Introduction

It's a clear trend: computers are getting smaller and, fortunately, lower in energy cost. For those who want to assemble a small PC themselves, there is the world of Mini-ITX. These motherboards are only 7x7 inches and very low on energy cost. And as it seems, in some cases you don't even have to give up on speed and possibilities...

At the end of the 90's, processor- and chipset-fabricator VIA took over two small processor fabricators: Cyrix, and IDT Centaur. At the beginning of 2001 VIA introduced, based on IDT-technology, the VIA C3 processor. Even though VIA was not big at all in the processor-market, that single processor had one big advantage. At that time, VIA was the only one that had a low-energy cost at the top of their agenda, and as a result the C3 was using way less power than the Pentiums and Athlons that were all over the market. And because the processors weren't even getting close to the competition on processor performance, VIA decided to focus entirely on the niche market of small, low-energy PC's. The at that time existing standard motherboard sizes, ATX and Micro-ATX, were not suitable to assemble very small computers. A Micro-ATX board measured 9.5x9.5 inches and so the housing is relatively big too. To widen the market of small computers, VIA introduced in March 2001 at the same time as the VIA C3 processor, the ITX formfactor. ITX boards looked much like ATX, but were only 8.4x7.5 inches, and with that, a bit smaller already.

There was no talk of a real success: in the market of normal computers, the ITX was barely noticed and VIA was making its few good deals at the industrial market. A major reproach towards ITX was that motherboards were indeed smaller, but the difference with Micro-ATX was that small, that fabricators of housings and motherboards saw too little market to consider getting seriously involved with ITX. For that reason, VIA introduced in 2002 an even smaller variant to the market: Mini-ITX.

Measuring 17x17 centimeter a Mini-ITX board (right) is a lot smaller than a Micro-ATX board (left).

Mini-ITX

Mini-ITX motherboards measure only 7x7 inches en thus is much smaller than micro ATX products. Although it's been the standard for about 4 years on the market, the format is not actually a real success. Nevertheless, ITX managed to make some success, primarily in the industrial market. Now that small pc's are totally in fashion and people become more aware of the energy used by computers, the mini-ITX popularity is growing by computer enthusiasts. There are after all enough possibilities that come to mind where there is an advantage for small and low-energy pc's. Think of a small and quiet fileserver you can put somewhere in your house, a low-energy download computer or a stylish Media Center machine.

Until recently there was always the issue of low performance of the VIA processors. Even de newest VIA C7 was, performance-wise, laughable. For some users that was of low importance - like the 24/7 download machine we mentioned - but for a lot of different options, a little up-to-date performance would be just great. Fortunately, a number of Motherboard fabricators now have Mini-ITX boards suitable for use with Intel and AMD processors. Even for the most recent Intel Core 2 Duo there are ITX-solutions. Aside of that, more and more Mini-ITX cases are becoming available

Mini-ITX allow you to build a super small, silent and energy efficient PC'.

Small, smaller, smallest

Mini-ITX is not even the smallest sized motherboards available. VIA also has developed the Nano-ITX standard. These motherboards measure only 4.7x4.7 inches. This size is used very infrequently, but in some situations can come in very handy. Because of the limited size, Nano-ITX boards have a clear lower functionality than Mini-ITX and for example, the standard use of DIMM-modules is not possible.

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It comes with everything on it

Mini-ITX motherboards of course come in a very small case and for that reason, you will have to limit the number of expansion-cards to the minimum. De various kinds of boards all come with a lot of integrated functionality. All platforms we take under our hands have integrated video options. Stuff like LAN and USB 2.0 off course never are off the board and even Firewire is a possibility in many cases. Some fabricators are taking it a step further: there are Mini-ITX boards with dual LAN - can come in handy when you want to configure a server with routing possibilities - and a TV-OUT is not that infrequent. For expansion-options, the small motherboards are more limited than ATX: usually there is only one PCI or PCI-express expansion slot onboard. Even so, various ITX-fabricators offer other possibilities to make it possible to expand: for example the Commell-board has two mini-PCI slots and Jetway has its own system with expansion modules.

