair. The adapter gives about 3 mm of space before the mother board perfect fit.
** while it is not possible to offically use a slim media device and the vertical HH slot (poor design really). I thing a few minutes with a drimmel would fix this, to allow a card and media.
*** strangely this 4 rubber spacers to mount drives on the front of the case did not come with it and only with this adapter, which costs extra.

[pcup]

So, just to recap guys, I wouldn't see any performance differences between a New Mac Mini running 4g ram and 2Ghz and an Asrock ION 330 also running 4gig ram but with a 1.6ghz CPU?

Trying to justify going for the Mac Mini you see. (I am drawn towards it but my pocket is not!!)

Mac Mini costs including 4g ram upgrade = £455 (I can buy the Mac Mini new for £410) or

Asrock ION 330 costs including 4g ram upgrade = £265.04

Big price difference between the 2!! Now, which one?

Would i be disapointed if i bought the Asrock or Mac Mini!

[staffsMike]

You will notice performance differences, no doubt the mac will out do the ION but not by a noticable enough margin to warrant and extra £200. I would regret the mini if it were me.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,the Mac Mini is a great solution and has a lovely design. If money is no object I would go with the Mac Mini. I just love the remote too on the older ones!! You can always dual boot if you do not like OS X but TBH it is still a nice OS to use especially the latest 10.5.7! TBH 4gb is overkill for 10.5.7 unless you are running software like Photoshop as it runs perfectly fine on a Macbook Air a workmate has with 2gb of RAM, a slower processor and the same graphics card as the Mac Mini.