Mini-ITX Motherboard News, Reviews & Articles
Bit-Tech have written great review of two Intel Pineview Mini-ITX motherboars. In their article they have introduced Jetway NC96-410-LF (single core atom) and Jetway NC94-510-LF (Dual Core Atom). Intel Pineview have been longly awaited platform and now thanks to this review we can see it in action. Bit-tech have done performance test of memory, sata, usb, multitasking and video processing/editing.
Continue reading ‘Two mini Intel Pineview motherboards reviewed’
Last month there was quite a few new Mini-ITX case reviews. We have been already writing about SilverStone Sugo SG07, Coolermaster Elite 100, Antec ISK 300-150 & 310-150 & Norco ITX-7. Now it is time for another great case from SilverStone. It is Sugo SG05. This case looks to be quite big. But it need to be that because it can fit 2 expansion cards! Moreover, what is not so unusual, it can fit one slim optical drive, one 3.5” hdd, and one 2.5” hdd. Case is ventilated by a 120mm intake fan at 1200rpm.
Continue reading ‘SilverStone Sugo SG05 Mini-ITX Case Reviewed’
Everybody have heard than “big” DFI motherboards can easily be over clocked without stability looses. But what about so popular in last days Mini-ITX DFI P55 MI-T36? There were already some reviews of this motherboard in the web but it have not treated about overclocking as well. But it looks that we have an answer. Nebojsa Novakovic have tested this mini motherboard with Intel Xeon 3450 2.66GHz (default clock) and G.Skill ECO DDR3 memory able to run DDR3-1600 CL 7-8-7 at just 1.35V. To this little power house he have connected graphic card ATI HD 5870. What was the effect?
DFI have presented its Mini-ITX form factor motherboard a couple of months ago. I have already been writing about DFI P55 MI-T36 before. It is looking very promising as this model may be more useful in your desktop computer than most of mini motherboards currently available on the market.
Some time ago I have been asked by my friend about possible uses of old Mini-ITX motherboard. He told me that he have found a passively cooled VIA EPIA-PD in some old media equipment at his work that was not needed anymore. He told me that this is only 600Mhz processor… It is not worth anything… I was almost shocked. 600Mhz is really a lot for a passively cooled computer that has only 9 to 15 watts power consumption!
I have published an article about this great motherboard before (right here), but I believe that this awesome piece of hardware deserves to be described in much more details. I believe that this is most powerful Mini-ITX motherboard with such functionality. You probably will ask in this place “Why do I think so??? There is quite a few motherboards with similar CPU…”.
Yea… there is… But this board have something more! It have an integrated ION platform! It is a solution you really want to have included on your mini htpc! Thanks to ION your computer will be able to decode and play a real Full HD movies without any CPU usage!
Continue reading ‘Asus AT3N7A-I as the best choice for your Full HD Mini HTPC?’
Mini-ITX 2.0
At last Computex, VIA introduced the first platform, which complies with the specification of Mini-ITX 2.0. They can be considered as the creator of this standard. Same company made the the first motherboard with dimensions 17×17 cm. VIA provides a new standard with place for the x86 processor, at least 2GB RAM DDR2, PCI Express 16x, two Serial ATA II ports, one IDE channel, four USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet and six-HD audio. All of this and the VIA Nano processor let to run on such a small computer to run the Crysis game.
Boards Comparison
Mini-ITX format is a computer motherboard measuring 17 x 17 cm (or 6.7 x 6.7 inches). These mainboards are extremely efficient because they are characterized by very low power consumption. The specification of this format was developed in 2002 by VIA Technologies and their EPIA motherboards. Mini-ITX format is slightly smaller than microATX.
Low power consumption does not cause such a large heat release by mainboard components making the Mini-ITX can often be passively cooled, which makes this format ideal for silent home theater systems, where fan noise can be distracting and interfere when you are watching a movies or listen to music. It was first mini motherboard format introduced by VIA. The smaller they have announced later are Embedded ITX, Nano-ITX and Pico ITX. Until today Mini-ITX is till most popular “Mini” motherboard format.