Powerconsumption

One of the most important aspects is and will be the energy usage. In a recent article on this site you could read that the average energy usage of today's PC has gone out of control. An average PC that is on but is not being used uses 124 Watt and at its full capacity about 180 Watt. For example if a computer would use an average of 150 Watt and you would let it in for a whole year for 24 hours a day, it would cost you about 130 pounds. When you're building a server or download computer the low energy use of ITX would be very welcome, even put aside the very limited size. The ITX system with the highest energy usage uses about 95,1 Watt in full use. Less demanding ITX systems are not topping 55 Watt at full load and about 40 to 45 Watt when idle. That is more than just a little difference!

Jetway J7F2WE1G2E / 7F2WE1G5D

As mentioned before, VIA is the creator of the Mini ITX standard and as a result it's not that surprising that there are plenty of such boards using a VIA-processor. The Jetway J72WE1G2E and 7F2WE1G5D boards are almost identical, the main difference being that the first one has a VIA C7 at 1.2 GHz on board and the second one has the processor at 1.5 GHz. Because of the higher clock-frequency, there is a ventilator on the second board, while the 1.2 GHZ variant can do its work completely passively cooled.

Jetway J7F2WE1G2E with VIA C7 1.2 GHz

To touch on to the C7 processor shortly: speed is not in any way what these processors represent! With a PCMark05 CPU score of 747 and 929 points it's clear that there is not to be much expected, performance-wise. For comparison: a simple AMD Sempron 3200+ scores over 2500 CPU-points, an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 takes that to 6134 points. The aspect at which the VIA processors come forward as a winner, are the low energy-usages: a fully loaded ITX system - including memory harddisk and DVD-drive - based on a 1.2 GHz board uses only 46.6 Watt. Idle, the usage is not higher than 40 Watt. The 1.5 GHz variant takes up only 53.6 Watt. Lower usage you won't find anywhere. The boards are especially useful for applications that have little use of Hardcore performance, but where a system has to get through a 24-hour day as cheap as possible. You do not want to build a Media Center based on this board, but a little storage server would certainly be suitable.

Jetway 7F2WE1G5D with VIA C7 1.5 GHz

The boards use a VIA CN700 chipset with integrated S3 graphics. Don't get anything big in mind: great for texting and 2D views in Windows, but that's about it. There is room for one DDR2-533 memory module and you can connect two SATA harddisks. Standard equipment also has a 100Mbit LAN, 5.1-chanel sound, Firewire and a TV-OUT.

Expanding can be done using a standard PCI-card, but Jetway also offers various daughtercards that can be build on the motherboard as an add-on module. One of these modules Jetway offers expands the board with three extra Gigabit LAN connections, making the total number of network ports on four. Especially that last one creates possibilities: this way, network experts can with for example Linux configure a fully flexible intelligent multiport router.

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Jetway offers add-on modules for their Mini-ITX boards. On the left a module with three extra Gigabit LAN connections, on the right a module with PC Card and CF slot.

Jetway 7FE-PB

Not only VIA is in the market for extremely economical processor, AMD also takes its share of the treasure. For this market, AMD has the so-called Geode processors, of which we find the type with number NX 1750 on the by us tested Jetway 7FE-PB motherboard. Geode NX sounds rather domestic, but fortunately not too much: in fact these processors are just good-old Athlon XP processors, but fine-tuned for an a low energy usage. The Geode NX 1750 is practically identical to the Athlon XP-M 1600+ LP and works at 1.4 GHz with a 266 MHz front side bus. The processor has a maximum energy-usage of only 25Watt and AMD claims that in practical use it only uses an average of 14 Watt. That is because the processor uses PowerNow! technology, that takes the clock-frequency down to 800 MHz when the processor is not intensively used. The performance is, compared to the VIA C7, very good. If you have experienced Athlon XP in the past, you know about as much as you can expect.

The AMD Geode NX processor on Jetway's 7FE-PB board is nothing but an energy efficient Athlon XP.

