Thread: Thinking for a better system.. Help needed!

I should mention that there is a vast difference in the 3D performance of the Intel onboard graphics between the previous generation and the current. You mentioned that you can play your game decently on a 945 motherboard at home. To get similar performance you will need nothing lower than the X3000 onboard graphics. The X3100 is preferable and there is even a newer one with the Q35 mini-itx. The X3100 has shaders while the X3000 does not. Both have Directx9 support. Older MBs (like the 915) probably won't have directx support and even if they do, will suffer horribly when trying to do any 3D stuff. They were made for 2D.

Originally Posted by l1nk

Thank you guys for the input.

@HiJackZX1
I was thinking for a dual core system but never investigated about the mini itx availability nor the needed power or produced heat.
I have a big limit due to the little car's battery and don't want to modify the electric wirings on car or make things complicated. Someone suggest me to replace the battery with a bigger one (I also have the space to do it) but I'm not fully convinced that only this, with no other modifications (alternator?) can help!
Moreover, I don't like to hear the buzz of a computer fan in my car so I prefer to have a fanless system... if possible
Anyway, the next days I'll investigate more on these kind of systems for the application I need but the best would be having some feedback from a dual core in car system owner


@BlackStealth
I searched more on this motherboard and found some guy running quake 3 arena with a noticeable value of fps but... in software mode!!
The cpu is really fast because it reported over 70fps@640x480 and about 40fps@1024x768!!

Unfortunately the integrated video adapter is not so performant with 3d applications
Anyway I cannot find any test on some more recent game like unreal tournament 2004 or some need for speed (underground, most wanted or carbon).
I'm not a big gamer and I really have no time to play games but I use a lot my car and sometime I spend hours in there, parked in some strange place... Usually I have not enough time to watch a movie so, as I like the games I mentioned, I'd like to play these in my car
It's quite a little to justify a dedicated graphic card and I have not enough room to mount any standard card on the motherboard!

So you have this motherboard?
The fan version or the fanless one?
Never tried some 3d game on it?
How much memory are your running and what frequency?

On the soundcard side I'd prefer to have a 4 channel mainly for movies; I'd like to have full sound around me also with games but really I don't know if it is possible and supported by standard multichannel soundcards!
I have a 7.1 integrated also in my home pc but never tried to connect nothing more than stereo because I don't like to have a mess with cables and speakers.
In car it's simpler because I have all the speakers already in place, driven by a 4 channel kenwood KAC849 amplifier and a little bazooka that make me feel in a real theater when watching dvd movies
I'd like to try a multichannel pci solution but only if I can find an extremely low profile card (because of limited space behind the dashboard). Suggestion on this (maker, model) are welcome

Thank you for the CPU comparative list, it really cleared my mind on that cpu!

It depends on setup. I will admit that my setup is complicated, but thats because I have so many gadgets, I make inspector gadgets car look like a piece of cr@p. All you need is a 4 gauge wire running from the battery (which you would have to do with any car pc setup). Cooling is a problem, or was for me. I simply added a small fan to the GPU and one large silent fan on one side of the case. It is hardly noticable. If you want good sound and you want to keep the PC low profile then get a USB card. I love the way mine sound. I recently got rid of the dreaded start up pop with a software that powers up my amp, so thats not an issue. I am using a AMD Turion dual core 64 bit 1.8ghz processor. The MoBo is a KINO-690S1 and it uses laptop Sodimm RAM so you have more room. It has a supper graphics card, very impressive... handles 3D like its nothing. It has a VGA port and a DVI-D port. Both can be used for extended windows with no noticeable slow down. Only issue is that the DVI-D port is 100% Digital and requires a $115.00 dollar converter (no the cheap $1.00 ones do not work).

In the end it all depends on your love for the hobby and sometimes money. With me it took both. My budget was $1,400.00 and it is now been blown to 3,997.00.

Ok guys. After a long time searching, reading and thinking I finally decided something about my future system. I'd like to share with you some of my thought and informations that I've found.

I've done a lot of research and, as you already noticed, I can't have power without heat and so without proper cooler with fan! I have to deal with it and I think I'll use a big fan (8, maybe 12 centimeters) at a low speed to reduce the noise.

So, I decided for a medium power system, not dual core, nor celeron. I buyed a pentium M 740@1,73GHZ with 533MHz FSB and 2M level2 cache. I think it's a good and powerful cpu and also have a nice wattage.

You can see some test for pentium-M (dothan and banias) cpu's on this link:
http://www.hwupgrade.it/articoli/cpu...et-478_11.html

Dothan and Banias consume about the same power but on the link above you'll see higher values than normal because of choosen motherboard / other hardware.

You can see some more affordable value on this list (banias only):
http://www.cpuscorecard.com/cpuprices/ipm.htm

It reports about 25Watt.

Now I have a big problem: to found a mini-itx motherboard with pentium M support for the CPU I buyed, with a intel 915 chipset and at least six channels audio.
I already have found something good but unfortunately nothing in europe; ordering hardware from USA means that I have to wait a lot and I have to pay custom fees and I have a lot of problems if I would need assistance!
I'm still searching but maybe you can help me for this.

In the meantime I buyed a new 2,5" 320GB SATA HDD on ebay for about 100 euros, shipping included. I think it's a good price, so if anyone is interested, this is the seller:
http://myworld.ebay.it/benni-co

Many thanks for your help!

Originally Posted by BlackStealth

Have you looked at the new intel Atom processor (2W - 11W), as you probably won't need a fan.

I read something about atom some time ago... but I don't know about mini-itx motherboard or similar small form factor with atom support.
Do you have some interesting link/documentation on this?

Any carpc atom-based here?

Edit1:
I've found this http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/gene...-6ghz-cpu.html