Micro ITX case advice

[pcup]

Blimey. Still confused. My heart says MAC. Always wanted one. Is it easy to dual boot windows in a MAC as i have ordered Windows 7. Anywhere i can get a step by step guide?

[staffsMike]

tonnes of them
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...G=Search&meta=

If your heart is set on the MAC then get it

[peterb]

tonnes of them
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...G=Search&meta=

If your heart is set on the MAC then get it

As he says - if that is your preference, I think that if you bulda mini-itx system you will always be looking wistfully at the mac and wondering. And Mac stuff integrates with other Mac stuff beautifully - you can add Apple TV - and it will just.. work. If you have the cash - go for it.

[pcup]

I know you are right guys. Thanks for your input. Just up to me now to decide! Waw! My brain hurts!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Mac Mini will be a more capable machine processor wise and it already comes installed with an OS anyway and it looks a much nicer looking system when compared to the Asrock one.

The single core atom has around the same speed at 1.6ghz as a 900mhz Celeron M so you can get an indication of how powerful a dual core Atom will be at 1.6ghz.

The Mac Mini has a dual core 2ghz Core2 P7350 mobile processor. It is more powerful than the iMac we have at work and that can run Photoshop Elements and Silverfast with no problems so the Mac Mini is a very powerful computer for its size. Also the price you quoting is much lower than retail(work or educational discount?) so it is good value for money.

[pcup]

Many thanks guys. Valuable advice yet again. Cheers

[pcup]

What about the Aopen MP45D. Link

What are these like? Not sure what components it comes with or needs!!

[staffsMike]

Accelerator X4500MHD.. still pretty terrible graphics, I think they can handle certain HD playback but will probably struggle at times.

[pcup]

So, Mac Mini better

[TheAnimus]

The Mac Mini will be a more capable machine processor wise and it already comes installed with an OS anyway and it looks a much nicer looking system when compared to the Asrock one.

Its faster, but it generates a fair whack more heat than an ION system. As for asthetics, i quite like the asrock case, it dosen't suffer the same issue of the imacs frankley awful bordering, yes its nicely curved, but when viewed from above it looks so cheap, i just go into that austin powers thing, mole, holey moley......

The single core atom has around the same speed at 1.6ghz as a 900mhz Celeron M so you can get an indication of how powerful a dual core Atom will be at 1.6ghz.

Horses for corses, if your doing video playback/encoding, the IONs do move along at a very reasonable rate, they cost less to run, less to buy, and make less noise. But don't go trying to play cyrsis on them.

The Mac Mini has a dual core 2ghz Core2 P7350 mobile processor. It is more powerful than the iMac we have at work and that can run Photoshop Elements and Silverfast with no problems so the Mac Mini is a very powerful computer for its size. Also the price you quoting is much lower than retail(work or educational discount?) so it is good value for money.

It really depends on the use, when you look at the price as a percentage change its hudge!

If you want a really powerful mini system, then i would recomend the Zotac 9300 wifi, thou i think its been superceded now actually......

[TheAnimus]

Thought i'd post in something a bit different:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161260...oduct_overview

If your not doing anything demanding, say a bit of light surfing, iPlayer, and 720p HD stuff, these are just teh dogs genitalia for good value. £160 inc vat.

(would probably be worth upgrading the RAM, and mabye putting in a fast SSD, as the drives in those off the shelf are slow to boot/load apps).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Its faster, but it generates a fair whack more heat than an ION system. As for asthetics, i quite like the asrock case, it dosen't suffer the same issue of the imacs frankley awful bordering, yes its nicely curved, but when viewed from above it looks so cheap, i just go into that austin powers thing, mole, holey moley......

I prefer the look of the Mac Mini TBH and the main thing going for the Asrock in aesthetics is that it is black. Also the Mac Minis may consume more power than an Ion but TBH you could argue that the higher performance CPU actually takes less time to do tasks and on top of that is less likely to be as highly utilised unlike the Atom too so actual power consumption is probably not as high as you think it is.

Horses for corses, if your doing video playback/encoding, the IONs do move along at a very reasonable rate, they cost less to run, less to buy, and make less noise. But don't go trying to play cyrsis on them.

Again the Mac Mini is nearly silent anyway and because of its better specs could be used for more demanding tasks. I could use a Mac Mini as my main computer for example if I did not game whereas the Ion desktops and netbooks really wouldn't cut it for my uses after mucking around with some. If the Ion desktops were based around the tiny pico-ITX form factor than I would probably get one as it would be fun to muck around with but they are too large for my liking and I might as well save up and get something better.

It really depends on the use, when you look at the price as a percentage change its hudge!

If you want a really powerful mini system, then i would recomend the Zotac 9300 wifi, thou i think its been superceded now actually......

Again in the scheme of things the Zotac based system will only be slightly less costly than a Mac Mini based system and the latter comes with an OS too and both would be a better IMHO than the Zotac Ion system. TBH if the Ion desktops were nearer to £100 they would interest me but the moment they start moving towards £200 you can actually build a far better desktop for the price which will not consume that much power either!