The Jetway board uses a chipset from SiS. The 741CX north bridge offers for one compatability for DDR333 memory and has an integrated graphics card. Just like with VIA, don't imagine too much of it: for 2D Windows or Linux screens it works fine, but good 3D and video capabilities are off the table. The Jetway board thus is primarily meant for industrial application, energy-economical servers and compact office machines. This is not the place to be for Multimedia application. The SiS 964 south bridge offer the board with, among others, two SATA connections, a normal IDE connector and USB 2.0. Jetway also hosts a Firewire-chip and a Realtek 100 Mbit LAN-controller on the board.

The expansion possibilities are the same as the before mentioned VIA-boards: you can put a PCI-card in to place, but you can also use Jetways special add-on modules. Do you see possibilities for it, but is the VIA C7 too low in performance, this would be a good solution.

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Albatron KI51PV-754

We came across the Albatron KI51PV-754 motherboard for the first time on the CeBIT last march. The designers of Albatron succeeded in making a Mini-ITX motherboard suitable for the AMD socket 754 processors. Because of this, a variety of Sempron and Athlon 64 processors from the previous generation are suitable for the board, but also AMD's mobile processors. We do not need to tell anybody that the performance of a Sempron or Athlon 64 is way higher than the performance of a VIA C7. This meaning that a motherboard like this offers a wider range of possibilities

Het Socket 754 Mini-ITX bord van Albatron is echt overcompleet.

The basis of the board is nVidia's GeForce 6150 chipset with integrated graphics. The possibilities and performance of this chipset are good. The wide variety of video possibilities and the fine support of DirectX 9 make this motherboard into an ideal base for a small Media Center PC. Albatron has definitely thought of this, because aside of a normal VGA-OUT there is a DVI-connector on the back of the board. It's a shame that there is not a standard out for digital audio, but on the board there is a connection for that, so that you can implement this with an extra bracket. The same goes for the TV-out which can be activated with an extra bracket.

It's admirable that the Albatron succeeded in putting any part you can find on a normal ATX desktop motherboard, on a small Mini-ITX board. Directly next to the CPU-socket and the cooling bracket, which take in most of the space on the board, we find the GeForce 6150 north bridge and nVidia nForce 430 south bridge, both hid under one cooler. The board offers space to one DDR400 memory module. For the fact that Socket 754 processors do not have a dual-channel memory controller, few will miss a second memory slot. On the other side we find a single PCI-slot, in which you can place for example a TV-card in the case of a Media Center PC. For connecting drives, all possibilities of the nForce 430 chip are utilized; side to side we find 2 times parallel ATA en a stunning four Serial ATA. For the power source there is a standard 24-pins ATX connector on top of the board.

To get full functionality, Albatron not only uses the top side, but also placed chips on the down side of the board. On the bottom first we find a Winbond I/O chip, but also two Marvell chips that both control to Gigabit network connections. One of these is serving as physical layer chip for the network controller in the nForce 430 chip, the other one is connected using PCI-express

At the bottom of the board we find the two network chips

Thanks to the presence of two Gigabit LAN-connections and a whole bunch of SATA-ports, the KI51PV-754 on the one hand is the ideal base for a small and economic home server. On the other hand the board offers, thanks to the nVidia chipset, everything you need for a Media Center machine. The board however is not really cheap – 283 euro’s to be precise – but all the other parts you need can be found fairly cheap. Socket 754 processors are found starting at about 50 euro’s, a standard DDR400 memory module also is not expensive and for the possible expansion with TV possibilities you can use a normal PCI card. The ideal base for numerous Mini-ITX adventures.

But be aware: in contrast to the mentioned solutions, the combination of the Albatron board and a AMD Sempron or Athlon 64 processor are not optimized for a low energy usage. We tested it in combination with a Sempron 3400+, 512 MB DDR400 memory, a Hitachi 500 GB SATA harddisk and a 16x DVD-burner. Stressed, the system uses about 95.1 Watt, that’s almost twice as much as the VIA C7 based Mini-ITX boards. Idle, the usage was 62.7 Watt. The performance on the other side is a lot better: a PCMark05 CPU-score of 2839 points means over 3 times faster than the fastest C7 system.

