Which Mini-ITX motherboard? So many....

[andyandyp]

I am stuck on wich Mini-ITX motherboard to use for my HTPC,
I am going to buy Sereniti 2000 mini-iTX case fromwww.ultim8pc.co.uk, and i am not sure whic motherboard to get.
I want one with digital out so i can put 5.1 sound into my AMP. Must have a PCI slot so i can add a digital TV card for my PVR. I want it to have the IR headers on.
I also want on that has the header for the front mounted audio and USB on the case.
I can't think of any thing else that would be required other then the noise itt would make.

Has anybody got any ideas on the best one to get,
As far as i can see the VIA EPIA 800 is the best option. What others are there

[joshwa]

the epia 800 doesn't have 5.1 sound. it will also struggle to play dvds.

the m and mII have 5.1 sound and mpeg playback hardware built in so you would be better with one of them, they also have better "nehemiah" cpu's and take DDR ram.

[r1zeek]

Yeah, I agree with josh.org.uk, the m series is very good and the mII series is also top quality but not much improvement on the original m series IMO.
iirc the m and mII both had headers for front audio and usb.
The boards with intergrated nehemiah cpus do have a small fan mounted on them but appart from that they dont make any other noise and I doubt that the fan would make much noise anyway as it is a small 40mm one.
Hope that helps mate

[3dcandy]

For absolute performance, the Insight board which takes P4 and Celeron (P4 variants) with a fsb upto 533 is hard to beat...and somewhere I've seen a slim fan which is *supposed* to be quiet to fit...

Only had inbuilt gfx, but I'm sure with a 2ghz cpu it'll beat the crap outta most m-itx boards!

[r1zeek]

For absolute performance, the Insight board which takes P4 and Celeron (P4 variants) with a fsb upto 533 is hard to beat...and somewhere I've seen a slim fan which is *supposed* to be quiet to fit...

Only had inbuilt gfx, but I'm sure with a 2ghz cpu it'll beat the crap outta most m-itx boards!

I would say 2Ghz is a bit of overkill for a HTPC, one of the M or MII series boards would do the job just fine

[dgr]

whats the system for? if pvr then FORGET ABOUT USING AN EPIA.

they really are rubbish at multimedia. Compating the quality of divx / dvd playback on that and my main system and its incomparable. For general pc usage, they are great. but the floating point is shocking.

really - don't waste your cash. if you want a small, quiet system, get a cheap laptop off ebay, plug in a pcmcia usb2 card and get an external digital tv tuner. It'll be oh so much faster (and probably cheaper).

BTW if you want to use the system, and care anything at all about noise, ditch the m10000's fan straight away (if you ignore my advice that is!)

Nebula (who make probably the best dvb tv tuner out their) do not recommend using the m10000 with their tv tuner product.

dgr

[3dcandy]

Maybe 2ghz is overkill.....
But you would be able to do soooooo much more than you can with an Epia, and if you really fancy manipulating tv/video with it, then an Epia struggles...believe me, I've tried!
Also, if you enjoy encoding nice divx movies, with nice ac-3 (5.1) sound, be prepared for dropped frames with an epia