Antec ITX Case

I

ilikecake

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Feb 20, 2006
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Just came across this while bored at work. Looks promising as I intend to build an ITX HTPC at some point, but I doubt 65W is enough for the Zotac motherboard with a C2D.

iskq.jpg

(Stolen from Antec site)
 
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I like that Antec introduces a new series for ITX. The specific model doesn't thrill me yet, but it's a start.
 
By the looks of it, so-so cooling due to restrictive air channel; unfortunately par for the the course in low-form-factor ITX. Not a huge deal because of the 65W brick, but still a challenge for quiet chipset cooling.
 
If all you want is an HTPC might as well just get an Atom Ion board and a sound card or something.
 
mrmylanman said:
If all you want is an HTPC might as well just get an Atom Ion board and a sound card or something.
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Since this case comes with a 65w brick, I'm sure it's aiming at nothing else but Atom-based boards.
 
Yeah, I am hoping that they release a case with a bit more power in the future. I am a fan of Antec cases because they seem to be cognizant of the desire for quiet cases. For a HTPC, this is a big concern.
 
if it had a power supply worthy of a zotac 9300itx + a galaxy 9600 gt the sff one i would have buyed this one but like this hell no
 
timme said:
Don't be so harsh :D It's a lovely platform to put a decent low-power machine together.
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It is, it just isn't "perfect." For one, flash video sucks on it. Things like Hulu blow on it. That hardy screams "perfect" to me. I like them, I plan on picking up a 330 myself but in no way is it perfect. I have a pet peeve about people pointing to these things and always saying how awesome they are for building an HTPC with when they're not. When they are one of the stupidest choices for it.
 
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CrimandEvil said:
It is, it just isn't "perfect." For one, flash video sucks on it. Things like Hulu blow on it. That hardy screams "perfect" to me. I like them, I plan on picking up a 330 myself but in no way is it perfect. I have a pet peeve about people pointing to these things and always saying how awesome they are for building an HTPC with when they're not. When they are one of the stupidest choices for it.
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Quoted for truth and great summarization of the limits this platform has.
 
timme said:
Quoted for truth and great summarization of the limits this platform has.
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Yeah, as long as you understand the limits and either work within them or around them you can do a lot with an Atom system. But is it the right tool for the every job? Nope. If you want a "perfect" HTPC then Zotac's other board, the 9300 ITX Wifi, is going to be it. Small, uses regular desktop CPUs, decently low powered. It has all the same perks as the Ion while also being able to take a much faster CPU, more memory and either a video card or any PCIe card. :) Now that screams "perfect" to me, the only thing that I would have added to it is two more SATA ports and Wireless N.
 
CrimandEvil said:
If you want a "perfect" HTPC then Zotac's other board, the 9300 ITX Wifi, is going to be it. Small, uses regular desktop CPUs, decently low powered. It has all the same perks as the Ion while also being able to take a much faster CPU, more memory and either a video card or any PCIe card. :) Now that screams "perfect" to me, the only thing that I would have added to it is two more SATA ports and Wireless N.
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I know, it's a great board, I just build a system with one :) Although it is playing in a different league in terms of power consumption and heat output. I'm not using it as a HTPC either, just my main system for everything. With Hulu and other great Flash content sources, the Atom really faces some issues for general HTPC usage. You would have to make very sure what you want to do with the thing.
 
timme said:
I know, it's a great board, I just build a system with one :) Although it is playing in a different league in terms of power consumption and heat output. I'm not using it as a HTPC either, just my main system for everything. With Hulu and other great Flash content sources, the Atom really faces some issues for general HTPC usage. You would have to make very sure what you want to do with the thing.
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My 9300 is now my everyday, gaming rig. I love the thing. :)

I plan on using a 330 Ion for an HTPC but only for testing right now and for use as an "extender" type system. I'm very interested in seeing where the platform could sit as an HTPC even with the limitations it has. :)
 
CrimandEvil said:
It is, it just isn't "perfect." For one, flash video sucks on it. Things like Hulu blow on it.
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Agreed. I find it unfathomable that a platform could run WoW but not the turd that is Flash.
A 330 overclocked to 2GHz could probably handle flash at 720p even if it chokes at 1080p.
 
Ruiner said:
Agreed. I find it unfathomable that a platform could run WoW but not the turd that is Flash.
A 330 overclocked to 2GHz could probably handle flash at 720p even if it chokes at 1080p.
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To clarify I meant Ion by the way. If all you want to do is play HD video and shit on your HDTV, it's an excellent low power quiet option.
 
Looks more like a Minuet 350 but smaller, black, and more mesh.

Not bad design, but I wouldn't consider it for a low-power or HTPC build..
 
mrmylanman said:
To clarify I meant Ion by the way. If all you want to do is play HD video and shit on your HDTV, it's an excellent low power quiet option.
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I agree, but a HTPC is crippled if it chokes on the format used by most streaming media.
 
From what I have seen the Ion is very good at streaming HD. I have never used one so I cannot comment, but with the GeForce 9400 decoding the content, what goes wrong?

I've never heard any problems about this.
 
mrmylanman said:
From what I have seen the Ion is very good at streaming HD. I have never used one so I cannot comment, but with the GeForce 9400 decoding the content, what goes wrong?

I've never heard any problems about this.
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Flash unfortunately doesn't offload to the gpu and since the Atom lacks the processing power to stream video, playback often stutters. This should be fixed by this time next year or so; I hear Adobe is working on this issue right now.
 
You could use a 45 watt AM2 cpu. Underclock and under volt it along with just on-board video and you might have a chance.
 
Flash player 10.1 has hardware support for video accerlation... this is a non issue now for Ions.
 
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