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Commell LV-677

Albatron proves that there are enough possibilities to make a capable system based on Mini ITX. But we can make even that faster: the Commell LV-667 board has a socket 479 processor foot and offers room to an Intel Pentium M, Intel Core Duo or Intel Core 2 Duo. From the last one however only the mobile variety is supported. With a Core 2 Duo like that, you can build an extremely fast system that still has the limited size of ITX.

The Commell LV-677 offers the possibility to use an Intel Core 2 Duo in your Mini ITX system.

The board uses an Intel 945GM chipset in combination with an Intel ICH7M south bridge. This 945G chip has an integrated graphics card that might not be fast enough for 3D gaming, but may be suitable for all other thinkable applications, being for example Microsoft XP Media Center.

The board has room for two DDR2-667 modules and there are two SATA-connectors present for hard disks. Surprising enough this board does not use a standard ATX adapter, but comes with an external adapter that can be connected to a port on the back. There is no need for room for that in the computer! On the board there is a power connection that can be used to power harddisks or optical drives.

On the backside we find, among others, connections for USB, Firewire, Gigabit LAN, 5.1-channel sound, VGA, a TV-OUT and a digital audio port. The space for expansions can be filled up with one PCI-Express x16 slot, suitable for or a graphics card, or another expansion like for example a TV-card. Besides that, the board has two connectors for Mini-PCI cards like we know them from laptops. In this we could put a WLAN-card or a TV-card. The ITX-casing you use must offer you the option of connecting an antenna.

Unique about this board is that it offers the possibility to place a compactflash card as storage. The slot for this we find at the bottom of the board. Hence, you could create a system with no hard disk, to further economize and make the machine even more silent or to limit the chances of a system crash to the minimum.

The Commell has a CompactFlash slot as standard.

We configured the board with a Core 2 Duo T7400 (2.16 GHz), 1 GB DDR2-667 memory and a Hitachi 500 GB SATA2 harddisk. It does not come as a surprise that this configuration surpassed all the previous ones in our standard benchmarks. On all fronts, the system was a lot faster and its performance is comparable to a full-grown desktop PC. However, the power usage is very low: fully-loaded 55.4 Watt and when idle only about 40.5 Watt. That is just barely higher than the usage of the VIA C7 and way lower than the usage of an average desktop PC.

This board is clearly suitable for a lot of goals. An important one we already mentioned: expanded with an PCI-Express or Mini-PCI TV-card is the ideal base of a Media Center machine. But thanks to the fine performance you could build a good all-round multimedia PC based on this board anyway

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Motheboard overview

This table shows the specifications of all the motherboards tested :

Brand	Jetway	Jetway	Jetway	Albatron	Commel
Type	J7F2WE1G2E	J7F2WE1G5D	J7F3E-PB	KI51PV-754	LV-677
Supported processor(s)	VIA C7	VIA C7	AMD Geode NX	AMD Sempron / Athlon 64 / Turion 64	Intel Pentium M / Core (2) Duo
CPU socket	n.v.t.	n.v.t.	Socket 462	Socket 754	Socket 479
Bundled processor	VIA C7 1.2 GHz	VIA C7 1.5 GHz	AMD Geode NX 1750	-	-
Chipset	VIA CN700	VIA CN700	SIS 741CX	nVidia GeForce 6150	Intel 945GM
Memory	1x DDR2-533	1x DDR2-533	1x DDR333	1x DDR400	2x DDR2667
D-Sub (VGA) uitgang	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
DVI	-	-	-	Yes	-
TV out	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	Yes
PCI-Express x16 slots	-	-	-	-	1
PCI-slots	1	1	1	1	-
Firewire	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	Yes
S/PDIF	-	-	-	Yes	Yes
Network	100 Mbit/s	100 Mbit/s	100 Mbit/s	Gigabit + 100 Mbit/s	Gigabit
Parallel ATA connections	2	2	1	2	1
Serial ATA connections	2	2	2	4	2
PSU	ATX	ATX	ATX	ATX	adapter
Extra's	Jetway add-on modules	Jetway add-on modules	Jetway add-on modules	-	Compact Flash slot
RRP	€ 178	€ 140	€ 202	€ 283	€ 319

The next table shows the benchmark results of the tested motherboards.

