Mini-ITX & HTPC Media Center Blog

Welcome to Mini Motherboard Blog! If you are looking for some interesting info about Mini-ITX motherboards, HTCP Media Centers, embedded pc, micro pc, small computers or even mini laptops - this website is for you! We publish all news, hardware reviews, tips & tricks that you may find really interesting and helpful in building your own mini, Full HD capable & fanless small form factor HTPC Media Center! If you have any info worth mentioning or some great hardware for a review please contact us!

ASRock A330ION – world’s first ION board with DDR3 support reviewed

Published on July 24, 2010 in Mini-ITX Motherboards and Motherboard. 0 Comments Tags: , .

It looks that more and more services take seriously all Mini-ITX formatted motherboards. This time we can read a huge review of ASRock A330ION motherboard. First NVIDIA ION based mini motherboard with DDR3 support. As many of you may know this motherboard is ideal for building HTPC because of its high performance, video hardware decoding and low power consumption.

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Echo III – little powerful computer?

Published on June 9, 2010 in Hardware. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Puget Systems has announced their new computer in Mini-ITX form factor called Echo III. It has been packed into Lian-Li‘s PC-Q08 Mini-ITX case to fit small but powerful ZOTAC H55ITX-A-E mini motherboard and keep it cool. Computer may be equipped with Core i3, Core i5 or Core i7 processor. Moreover it may be configured with up to 8GB of memory, powerful Radeon HD5970 or GeForce GTX 480 and up to 2TB of standard HDD or 256GB SSD drive (or even both!) + a Blu-ray player or writer. Continue to ‘Echo III – little powerful computer?’

Thermaltake Element-Q Reviewed… Again?

Published on June 8, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Some time ago (in this post) I have been writing about a review of great Mini-ITX case – Thermaltake Element-Q. As I have been writing about it already and linking to previous review I will not repeat the specification now. Just if you do not want to surf and read all my previous posts this case is a quite and very comfortable to use Mini-ITX case I can truly recommend… But… if you still want more and/or are unsure about buying this case I have a great news for you!

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Mini-ITX in your Hi-FI tower?

Published on June 7, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

A few days ago there was post about great looking Mini-ITX Hi-Fi like cases on bit-tech. I believe that their article was a paid advertisement but who cares until it is something really worth of your attention (I am not paid for this)… Cases they were writing about have been produced by Taiwanese manufacturer called “SEED“. Unfortunately  I have not seen them in any shops yet (not even on my favorite Amazon) but as they have paid for the ads it should be available in shops soon.

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Building Silent 1080p Full HD Media Center HTPC. Part 2.

Published on April 20, 2010 in itx. 7 Comments Tags: , , , .

Here it a long awaited part 2 of our recommended hardware for building your own silent Full HD Media Center computer. As described in part 1 of this post, to all hardware I will use a three point scale:

  • 2 – it may be really disturbing in some cases
  • 1 – it is more silent than 2 :)
  • 0 – component is totally silent

Components that will be in our setup are: motherboard + cpu, storage, computer chassis, psu, remote control, CD/DVD/Blue Ray player, TV Tuner and operating system. In this part we will recommend you best motherboard and storage. So here are our recommendations.

Continue to ‘Building Silent 1080p Full HD Media Center HTPC. Part 2.’

Mini-ITX Gigabyte H55 with USB 3.0 – First pictures

Published on April 12, 2010 in Mini-ITX Motherboards and Motherboard. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

A few days ago some of new Gigabyte’s Mini-ITX motherboard pictures have leaked. Their new upcoming mini motherboard will be one of really powerful and good priced piece of hardware. New motherboard will pack a lot of features including Intel’s H55 Express chipset, USB 3.0 ports, four SATA ports, two dual-channel DDR3 memory slots and PCI Express x16 alot, PS/2 port, four USB 2.0 ports, a D-sub, DVI and HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet and 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out and eSATA connector.

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Mini-ITX ECS H55H-I Reviewed

Published on April 5, 2010 in Mini-ITX Motherboards and Motherboard. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Thanks to PureOverClock (PureOC) we may read a great and very detailed review of Mini-ITX ECS H55H-I mini motherboard. What is so special in it? This motherboard is really promising to use for your media center computer.

Firstly it is equipped with Intel’s H55 chipset that is entry model for the LGA1156 platform. It offers integrated graphics and a lot of other features that are very important in modern motherboards.

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DFI CP100-NRM

Published on April 5, 2010 in Mini-ITX Motherboards and Motherboard. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

DFI is well known from his great industrial Mini-ITX motherboards. Last month they have released their new Mini-ITX form factor motherboard CP100-NRM. Their new mainboard is based on lastly popular Intel QM57 Express chipset.

DFI CP100-NRM is equipped with LGA 1156 CPU socket and is capable to use up to 8GB of memory (two DDR3 800/1066 So-DIMM slots). Moreover you will find such expansion slots as PCI Express & PCI. On the back of this mini motherboard you will find two gigabit ethernet controllers, four COM ports, two channel audio with an S/PDIF input & output interface.

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iBASE MI953 Mini-ITX (Core i7/i5)

Published on April 5, 2010 in Mini-ITX Motherboards and Motherboard. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

BACKPLANE Systems Technology have announced release of their new mini motherboard for Intel Core i7/i5 processors. New mini-itx motherboard will be powered by QM57 Express chipset that can support up to 8GB non-ECC DDR3 unbuffered memory (2 x 800 or 1066MHz).

Onboard graphics chipset that this motherboard is equipped offers a range of display interfaces including VGA CRT, DVI-I, DVI-D and 24-bit dual channel LVDS.

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Building a Mini-ITX home backup server

Published on March 31, 2010 in Article. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Some time ago I have been writing a post about “Possible uses for your old Mini-ITX motherboard“. The word “old” was there but you may do same things with your “new” mini motherboard. Why am I recalling this post? It is because as one of uses there was mentioned “NAS” (network attached storage). It would let you to keep your files in one central point that may be accessed from all your home computers (laptops, desktops, htpc, smart phones and whatever more you may use at home). It looks that this idea have not been so bad as it have been brought to life and very deeply described by Chris Lowry.

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