Low power & Cheap HTPC. nVidia ION?
#1
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Hi there,

after 3h+ reading threads and reviews, I decided I should give up searching by myself and asking for your opinion Smile

I had a VIA PC3500+ running 24/7 as NAS/torrent with 2 HDs and XBMC, with a Geforce 8400GS. However, the performance wasn't quite good, and it's fan was too noisy (even though it was small like a 486 cooler). So I decided selling it to a friend (didn't have the guts/time to mod it) and got a NAS-321 to work as, well, NAS and torrenting with Transmission.

Ok, pretty story, now back to what matters: XBMC Smile I'd like to buy a cheap ($250 tops) HTPC; I already have RAM (DDR2, could buy DDR3 separatedly as well) and HD (3.5" and 2.5"), so the chosen model doesn't necessarily need to have those items. It has to be very low watt-consuming (so an old Pentium III is not an option Tongue ). It'd be great if it's so low consuming that it uses passive cooling (but still being able to run HD), but I understand that it could be more expensive then an unit with active cooling.

Would Zotac ZBOX Intel Atom D510 1.66 GHz Dual Core All-in-One Mini-PC with No Memory, No Hard Drive and No OS ($196.99 after $20 rebate on Amazon) be powerful enough? Are there cheaper options? I intend to run it with Ubuntu (are the nVidia proprietary drivers working OK with nVidia ION?), but Windows 7 is also an option if I couldn't do it with linux.

I understand that the ATV2 now runs XBMC, but AFAICT by watching YouTube videos and reading reviews it's not an option ATM because a) it doesn't output 1080p; b) it's choppy on the menus; and c) it's tethered to a Mac, and I don't have a Mac.

Thank you very much.

Cheers,
Nighto
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#2
That Zotac mobo will be perfect. ION with Ubuntu and XBMC is very mature now - will play anything 1080p your throw at it via VPDAU and the Nvidia GPU drivers.
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#3
buy a Zotac ZBOX...
but you'll need laptop ram,,,

or buy

Image
[MOBO+CPU+GPU] ZOTAC IONITX-P-E Intel Celeron 1.2GHz Dual-Core ION1 Mini-ITX ($180 + Free Shipping)
[CASE+PSU] Apex MI-100 Black mini-ITX 250W ($53 + $0)
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#4
Anything ION will do what you want, especially if you are running XBMCLive. Alternatively if you want to run Windows the new AMD Brazio platform looks mighty tempting, however it will probably be another few weeks before we see Nettops based on this platform.

poofyhairguy is a big fan of an SSD for your OS drive and I tend to agree, if the budget is tight then any modern drive will do. The SSD will make the box boot quick and add an extra degree of snappiness to your menu's.
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#5
PANiCnz Wrote:The SSD will make the box boot quick and add an extra degree of snappiness to your menu's.

+ is completely silent.
XBMC Live: i3 530 / GT210 / 2GB / SSD + 2 x Zotac HD01 / 2GB / SSD
unRAID Pro: 6 x 1TB + 2 x 1.5TB + 2 x 2TB + 2 x 500G over GbE
HP Micro Server: SABnzbd+, Sickbeard, Couchpotato, uTorrent, Media Companion, MySQL, MKV Toolnix
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Low power & Cheap HTPC. nVidia ION?0