Processor	VIA C7 1.2 GHz	VIA C7 1.5 GHz	AMD Sempron 3400+	Intel Core 2 Duo T7400
Mainboard	Jetway J7F2WE1G2E	Jetway J7F2WE1G5D	Albatron KI51PV-754	Commell LV-677
Geheugen	512 MB DDR2-533	512 MB DDR2-533	512 MB DDR-400	1 GB DDR2-667
Hard disk	Hitachi 500 GB SATA	Hitachi 500 GB SATA	Hitachi 500 GB SATA	Hitachi 500 GB SATA
Graphics card	on board	on board	on board	on board
PCMark05 - System	-	-	2476	2938
PCMark05 - CPU	747	929	2893	3925
PCMark05 - Memory	799	891	2717	4154
PCMark05 - Graphics	-	-	995	912
PCMark05 - HDD	6043	6047	6160	6087

Cases

There are different kinds of cases for the Mini-ITX on the market, and we took 5 of them under our hands. The cases all differ in equipment and possibilities, but they all have the limited size in common.

Procase Noah

The Procase Noah is a stylish Mini-ITX casing that measures only 7.8x10.1x3.9 inches. The case has an aluminum front panel that looks tight. Internally there is room for the ITX-board, a 3.5" or 2.5" hard disk and a notebook optical drive. The case has an integrated 80 Watt feed and on the side, a silent 8 cm case fan. Behind the flap on the front side we find an USB, Firewire and audio-connection. By using a riser-card you can place one full-height PCI of PCI-Express card.

Emko EM-151

Emko EM-142

Emko EM-161

The smallest Mini-ITX case is the Emko EM-151: the small case is not even 2.5 inches high and offers room to a Mini-ITX board and a 2.5 inch hard disk. There is no room for an optical drive, but there is an 80 Watt PSU onboard. The case is clearly meant for industrial or server applications. The absent optical drive is not an issue in such a situation. If you do want an optical drive, Emko has another solution: the EM-142. It is a little higher, has a bigger PSU (120 Watt), offers space for a Notebook drive, one 3.5" or two 2.5" harddisks and with the use of a riser you can connect two expansion cards or brackets. For decency there is no room for haggling: the products are clearly meant for industrial use. The same goes for the Emko EM-161, a casing which fits in a 19" rack. Standard you will get an ITX board, a 2.5" or 3.5" feed and one PCI-card or bracket. This case also has a 120 Watt PSU.

Nexus Psile

Definitely the most stylish ITX-case is the Psile by Nexus. This case is developed for use in the living room and is the ideal choice when you want to assemble an ITX-based Media Center system. Because the Psile does not include a PSU, the case is highly compatible with the Commell Core 2 Duo ITX-board that uses its own adapter. The Psile is available in two color combinations: a silver front panel with white, or completely black. In some places, you can buy a special edition Psile with a different design. Everybody has different taste, but the Psile is definitely stylish! In the bottom of the casing there is a standard a DVD-burner built in. In the top there is room for an ITX-board, a PCI- or PCI-Express-Expansion card and a 3.5" hard disk. The case also offers options for implementing antenna-connections for Mini-PC-, TV- and WLAN-cards. To make the machine as silent as possible, Nexus has insulated the casing with sound dampening material on the inside. Nexus also offers a passive Socket 479 CPU-cooler, again very suitable to be used in combination with the Commell board.

Cases overview

The table below shows the specifications of the cases we tested.

