[Media]

Hello All Media Here!

Nice to meet you

I've been building computers for years now, but this will be my first ITX build. As such I'm not familiar with Zotec as a brand. Their boards look like they have great specs, but then again, so do PCchips and ECS. (Eww...) I know Asus and I feel that I can trust them for the most part, but again never an ITX board.

I've been spec'n out a system and I've narrowed it down to two boards that I'm liking.
Zotec IONITX-T-U
http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-intel-atom...x-t-u.html

Asus AT5IONT-I DELUXE
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_C...TI_DELUXE/

If you don't think either is a good option, I'm open to any other suggestions you may have as well! Cost is not an issue, so fire away, I would be buying a kaleidescape system if it had the features that I wanted.

[Mallet21]

All things being equal, in my experience ASUS has much better quality.

[poofyhairguy]

For value I would rather have this:

http://www.amazon.com/Zotac-Celeron-Dual...B0041DNARM

Blows ION away at lower clock speeds, which just gives you a higher ceiling...

[eskro]

i agree!
that ZOTAC IONITX-P-E board is really good!!

you can go cheaper too and get a more powerful combination by buying these
[CPU] Intel Celeron E3400 Dual-Core 2.6GHz LGA-775 65W ($44 + $0)
[MOBO+iGPU] ZOTAC G45ITX-B-E X4500HD LGA-775 WiFi-N Mini-ITX ($109 + $5)

[Media]

Any ideas how much warmer the P-E runs then the T-U? I really like the idea of completely fanless.

Do you feel that the extra power necessary for XBMC?

The stats are pretty similar since the Celeron is a bit older at this point.

[spartan711]

If price is really no object, why not wait two weeks for a z68 mini-itx board with onboard GT 430 (optional)? Stick inside a m-350 case, with 120mm scythe fan and you're good to go, assuming you're using it as a client.

[eskro]

Zotac Z68ITX-B-E = yummy!!

[Media]

@spartan, I really should have specified, yes I will be using this machine as a client only, it won't be hosting any of the media, and I plan on centralizing as much as possible on my existing NAS. Assuming I like the way I get XBMC working, I will be expanding it to multiple clients for each television in the house.

Actually I had already decided on the m-350 case, It's really looks just about as perfect as a case can be IMHO.

That z68 board you guys are talking about, does look really nice, and I may do that. However, again I need to ask the same question. Do you feel that the extra power necessary for XBMC? I really have no experience with it.

I downloaded it to try the GUI on my PC, but I've got dual quads. And a great big COSMOS Case just wouldn't look elegant in my living room. I really liked the idea of the fan-less boards that I had put in my first post, coupled with a SSD, you would never even know the machine was there.

If a stronger CPU, really is needed, and a fan is too, I'm of course going to get it, I just want things to stay simple and clean.