Legit Reviews

I got in my first Mini-ITX NVIDIA Ion system build and finally started to put the pieces together.

ASUS AT3N7A-I Motherboard - ~159.99
Western Digital Scorpio Black 250GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive WD2500BEKT - $70.91
Kingston 2GB DDR2 800MHz ValueRam KVR800D2N5K2/2G - $35.50
Panasonic UJ-135-A SATA Slimline Slot-Loading Blu-ray Player -$199.99
Travla Mini-ITX Case TE-T287 - $111.00

Total Cost = ~$577.39 before Windows 7 64-bit

Here are some pictures:
Here is the issue that I have... The Travla Mini-ITX 287 Case comes with the laptop style brick power supply, which is rated at 60W. The crazy thing is that it comes with four power supply connectors... A 20-Pin ATX, a 4-pin CPU, one Floppy and one SATA... The case supports two hard drives and an optical drive... Why in the world would they give me a floppy power connector? Also, it doesn't have any 4-pin molex-connectors, so I can't use a 4-pin molex to two 4-pin SATA connector adapter like this one.... GRRR I'm frustrated and my Panasonic UJ-135-A SATA Slimline Slot-Loading Blu-ray Player is all show and no go. I had to hook up an USB powered external optical drive just to get Windows 7 installed. Looks like I need one of these SATA power splitters to get the hard drive and Blu-Ray player running at the same time. I wonder if anyone here in St. Louis would carry that splitter.

Some day I'll build me an HTPC...I'm curious to see how this works out.
I actually just bought a Samsung PN50B860 plasma tv because my DLP is dying. As little as I watch TV, I don't think I'll spend any more on TV stuff for a bit.

This is exactly like what I was wanting to build. PLEASE, ME NEED TO SEE MORE!! Let me know how it does on 1080p playback!

The Dual Core Atom did horribly w/1080p playback, I'd be curious to see how the addition of the Nvidia chipset does

dicecca112 wrote:The Dual Core Atom did horribly w/1080p playback, I'd be curious to see how the addition of the Nvidia chipset does

I'll be checking that now that the system is built...

Just got the power adapter that I needed overnight mailed from Newegg... They shipped it in a huge box that weighed in at 4lbs... Talk about a waste.

pretty sure that is the smallest box they have. I got a couple sticks of RAM in a box that size.

Nate... How is this build goin? what are the end results? How well does it do HD 1080p..etc..??

What Dragon Cooler Said, The atom processors are quite cool, and I feel it should be more than capable for it with a little gfx help.

Hey, Nate. You're using Windows 7, right? Can you test 1080p VC-1 playback via Media Center on your build? I just connected the ION and it seems the only way I can get VC-1 hardware acceleration is if I exit 7MC and play the files back via MPC HomeCinema. Something I'm okay with but is not so user friendly for the parents. Off the top of my head, Fast & Furious (Blu-Ray) uses VC-1. Harry Potter and Heroes, too, I think, although I'm not entirely sure.

This is exactly like what I was wanting to build. Let me know how it does on 1080p playback !

sushrukh wrote:This is exactly like what I was wanting to build. Let me know how it does on 1080p playback !

Check out the article Nate wrote on this build. http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1057/1/

If I were to build a HTPC today, this setup would DEFINATELY be on my list.

I've always wanted to DIY an HTPC to stream stuff from my PC, though the overall always scared me off. I wonder, how does Atom + Ion compare to Atom + Broadcom Crystal HD? I figure the savings gained from not going with an Ion chipset might make it more enticing, but is playback performance affected at all?

Kurotetsu wrote:I've always wanted to DIY an HTPC to stream stuff from my PC, though the overall always scared me off. I wonder, how does Atom + Ion compare to Atom + Broadcom Crystal HD? I figure the savings gained from not going with an Ion chipset might make it more enticing, but is playback performance affected at all?

Any special reason you're going for the ION? Because you can get 785G+Athlon II X2 or GF9300+Celeron E3xxx/Pentium E5xxx for the same price as an ION board. Power consumption isn't going to differ much, either.

hnzw_rui wrote: Any special reason you're going for the ION? Because you can get 785G+Athlon II X2 or GF9300+Celeron E3xxx/Pentium E5xxx for the same price as an ION board. Power consumption isn't going to differ much, either.

Well, right now I'm interested in a standard Atom board + Broadcom Crystal HD, but to answer your question I'm considering it because of the m-ITX formfactor. I know Sapphire is releasing a 785G mITX board, but so far I've seen no indication that its coming out in the US. As for the Zotac GF9300, that might be something to consider. Though that board has a pretty big chipset heatsink, could that fit into an mITX case like the one the OP used?

Kurotetsu wrote:As for the Zotac GF9300, that might be something to consider. Though that board has a pretty big chipset heatsink, could that fit into an mITX case like the one the OP used?

The chipset heatsink, sure. If you're installing an optical drive, though, I'm not so sure about the CPU HSF.