[aldredd]

Hello, I'm not new to building PC's, but I've a) Never done small form-factor b) Not done it for a while, so not familiar with all the current specs.

I'm looking to replace my ~4 year old tower PC with a new HTPC. I plan to recycle many parts. I have most of it sorted, but struggling with MoBo (and therefore processor) options.

Planned Specs:
Coolermaster Elite 120 mini-ITX Case (Planned)
Coolermaster 550W PSU (Already own, ~6 months old)
128GB mSata Drive (Already own - pretty much brand new & unused (taken out of a brand new laptop as I upgraded it to 256GB mSata))
2x1TB Samsung HDDs (Already own, will be upgraded in the future - maybe as part of this rebuild)
Either: 4GB Ram - (Already own - I think is 'cheap & cheerful' DDR2 RAM in my existing setup)
OR: 8GB Ram - (Already own - DDR3 16000 SODIMM - again taken out my new laptop (upgraded with 16GB))
MoBo & CPU - TBC

I plan on running XBMCBuntnu and will provide little function other than media playback - but should be able to handle HD playback and file transfer simultaneously without jittering

So, What I'm looking for is a motherboard...
- that can take mSata cards
- takes a regular 'ATX' PSU. Having
- HDMI out, Gigabit Ethernet
- Having SoDimm slots would be a major ++

my budget for the motherboard, CPU & case is around £200 - which looking around, feel reasonable - I'm just struggling to find the right combination - I had found what I though was a perfect gigabyte board being released soon, until I found it takes 'external' power, which I didn't want.

Any ideas?

(For ref, existing setup is an Asus M3N78 motherboard with AMD Athlon 7500 CPU 4GB Ram & 2x1TB drives - performs pretty well)

[oldpoem]

http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-h77-itx-wi...x-c-e.html

Maybe this is what you're looking for.

[PatrickVogeli]

That's a difficult one..

All but SODIMM: Asrock Z77E-ITX (note that MSata is on the back)
All but Standart ATX PSU: GA-H77TN
All but SODIMM: ZOTAC Z77-ITX WiFi
All but expensive: ZOTAC H67 WiFi Supreme

I think you best bet is to forget about a mobo that does ALL the things you want, bet one with MSATA and Standard ATX connectors and buy some new ram (I bought 4GB for 20€, which is enough fo a HTPC I think).

[aldredd]

thanks - that's given me some options, though some of the Zotac boards seem a little hard to find in the UK.
Would I be right in thinking the H77 is the updated chipset of the H67?

Probably between the Zotac Z77 & ASRock Z77 - though the Z68 could be a good choice - it has a combo PCI-E / mSata socket occuied by the wifi card - but have to need for wifi, so could take that out.

What's a good level of processor? I' thinking Intel G600 series or G800 series - The G860 us available for around the £50 mark

[Dougie Fresh]

Do you have the Intel DH77DF available to you? It has an mSATA slot though a full-sized card will block the USB3 header.

[aldredd]

I remember looking at it, yes - but don't think I found anywhere selling it - I will take another look though. Lack of access to usb 3 header not a big deal - especially if there is a standard header. Only usb usage will be for wireless keyboard.

[oldpoem]

If you want to use low-end cpu , there's not much advantage choosing Z-series Chipset board. It's overkill. You can save some money with H-Series board.

[aldredd]

Found another that looks like it will fit the bill - an MSI Z77IA
Includes front-mounted mSata connector (some are on the reverse, which i didn't like so much), and slightly better price than the some of the others