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IF YOU WANT to build a small yet competent PC then Thin Mini-ITX is the way to go, and here’s a guide on how to build your own from start to finish.

To start you’ll need to select a motherboard to use, since the entire system revolves around this component. Mini-ITX boards are small at just 170x170mm and normally have a height of around 44mm. Thin Mini-ITX cuts the height down to just 25mm so these are even more compact.

We’ve selected Intel’s DH61AG for our system, which uses the LGA1155 socket and the H61 chipset. It supports the latest Intel Sandy Bridge processors up to the Core i7. One thing to note is that it only accepts chips with a thermal design power (TDP) rating of up 65W so you can’t whack the fastest Core i7 in it, which is rated at 95W TDP.

Although it’s small the board has a long list of features including two DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM slots for up to 16GB of memory, two SATA ports, a full size mini-PCI Express slot, a half size mini-PCI Express slot and one PCI Express 2.0 x4 slot.

External connections on the rear of the board consist of an external power connector, two USB 3.0 ports, two fast charge USB 2.0 ports, a DVI port, an HDMI port, an e-SATA connector, an Ethernet connector, and microphone and headphone ports. For the comprehensive list of specifications for the motherboard take a look at Intel’s specifications web page.

For a processor, we opted for the Sandy Bridge Core i5-2405S, which runs at 2.5GHz and has Intel HD3000 integrated graphics on-die. We chose this one because it’s the only 65W chip to have the latest graphics core, rather than the older HD2000 revision. With Intel’s Turbo Boost 2.0 technology the chip we selected can reach a maximum of 3.3GHz.

You might want to opt for the higher clock speed of a Core i5-2500S at 2.7GHz or a Core i7-2600S at 2.8GHz if you’re going to use a dedicated graphics card in your system.

In a world where space is at a premium, the smaller motherboards get, and yet still retain full functionality, never ceases to amaze me.  With desktop Llano processors taking the integrated graphics crown, an all-in-one mini Llano system becomes ever more appealing.  To support this, ASUS have sent us their premium mini-ITX motherboard for review, which I have put through the bench suite.  Read on for the full review!

 

Most of our Buyer's Guides focus on full desktop builds, but what about something a little smaller? Perhaps you're looking for an inexpensive yet sufficiently powerful system to function as an HTPC, or maybe you want a low power device so you can cut down a bit on power bills. Whatever the reason, if you're interested in building a mini-ITX system or a nettop we've got several takes on the concept to discuss.

AMD has been curiously absent from the value netbook and nettop segments since Atom’s arrival nearly three years ago. These markets are highly profitable only for component vendors, as the OEMs that sell netbooks and nettops must survive on very slim margins in order to hit aggressive price points. It wasn’t too long ago that we were shocked by 9 desktop PCs, but to now be able to get a fully functioning portable PC with display at below 0 is impressive. In order for the profit equation to work out however, you can’t simply scale down a larger chip – you need an architecture targeted specifically at the type of very light workloads you expect to encounter in these segments. Underclocking and undervolting an architecture targeted at high end desktops or servers won’t cut it.

Generally a single microprocessor architecture can cover an order of magnitude of power envelopes. You can take an architecture from 10W – 100W using clock speed, voltage scaling and disabling features (e.g. cutting cache sizes). You can’t efficiently take a 100W architecture and scale it down to 1W. Intel realized this with Atom, and what resulted was a new architecture designed to span the 0.5W – 5W range. Given the constraints of the process (Atom was built at 45nm) and a desire to keep die size down to a minimum (and thus maximize profits), Intel went with a dual-issue in-order architecture reminiscent of the old Pentium – but with a modern twist.

AMD came to the same realization. For it to compete in these value markets, AMD couldn’t rely on its existing Phenom II derived architectures. The Phenom II and its relatives currently span a range of TDPs from 9W to 140W, and at the lower end of that spectrum we’re talking about some very low clock speeds and performance targets. Getting down to 1W was out of the question without a separate design.

What AMD came up with was a core called Bobcat, initially targeted for netbooks, notebooks, nettops and entry level desktops. Architecturally Bobcat is a significant step ahead of Atom: while still dual-issue, it features an out-of-order execution engine making it the Pentium Pro to Atom’s Pentium.

It isn’t just CPU architecture that AMD surpassed Atom with, the first incarnation of Bobcat is an integrated SoC with on-die DirectX 11 GPU. AMD calls this combination a Fusion APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) as it places both a CPU and GPU on a single die. Read on for our full review of AMD's first Fusion part: the E-350.

IT LOOKS LIKE Asus is designing a mini-ITX mainboard for AMD’s first low-power Fusion chip code-named Ontario.

Details about the motherboard are hard to find. It would appear that Asus wants to put it under the bonnet of home entertainment systems that it has planned, but it could equally end up as part of an EeePC or similar setup.

