Nettop and Mini-ITX Buyer’s Guide
by Zach Throckmorton on April 22, 2011 2:00 PM ESTAMD Upgraded HTPC Nettop
| AMD Upgraded HTPC Nettop | ||
| Component | Product Name | Price |
| CPU + Mobo | ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe (AMD E-350) | $204 |
| Memory | Patriot 4GB (2x2GB) PSD34G1333K | $40 |
| Case + PSU | Lian Li PC-Q09B + 110W PSU | $150 |
| Storage | Samsung SpinPoint MT2 HM100UI 1TB 5400RPM | $94 |
| Optical Drive | Sony Optiarc BC-5500H-01 BR-ROM/DVD-ROM | $90 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit | $100 |
| Extra Software | CyberLink PowerDVD 11 Ultra | $100 |
| Total Price | $778 | |
Our final nettop build is the AMD HTPC setup, which adds quite a few extra features into the mix. We’ve also upgraded the case to a more expensive option, so you can easily skip that if you prefer to keep costs down. Starting with the motherboard and APU, once again we’re using the AMD E-350, but this time we’ve selected the ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe. This is the most feature-rich Zacate mini-ITX board currently available. 
It features USB3 ports, an eSATA port, onboard wireless-N networking, DVI and HDMI ports, and an S/PDIF out jack. It’s also passively cooled by a massive heatsink, so it generates no fan noise. Unfortunately, all those extra features bump the price of the motherboard + APU up to $204, nearly $100 more than the ASRock E-350 board! We’ve used the same 4GB memory kit as the Intel system on the previous page, though E-350 is fast enough that the extra memory might prove more useful.
The case is another area where we’ve spent a large chunk of the budget. Lian Li builds beautiful cases, and the PC-Q09B is no exception. It’s well built and durable, but it’s also quite expensive. This specific case is attractive because it includes an external power brick, excellent ventilation, an anti-vibration kit for the hard drive, and comes with a slim optical drive adapter if you want to include a slim optical drive. We’ll be using a Blu-ray drive, so that’s a nice extra. Unlike the Antec cases, the Lian Li only supports a single 2.5” storage drive.
Since we’re building an HTPC, capacity wins out over performance this time, and we’ve selected the Samsung SpinPoint MT2 1TB drive. You can rip and save hundreds of hours of video to the drive, and this AMD solution has more than sufficient muscle to play all of your HD videos smoothly, so why not? Note that this is a non-standard 2.5” disk that’s 12.5mm thick, so it won’t fit in many laptops, but it works fine in mini-ITX cases. It was on sale at Newegg for just $80 a couple weeks ago, but now the cheapest price we can find is $94. If you’re willing to sacrifice capacity for speed, the largest 7200RPM 2.5” hard drives weigh in at 750GB, and you can currently find the Seagate ST9750420AS on sale for $90. Rounding out the package, we’ve again got the Sony BD-ROM and CyberLink PowerDVD Ultra adding $190 to the total cost.
This is obviously not a nettop designed around keeping costs down, but it’s more a statement of style and added features. At a total price of $778, many of you are probably already laughing, but keep in mind all the features you’re getting. This system provides plenty of storage and near-silent operation, two key elements of a good HTPC. If you want to go with the same case and components as the ION setup, you can get the cost down to $674, or you can skip WiFi and USB3 and just use the ASRock E-350 board. Then you’re looking at $580, or $390 without Blu-ray support—except we’ve already covered that option.
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codedivine - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
Great article. I also hope that AT will cover even more mini-itx and small form factor stuff in the future. I have been looking at compact gaming builds (which is different from the HTPC focus of this article) and reliable info is a little hard to gather on the topic.Mr Perfect - Saturday, April 23, 2011 - link
I second the SFF gaming rigs. Almost every publication(not pointing fingers at AT here, this is across the board) have two classifications of users: gamers with a 50 pound full size ATX boat anchor, and light workload people with SFF Atom machines. There are plenty of people out there cramming i5s and i7s into DTX cases along with high end graphics cards, but they're only represented in forums.ggolemg - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
Bought the MSI E350IA-E45 AMD Fusion ITX Motherboard, paired it with a mechanical 7200 rpm hdd, 8GB patriot 1333 ddr3 ram, great little setup if you do *not* want to be able to view 720p streaming video. It is just absolutely worthless as a streaming HTPC for web video. Went so far as to move chrome/firefox's cache to ram to try and improve speed. Hulu is just ok, still stutters here and there, any other streaming sites are just about worthless at greater than 480p.My whole setup was ~$450 of wasted cash.
Maybe I can overdo the cooling and overclock, that would be about the only way this could ever be used for what I want.
metaltoiletry - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
I was scared of that happening when I built my HTPC a little over a year ago or so. After reading reviews I went for overkill.Zotac mini-ITX w/ wifi 9300 (integrated Nvidia 9300)
4gb of DDR2
Intel Q8200 with a Cooler Master Gemini (ii? I think and replaced the fan with a slim 120mm - otherwise it wouldn't fit in the case.)
Silverstone Sugo (included efficient 300w PSU - maybe it's 350 - can't remember)
Silverstone slim Bluray drive
7200rpm HDD
Everything works flawless, though, cost almost twice as much as your setup.
hnzw rui - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
Built a year ago and have had no problems with the CPU not being fast enough. Granted, issues with 24p content exists, but that doesn't really affect me since my TV doesn't support 24p.Silverstone Sugo SG-05 w/300W PSU, $100
Intel DH57JG, $120
Intel Core i3-530, $100 (MicroCenter)
Kingston 2x2GB DDR3 1333, $80 (RAM prices were still high back then)
Scythe Big Shuriken, $35
Western Digital WD10EADS, $70
TOTAL: $505
No optical drive, though. I stream everything from the media server or the internet (Hulu, Netflix, etc). If SSD's were cheaper back then, I'd have used one for this build.
Gigantopithecus - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
How bizarre! All of the E-350 systems I've built handle 720p video via YouTube and Hulu full screened with aplomb; YouTube 1080p full screened also works smoothly. Hell even the Atom 525 with GMA3150 is sufficient for streaming 720p. I'd strongly recommend looking into driver-related issues - as well as which version of Flash you're using (update to 10.2). Good luck!qhoa1385 - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
weird, my set up can handle 1080p no problemmy GIGABYTE GA-E350N-USB3 with 4GB 1333 Ram, 5400 drive can handle any 1080p i throw at it
I'd say probably driver issues
iuqiddis - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
As the folks before me have mentioned, you might have a driver problem. I have a lenovo x120e with AMD E-350, and it streams youtube 1080p and 720p perfectly.ET - Saturday, April 23, 2011 - link
The E-350 should be powerful enough for what you need. It's a matter of drivers and software. I've seen people report problems on E-350 and C-50 laptops and that were solved with updates and setting changes. Enough people are playing videos well on an E-350 that I see no reason why you shouldn't. Go to a good forum and ask for help.karhill - Monday, April 25, 2011 - link
I've got that MSI E350 Zacate board in a Windows 7 64bit ITX machine (2GB ram) and it runs Hulu 480p just fine. It runs 720p youtube flash content without issues. It runs netflix content just fine. It runs 1080p youtube content 95% fine (an occassional stutter in high-activity scenes).