I’ve done a bit of searching and I’ve noticed that people seem to be using underpowered computers in their cars, why is this?
Lets face it, most of us who have come into this hobby have done so from a computer background in the first place. We’re very performance oriented, and many times we like to have the biggest and baddest systems out there.
There’s a few problems with that in an automotive environment though….
• How will you provide power to that power hungry beast?
• How do you cool that monster?
• Where do you put something so big?
• Do you
really need that much power in your car?
I’ll give an example based on my own personal experiences.
I’m currently running the
VIA MII12000 motherboard, 512 MB ram, and a 200 GB hard drive. I’m running onboard video, and the
Audigy ZS 2 PCMCIA sound card. I also have a USB GPS dongle (the GlobalStat BU-353).
I am able to run my mp3s and navigation at the same time without any issue. That’s on the equivalent of an 800 MHz processor and 512 MB of memory.
What you do in your car, and what you do on your desktop are two totally different things.
Keep this all in mind when you spec out the parts and pieces for your CarPC. It will make your live much easier and will probably make this whole project that much more enjoyable.