General Babbling: Sandy Bridge H67 - Inbuilt Video

[ArtShapiro]

After 3 1/2 years, my existing machine no longer seems as magnificent as it did originally, despite a few upgrades. And the monster Chenbro SR105 case has always irked me - way too deep to fit into the alcove in my computer desk, and consequently has to sit on the floor with the usual maze of cables coming from the desk.

The Sandy Bridge stuff, at least until the (temporary) recall, strikes me as a significant opportunity to upgrade. The 2500K seems to offer a lot of bang for the buck, and going to an MATX motherboard offers an opportunity to have a much smaller box. Of course, at this point it might be best to just wait for the upcoming Z68 release.

I'm not a gamer, so the inbuilt video of Sandy Bridge coupled with the increased processing power of the newer CPU is a very attractive proposition.

For those of you who build systems more frequently than I: what would the absence of a video card do to your building decision for such things as cases and power supplies? I was thinking the Antec NSK3480 would make for a small and relatively quiet machine, but wonder if something even smaller could be suggested. It looks like all this Sandy Bridge stuff is MATX, not mini-ITX, so the truly small cases aren't appropriate.

I have a tiny Windows Home Server machine (a commercial Asus TS-Mini) backing up all my machines daily, and love its tiny and quiet unobtrusiveness. It's only 8" deep and about 10"x4" front view. To have a reasonably powerful main desktop computer even remotely similar in size would be a joy.

Art

[Samriel]

I am by now means a regular system builder, but I'm (or rather I was...) about to build a mini-ITX Sandybridge system for all my needs. I think you can build a very good small system with a micro-ATX or mini-ATX motherboard, especially if you don't need a video card for gaming. Did you take a look at these motherboards (not available due to the bug recall)?

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/product/M ... -us0000515
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/mother ... x-review/1

The Foxconn is quite cheap but lacks some of the features of the Zotac. However, if you don't need any of those features you might as well just get the Foxconn as it's about half the price (the lack of USB3 hurts though). As for small cases, you could use one of these:

Lian Li mini-ITX cases
http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/pr ... s_index=64
http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/pr ... dex=64&g=f

Silverstone micro-ATX cases
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/ ... 5&area=usa
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/ ... 6&area=usa

There are a lot of other small cases on the market. You could also go with completely passive cooling, and therefore a fanless power supply, but while passive cooling is silent, depending on the case you might want some more airflow.

[ces]

1. The mini-ITX Sandy Bridge motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte and Zotac are in the pipeline for the H67. They have been designed and shown off... just not put into distribution yet.

2. Not certain if the Z68 will make it to ITX, but I would bet that it will, at least by the end of 4th quarter, in time for Ivy Bridge (which is 1155 compatible) ... with even lower energy utilization, integrated video 2x as powerful as that of a Sandy Bridge 2500K, and 4 cores with close to the processing power as you would get from 5 cores of the 2500K.

[goatsandmonkeys]

I agree with everything CES said but I want to pick one SMALL nit. ivy bridge will have twice the graphics pipelines, but intel is expecting it will be 30% faster.
http://vr-zone.com/articles/ivy-bridge- ... 11061.html

If you don't game sandy bridge has enough power for flash acceleration, video decoding, and desktop fancy crap. Both building and waiting are great options.

if you don't need a lot of power and/or hope to upgrade if ivy bridge is compatible the lower cost lower watt i3s are set to ship on the 20th.

[nutball]

The Intel mini-ITX H67-based motherboard is available now - I have one, it's gone in one my recent builds. It's quite a nice little board.

Intel DH67CF

I do love mini-ITX, it's come a long way over the past years from the under-powered VIA stuff to the current situation where you can get truly impressive, virtually-no-compromise boards in mini-ITX. Though if I were looking for an easy, quiet build I'd probably stick with micro-ATX and an NSK3480.

[ces]

If you don't game sandy bridge has enough power for flash acceleration, video decoding, and desktop fancy crap. Both building and waiting are great options.

Agreed.

[ces]

The Intel mini-ITX H67-based motherboard is available now - I have one, it's gone in one my recent builds. It's quite a nice little board.

Intel DH67CF

Yes, a 2500K in that little board is very power efficient, more so than the others... and that is one powerful combination... more horsepower than all the the most high end 1156 chips.

[ArtShapiro]

Thanks for all the input, everyone!

This may be my own misunderstanding, but I thought Intel MBs never were regarded particularly highly. I'd almost automatically rejected them in favor of the main-tier manufacturers, such as Asus or Gigabyte although in this case the perhaps-second-tier Asrock H67/P67 units seem to be well-done and consistently lauded.

I don't know if I want to wait until 4th quarter - you all know how "the itch" goes - but if ITX MBs are just starting to appear, with more on the horizon, that is really intriguing. There are some really nice, quiet, and small cases for them, and I could easily live with one optical drive as I can't think of the last time I needed the two I happen to have in the Chenbro box. I think right now size is even more appealing than quietness, although one could never complain about a quiet box.

Art

[ces]

This may be my own misunderstanding, but I thought Intel MBs never were regarded particularly highly.

They aren't. For good reason. They don't use the same high quality capacitors that Asus, Zotac and Gigabyte do. They don't have all the extra features either. They don't let you overclock or under clock. And this particular ITX is only rated for 67 watt CPUs even though they know no one buys them and everyone is going to use the 2500 or 2600. Basically they are designed with a conservative, self referential, self absorbed - let them eat cake attitude.

But you aren't going to be over or underclocking any h67 board.

And there is one thing the Intel motherboards unquestionably do better than anyone else... and that is run on as little current as possible. That means they run cool (so perhaps they don't need those high end capacitors). But that is a compelling advantage in an ITX motherboard.