Nearly 30 years ago Commodore Business Machines released what was to become the most popular home computer ever made - the CBM 64. It had a CPU that ran at 1MHz, just 64K of RAM and ran programs loaded over several minutes from cassette tape. To people of a certain age it was for a while the most desirable object ever created by mankind.

Commodore USA are giving us the chance to re-live these moments again with their all-new Commodore 64. Under the hood courtesy of a standard Mini-ITX motherboard is an Intel Atom dual core processor running 1,800 times faster than the original, paired with an NVidia ION 2 GPU.

DocLorren of course stuffed an early VIA Mini-ITX motherboard into an original C64 chassis for our very own website way back in 2003. We're saying nothing.

New Commodore 64 at Commodore USA

Permalink | mini-link | Email this

Tweet

We have updated our guide to building an ION-powered HTPC using XBMC to version 10.0. As an added bonus we have included a new module with instructions to enable 24fps playback for you lucky people with 1080p/24fps tellies.

Building an ION powered HTPC with XBMC

Permalink | mini-link | Email this

Tweet

Christopher Barnatt sent us this excellent video demonstrating how to build a silent and fanless PC that consumes under 20W. Click to see just how easy it is. Then check out his website ExplainingComputers.com for more great guides.

Permalink | mini-link | Email this

Tweet

We are long time fans of XBMC here at Mini-ITX.com. Version 9.11 makes it extremely easy to utilise the graphics acceleration of ION based Mini-ITX systems to make a very slick Home Theatre PC.

Here's how to do it.

Building an ION powered HTPC with XBMC

Permalink | mini-link | Email this

Tweet

Intel launched their low cost x86 Atom processor in mid 2008 and changed the face of low-cost and low-power computing. In the Mini-ITX world, their popular D945GCLF and D945GCLF2 motherboards combined the Atom N230 and N330 CPUs with the ICH7 chipset and consumer friendly pricing.

The single core D410PT 'Packton' and dual core D510MO 'Mount Olive' are the first Mini-ITX 'Pine Trail' motherboards to feature Intel's new Atom D410 and Atom D510 'Pineview' processors.

Pine Trail boards feature a more integrated design than previous Atom boards by moving the memory contoller and video subsystem from the Northbridge and into the main CPU. The whole platform can be created with just 2 chips which results in lower overall power consumption.

The Atom is paired with the NM10 (aka 'Tiger Point') Platform Controller Hub (PCH) which is responsible for providing the I/O subsystem such as Serial-ATA, PCI-express, USB, Ethernet and HD-Audio. Maximum memory supported has increased from 2GB up to 4GB.

The Pineview processors are marginally quicker than before - but the big news here is that both motherboards can operate without fans. We have had these boards in our underground testing lab for a while now and we can tell you they output very little heat. Our pre-release model didn't go above 50 degrees Celsius during the whole intensive testing process.

For those of you wondering how the new platform compares to what has previously been available we have created the following 6-way multi-graph:

Video Playback & 3D Performance:

In our tests the D510MO played 720p H264 perfectly but struggled with 1080i/p content. This is slightly better performance than the previous generation D945GCLF2 which dropped the odd frame during 720p playback. As before only fairly old or simplistic games will run on the D510MO. Impressive for a budget board - however the ultimate embedded Mini-ITX platform for video playback & 3D remains the earlier Atom paired with an NVidia ION chipset.

CPU Performance & Energy Consumption:

The Pine Trail boards are slightly faster than the previous generation, whilst consuming almost 10W less.

Connectivity has been altered slightly. Legacy Parallel and RS-232 ports are demoted to internal pin headers, and S-Video and PATA have been removed entirely. The addition of a Mini-PCI Express port on the D510MO could prove very useful. As with the previous generation, Gigabit Ethernet is reserved for the dual core D510MO.

While not representing a sea-change from the previous generation Atom platform, Pine Trail is a more mature product with improvements in many areas. If you want a great value fanless dual core 64-bit Mini-ITX motherboard, we have them right here:

D410PT and D510MO at the Mini-ITX Store

Permalink | mini-link | Email this

Tweet

The M350 Universal Mini-ITX Enclosure is a great example of what happens when industrial design is done correctly. The case follows the inverted U shaped top, motherboard base plate and front panel design pattern used by many Mini-ITX cases to date, but with many subtleties to elevate it far above the norm.

The 2.5in HDD/SSD tray can be fitted in one of two positions, meaning motherboards with larger heatsinks can be accommodated. When a standard profile motherboard is used another tray can be added to mount 2 drives. The HDD brackets double as fan mounting points for use in extreme or critical environments - though most ordinary users won't need these.

The strong plastic front panel has an illuminated power switch and space for a customisation sticker for ODMs. When removed, the front panel reveals two USB ports at right angles with enough space for a wireless antenna. A pulse generator linked to the power switch can be set to boot the machine automatically after power loss, even when the motherboard BIOS doesn't support the feature.

The M350 has no internal PSU so it can be used with the wide range of picoPSU plug-in DC converters and a voltage source (usually an AC Adapter). It can also be used with Mini-ITX boards with their own built in DC converters such as several of Zotac's ION motherboards.

A variety of inexpensive mounting options are available too - such as Wall mounting brackets, DIN rail mounts that work in multiple orientations, or VESA mounting screws to mount to the back of a monitor.

