What is the best Micro ATX (ITX) motherboard?

CA 3000GT · 01-26-2003, 03:47 AM

Hey, I’m going to be getting a new computer for a presentation, and afterwards I hope to use it in my car... So, I need something powerful enough to run Microsoft SQL server and XP reasonably (for the presentation), and small enough to fit in the car.. As much as I want to get the 933 ITX, I am worried just wont be able to run Microsoft SQL server.... So, here is what I hope you guys can help me with

1) Anyone tried SQL server on the 933 ITX?

2) What is the best micro ATX board I can get? I have been searching the web, but have not come up with anything.. Lots of reviews of individual boards, but no comparisons, and I have been out of the loop too long to make sense of just stats.

I want to use voice recognition, gps, and perhaps play DVD’s in the car. & get something that can handle that kind of load.

cproaudio · 01-26-2003, 04:48 AM

If you want a truely fast yet small mobo then go with the Shuttle SB51G barebone setup. The board itself is about 2 inches longer than the mini ITX yet supports the latest Pentium4 3.06 with Hyper-Threading.
http://www.shuttleonline.com/specs2.asp?pro_id=85
Another small board is the FV25 which is less than an inch longer than the mini ITX. It supports the P-III Tualatin CPU up to 1.4Ghz.
http://www.spacewalker.com/english/m...asp?number=162
Fastest production MiniITX board would brobably the M 9000 Via C3 900Mhz.

magnetik · 01-26-2003, 07:58 AM

what presentation application needs MS-SQL? or is this some custom thingy?

having used MS-SQL extensively for several years in my line of work I can tell you that RAM is your biggest need, not raw processing power. that database is only gonna be serving data to a single use (itself) so CPU grunt aint vital.

having said that, the EPIA 800/900's should both be fine IMHO, just give it 256/512MB of RAM for the task.

personally im getting away from the MS side of things for web applications development nowadays, launching a big corporate site on the 1st Feb which I have developed ground up in PHP/mySQL all the way.

MS-SQL 2000 was wayyy too much trubble for me... even tho you miss out on transaction support (until mySQL 4.0)

CA 3000GT · 01-27-2003, 02:04 PM

The presentation is just a demo of some software Im going to write up for foodservice data management for this nonprofit senior center in this area. Im going to need a few computers to demo it, because its has a client and server componenets, and I want to show it with an actual client and server machine.

What you are saying is true, I dont really have to push a large amount of data... on the other hand. hmmmm, whats the best way to say it...
xp is a bulky piece of software.
Sql server is a bulky piece of software
I want this demo to be fairly snappy, and I really dont want to change the software Im using at this point.

Those points in mind, I know that the ITX cpu's are somewhat.. hmmm... optimized for some tasks, and I worry that the low-on-chip-cashe, dvd optimized board is going to choke on sql & xp.