[staffsMike]

What uses have shown the ION to not be capable for your needs CAT, just out of interest. Like I said, my single core can handle most of my needs with little or no issues.

[TheAnimus]

I prefer the look of the Mac Mini TBH and the main thing going for the Asrock in aesthetics is that it is black. Also the Mac Minis may consume more power than an Ion but TBH you could argue that the higher performance CPU actually takes less time to do tasks and on top of that is less likely to be as highly utilised unlike the Atom too so actual power consumption is probably not as high as you think it is.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder n all that. The mini's CPU consume WAY more power like 10 times as much as the atom CPU! So an atom running full tilt uses less than the most speedstepped mini.

Again the Mac Mini is nearly silent anyway and because of its better specs could be used for more demanding tasks. I could use a Mac Mini as my main computer for example if I did not game whereas the Ion desktops and netbooks really wouldn't cut it for my uses after mucking around with some. If the Ion desktops were based around the tiny pico-ITX form factor than I would probably get one as it would be fun to muck around with but they are too large for my liking and I might as well save up and get something better.

It costs more, makes more heat, but is faster. The question is, is that power needed? If so then its time to look at something other than an Atom, that need not be a mini obviously.

Again in the scheme of things the Zotac based system will only be slightly less costly than a Mac Mini based system and the latter comes with an OS too and both would be a better IMHO than the Zotac Ion system. TBH if the Ion desktops were nearer to £100 they would interest me but the moment they start moving towards £200 you can actually build a far better desktop for the price which will not consume that much power either!

Zotac could easily be configured to make something faster, hence why i mentioned it for quad core'ing ability if he had a use for it.

If its just playing videos at 720p, playing tunes, browsing web + email + iPlayer + hexus, a £200 atom will do the job just fine, hell you could even buy two for the price of the apple.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What uses have shown the ION to not be capable for your needs CAT, just out of interest. Like I said, my single core can handle most of my needs with little or no issues.

Image editing apps for example like GIMP and PSP as I do a reasonable amount of image and photography work. A single cored Atom is around the same speed as a Celeron M 900mhz. I find that the 1.7ghz Pentium M in my notebook with more cache is just about fast enough for what I do and is faster than any single cored Atom I played around with. The dual core Atom is an improvement but TBH once they start reaching the £200 mark I might as well go for a proper desktop.

This review pits the Atom 230 versus a Pentium M:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15204/6


It is sad that that the dual core Atom desktops are not closer to £100 and do not seem to be following the pico-ITX form factor that the prototype Ion desktop had. I would have bought one just to play around with. The same goes with most of the netbooks which are becoming just too expensive and bloated too unless they are at clearance prices.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder n all that. The mini's CPU consume WAY more power like 10 times as much as the atom CPU! So an atom running full tilt uses less than the most speedstepped mini.

Nah once you reach £200 they are too expensive. In reality the difference is soo tiny in power consumption that you would need to be having the PC on for 365 days a year and TBH I tend to switch off my PC when not in use. However for server use the Atom definitely looks good.
If you factor in the power consumption of a desktop screen you might as well buy a cheap notebook TBH.
I built my notebook for less than £150 yonks ago,it has a magnesium body and a 12.1" screen and it does everything I want it to. Including the screen it barely consumes 60w(the rated power of the external block). The Atom desktop is no point for me as I would rather put the money towards a notebook.

It costs more, makes more heat, but is faster. The question is, is that power needed? If so then its time to look at something other than an Atom, that need not be a mini obviously.

Yep at least for my uses I found the Atom not fast enough. I suppose for internet browsing and light word processing it would do the job but unfortunately for me I do more with my computers than that.

Zotac could easily be configured to make something faster, hence why i mentioned it for quad core'ing ability if he had a use for it.

If its just playing videos at 720p, playing tunes, browsing web + email + iPlayer + hexus, a £200 atom will do the job just fine, hell you could even buy two for the price of the apple.

Again £200 is too much for my liking and closer to £100 would be better. I also actually like OS X (although I use Windows generally) and look of the Mac Mini so if I had the cash then I would get one but TBH my notebook and current SFF PC do the job well. The whole point of the Atom was for very cheap computers and netbooks. However for £200 to £300 you can build yourself a decent desktop or get a full sized notebook so for me they are very poor value for money.

Also the current Ion desktops are a massive dissapointment in terms of size to me. If they had followed the Ion prototype's pico-ITX form and they were closer to £100 I would have got one to muck around with.

Also where is the use of Atoms in smartphones for examples?? It was suposedly able to be used in them too. Now that would be exciting for me as smartphones use a lighter weight OS and the Atom would probably bring a speed bump to them.

It would be nice if someone could come with a cheap 2 bay server using the Ion though like VIA have done with the Artgo A2000:

http://www.mini-itx.com/2008/12/14/i...e-artigo-a2000