The steel case is convection cooled using a fine grid of holes meaning low power consumption fanless motherboards can be fitted without any noisy fans, but don't let that stop you running a Mini-ITX with 65W desktop Quad Core processor with an appropriate power supply and a low profile heatsink.

The M350 measures just 2.5 litres in volume making it one of the smallest Mini-ITX cases out there and still manages to support almost every Mini-ITX motherboard you can throw at it. This is an extremely well thought out case from mini-box.com.

M350 Universal Mini-ITX Enclosure at the Mini-ITX Store

Permalink | mini-link | Email this

Tweet

NVIDIA's ION chipset gives an Intel Atom (or VIA Nano) processor the graphics and connectivity capabilities their stock chipsets to date haven't been able to provide. Zotac's ION-ITX-A is the first Mini-ITX board to utilise this chipset. It has the potential to be the perfect board for the HTPC market. We put one through its paces - concentrating primarily on power consumption and video playback.

Zotac ION-ITX-A Review

Other ION-ITX-A reviews around the web:

AnandTech | Toms Hardware | PCPerspective
TechReport | HardwareZone | TechTree | Inpai

Permalink | mini-link | Email this

Tweet

Zotac have hit the ground running with their recent entries into the Mini-ITX world, and have now built what could be the perfect Media PC motherboard with their new range of nVidia ION powered products. We'll be reviewing this one shortly, but in the meantime here are some unboxing photos as we're rather excited about it all. Click to biggify.

The review board we received was the ION-ITX-A, which is a dual core Atom N330 powered unit with NVidia ION chipset. The biggest difference we expect to see versus a standard Atom is the graphics, which are Geforce 9400M powered supporting PureVideo HD, PhysX, DirectX 10 and CUDA H264 acceleration...

..which means 1080p HD playback from an embedded Mini-ITX board with a fanless 1.6GHz processor whilst consuming 21W.

The ION-ITX-A has its own DC converter onboard, and is supplied with a 90W AC Adapter. This makes it the ideal companion to the M350 Universal Mini-ITX Cases which just arrived at the store. But more about that later.

There's also a more traditional ION-ITX-B which is a fanless 1.6GHz single core N230 with everything the A has bar the Wi-Fi and DC converter. We expect we'll see C and D versions too, but not just yet.

Brief specification: nVidia ION Chipset; Single or Dual Core 1.6GHz Atom CPU; 21W-25W power consumption; VGA, DVI, HDMI, S/PDIF Coax & Optical; 3x SATA; eSATA; 6x USB (+4 headers); Serial header; PS/2 Keyboard; 802.11/n Wi-Fi and DC power input on the 'A' version.

Plenty more information, photos and pre-ordering on the store page:

Zotac ION boards at the Mini-ITX Store

Permalink | mini-link | Email this

Tweet

NVIDIA's ION reference platform squeezes a 1.6GHz dual core Atom 330 processor and GeForce 9400GM chipset onto a Pico-ITX board inside a suspiciously ARTiGO-like enclosure.

The keyword here is reference - NVIDIA have built a small number of units to demonstrate the graphics chipset that they would like to see power the next generation of Atom-powered netbooks later this year. Sadly, the world's fastest Pico-ITX isn't going to be available in the shops any time soon (or perhaps even at all).

Intel aren't resting on their laurels, and will be integrating graphics directly into the next generation of Atom CPU in the form of their (codenamed) 'Pine Trail-D' platform. Both technologies are expected sometime from the second half of 2009.

All of this is good news for Mini-ITX, as low power consumption mobile technology is fair game to be repurposed onto Mini-ITX motherboards, and both technologies look extremely promising.

The netbook market is many times larger than Mini-ITX, but we may still see a 9400GM chipset on our favourite 17 x 17cm form factor. Intel have supported Mini-ITX with their own Atom Mini-ITX boards recently and we don't expect that to stop with Pineview.

NVIDIA have crammed the ports into their demo ION units, utilising two sides of the case. HDMI, DVI, Gigabit Ethernet and USB on one side, eSATA, more USB and plenty of Audio outputs on the other. Early reviews of the ION show it to have advantages in the 3D graphics, H264 decoding and encoding departments - exactly as you would expect from NVIDIA.

PC Perspective and Hot Hardware both got their hands on an ION and you can check out their reviews here:

PC Perspective looks at the ION

Hot Hardware looks at the ION

Permalink | mini-link | Email this

Tweet

We've had a chance to poke around inside an ARTiGO A2000, courtesy of the mini-itx store. Our ISO standard size reference cylinder is in the foreground of the first picture.

The inside is surprisingly sparse. The 1.5GHz N701 motherboard inhabits the rear of the case, only slightly larger than the standard 80mm fan. The only other circuit boards in the case distribute power and data to the SATA drives and connect the front panel to the Nano-ITX motherboard, which accepts 12V directly from the DC socket on the back.

Everything comes cabled up, ready to go. Slide in a hard drive or two and perhaps a compact flash card with your NAS OS of choice and you have your own custom NAS in 5 minutes.

ARTiGO A2000 at the Mini-ITX Store

Permalink | mini-link | Email this

Tweet

News Archive

* Back to Mini-ITX.com *