Mini-PC Buyers Guide
Not every desktop machine has to be a hulking great mass under your desk. Mini PCs are great for those wanting a low cost, and very low power PC that obviously doesn’t take up much room. The advantage over a budget laptop is they still have the flexibility of upgrades, the latest technologies like USB 3.0 and space for multiple hard-drives.
Intel’s Atom CPU has long dominated this nook of the PC world, however AMD’s new E-350 CPU has become the recent darling child with its much more capable graphics and all-in-one APU.
In Anandtech’s recent mini-ITX buyers guide, author Zack highlights the benefits of ASUS’ E35M1-I Deluxe motherboard in his build choice;
“Starting with the motherboard and APU, once again we’re using the AMD E-350, but this time we’ve selected the ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe. This is the most feature-rich Zacate mini-ITX board currently available. It features USB3 ports, an eSATA port, onboard wireless-N networking, DVI and HDMI ports, and an S/PDIF out jack. It’s also passively cooled by a massive heatsink, so it generates no fan noise.”
It’s admittedly more expensive than the competition, but as pointed out above it’s got everything plus the kitchen sink thrown in. Drop this in a Lian Li PC-Q09B (personally I prefer the upright PC-Q11 though), add a small 110W PSU with large, ‘Eco/Green’ (silent) hard drive, some DDR3 memory and an optical drive (go Blu-ray and it makes a great home theatre machine!) and you’re all go!
You can see the article in full, here.
Give us a shout in the comments if you’ve got any questions on small form factor builds and we’ll be happy to help out!
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http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZOOOA5G2TAQ67PXI3NS753AQ5I Gaby de Wilde (man)