Word on the street is that AMD’s Ontario chip will have the same power as an Athlon II X2 250U, but with a DirectX 11 graphics chip built in and running on only 18W.

If it can do this then it looks like Ontario will be a viable rival to Atom in the mini-ITX market.

Asus is keeping details of performance or the board’s eventual use close to its chest, although Bit-Tech even applied a Chinese burn to the press officer.

All Asus will say is that it is still early days for its mainboard design. µ

 

Comment on this article Flame Author Print Share this: del.icio.us Digg Facebook Linkedin reddit! StumbleUpon Twitter Share Related articles Pine Trail gets launched and tested A game of spin the Atom Tuesday, 22 December 2009, 08:10 AM Read more Hemlock launches, sites review Pick your poison Friday, 20 November 2009, 10:06 AM Read more AMD’s Phenom II X4 965 BE C3 stepping A harbinger of chips to come Thursday, 5 November 2009, 09:42 AM Read more Athlon II X4 620 and 630 reviewed Quad core on the cheap Thursday, 17 September 2009, 18:08 PM Read more 4GB ASUS GTX 285 tested Rare graphics card shock Friday, 28 August 2009, 09:55 AM Read more Core i5 750 as powerful as i7 920 Uh-oh? Thursday, 20 August 2009, 09:55 AM Read more < Previous article| Next article > Comments Not even close

18 watts for the Graphics chip alone? I get that it’s more powerful than an X3100, but people aren’t building their HTPCs as FPS machines. A high end dual core Atom is 13 Watts FOR EVERYTHING.

AMD, you fail once again.

posted by : Dan, 13 August 2010 Complain about this comment @Dan

Umm…did you read the article? It’s 18 W for the CPU + GPU + Northbridge. And, given that it will be profoundly more capable than the Atom at pretty much everything , I think it will be quite competitive, in both performance and power.

posted by : Ryan, 13 August 2010 Complain about this comment @Dan

Boy, can you read? "Word on the street is that AMD’s Ontario chip will have the same power as an Athlon II X2 250U, but with a DirectX 11 graphics chip built in and running on only 18W." 18 watts for everything. I’m not going to argue about the rest you said because i couldnt care less about it, i use a CPU + discrete in my PC and will not use ontario. But man, you gotta start reading more accurately

posted by : StickyGlue, 13 August 2010 Complain about this comment Agree

I agree with Dan, but I’m mad as a box of frogs.

posted by : Bob, 13 August 2010 Complain about this comment Passive

I hope the final product is passively cooled and the whole thing with disks, 4GB of memory and other IO takes under 60W at full load so I can build that nice, small computer for the little sister moving out of home. The Ontario family should have some "cooler" members as well..

posted by : Anonymous Coward, 13 August 2010 Complain about this comment @ Anonymous Coward

You may want to look into an Atom-based system. I built a home server using one several months ago and couldn’t be happier. The whole system (including 4 500GB HDDs, minus monitor) only uses 36 watts according to my Kill-A-Watt. The chip is passively-cooled with a big aluminum heat sink, so the only fan in the system is a big 120mm on the rear of the case. It runs cool, even tucked away in a corner under a desk in my home office.

I’ve been thinking about buying another to replace an old Dell P4 I’m using as a HTPC when it finally croaks (which it will. Soon. It’s one of the shoddy Optiplex models they’re being sued over), but this all-in-one solution may be a more viable option.

posted by : Jon, 13 August 2010 Complain about this comment @dan

Did you get a good paycheck from intel this week?

posted by : AMD Fanboy, 14 August 2010 Complain about this comment atom still sucks for HD

If this system can make a nice HTPC with limited gaming capability, I might be game. And this is just because I deposited my last check from Intel last week.

posted by : Rob, 14 August 2010 Complain about this comment Most read Most commented Most watched Tesco offers a cheap Sim-only mobile phone deal A scary number of security suites fail on Windows Vista An AMD 3.0GHz Thuban processor is in the shops Google tries to save face after its Verizon deal O2 Iphone 4 prices tip up Apple releases a 12 core Mac Pro Nokia N8 tips up online Windows XP SP2 could live on thanks to Grand Theft Auto PC sales are falling AMD talks up the GPU Sony motion controller video demo

check out the glowing orb

Microsoft Kinect athletics game video demo

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We’ve been waiting for one of the major players to get their mitts into mini-ITX for Intel’s chipsets and finally Gigabyte has delivered with the Intel H55 chipset based H55N-USB3.

ECS did us all a favour by introducing their H55H-I at an incredible , forcing Intel and to lower the price of the competing DH57JG down to 0. Following suit, Gigabyte’s H55N-USB3 touches down around the 5 mark – a perfect fit if Gigabyte delivers the finesse that’s missing on current mini-ITX products. Find out how Gigabyte’s latest offering fares on our test bench…