Brand	Procase	Emko	Emko	Emko	Nexus
Type	Noah	EM-151	EM-161	EM-142	Psile
Width	20,2 cm	19,5 cm	43,6 cm	18,6 cm	22,5 cm
Depth	28,0 cm	26,6 cm	22,3 cm	27,0 cm	22,5 cm
Hight	10,0 cm	5,5 cm	4,5 cm	11,3 cm	18,5 cm
Slimline optiscal drive	Yes	-	-	Yes	Yes
3,5" harddisks	1	-	1	1	1
2,5" harddisks	1	1	1	2	-
PSU	80 Watt	80 Watt	120 Watt	120 Watt	-
Front connections - Audio	Yes	-	-	-	-
Front connections - USB	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	-
Front connections - Firewire	Yes	-	-	-	-
Fans (number of)	1	-	2	1	-
Expansion slots (total)	1	-	1	2	1

Usefull extra's

When you want to start assembling an ITX-system you will soon find out that you will need parts that you wouldn't immediately think of. A difficult point for instance is the optical drive: like we said before, none of the casings offer room for a normal DVD-burner like you will find in standard PC's. In all cases you will need to use notebook drives. In such case it is advisable to choose for a slot-in drive, because most of the normal notebook optical drives are too weak, having a tray that can result in less stability and convenience. For example you can use the known slot-in drive: Lite-On SLW-831S, which we can find for about 75 euro's.

A Mini-ITX system forces you to use a notebook optical drive.

For this who do not want to use a hard disk in industrial application - for example to further reduce energy usage, to reduce the risk of a system crash or to make a total noise-proof system - can use a flash hard disk. Various manufacturers have models you can put directly into an IDE-connector. The capacity however is usually a lot lower and an application like this might only be interesting for example when you are using a very limited Linux client.

Those who want to use the Commell board with Mini-PCI cards, will have to look for similar expansions. Mini-PCI WLAN-cards are easy to get your hands on, but it takes some time to find one that delivers an antenna directly with it. Commell self has one of those for sale at about 48 euro's. An easy obtainable type Mini-PCI TV-card is the Yuan MPC622 with build in MPEG encoder. This card is about 81 euro's..

Mini-PCI cards are intended for note book use, but do come in handy when builden a Mini ITX system.

Example configurations

For a small and energy efficient Mini-ITX system you will find many applications. Two of those are a stylish Media Center machine and a small and economic download computer. For both types of systems we've put together a shopping list based on the products ireviewed in this article. The total price excludes software and peripherals.

Stylish Mini-ITX Media Center PC

Nexus Psile case incl. DVD-drive - € 285
Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 - € 290
1 GB DDR2-667 memory - € 120
320 GB SATA hard disk - € 105
Commell LV-677 mainboard - € 319
Yuan MPC662 Mini-PCI TV-card - € 81
Nexus PSM-5000 CPU-cooler - € 22
Commell 120W external adapter - € 57
Total: € 1.279

Energy efficient download PC

Jetway VIA C7 1.5 GHz Mini-ITX - € 140
512 MB DDR400 memory - € 50
320 GB SATA hard disk - € 105
Procase Noah case incl. PSU - € 106
Totaal: € 401

It's pretty obvious; a small, simple ITX system doesn't have to be expensive at all. For about 400 euro's you have everything to assemble an energy efficient or download PC. But if you want to make a small high end multimedia PC, you will have to fork out a lot more cash, mainly due to the use of the exotic extra parts. 1300 euro's, excl. software and peripherals is not cheap for a Media Center machine!

Conclusion

For a lot of different users the Mini-ITX standard will offer good possibilities: from a stylish Media Center to a super efficient download computer, everything is possible. You will have to make some concessions: not only for options, but also for performance and for extra costs. In this article we mentioned a wide range of Mini-ITX motherboards, cases and extras. Because all these systems are meant for different users, it is hard to make any final judgements. The VIA C7 boards are especially suitable for simple download computers, but are absolutely not suitable for intensive use. The Commell Core 2 Duo platform offers enough power for about every application, but comes at a high price. Jetways AMD Geode NX boards can come in handy especially because of its usefull expansion modules and will make its way to various industrial applications. The Albatron board is primarily suitable if you want to assemble a very small all-in-one work machine with a relatively limited budget.

We extend our thanks to...

The products in this test have all been supplied by distributor JPF Computing, www.jpfcomputing.nl