I've got some money burning a hole in the pocket, and I"m rather tired of my current desktop machine - it was state-of-the-art in 1996 but doesn't cut the mustard these days. And the huge (23" deep) server case is aggravating me more and more. I want to build a Sandy Bridge machine, almost certainly a 2500/2500K machine.
I don't need high-speed graphics; the inbuilt on Sandy Bridge is fine for my needs. Consequently, with zero add-on cards, a mini-ITX machine is almost a gimme.
I've just built an MITX H61 machine as a gift for a friend, with an Asus P8H61-I board; with the 2100T CPU it's wonderful - I've never gotten it above 46 watts of current draw, it's quiet (Antec 300-65 case), tiny and unobtrusive. i could live with it but want to move just a little higher on the power curve; you all know how it goes.
So the problem is: the possibilities are so confusing as to ask for some advice here.
I'd love to have a Z68 box, but nobody seems to be in a hurry to release MITX motherboards. It looks like Zotac will be first, but I'm not sure I trust them based on the early reviews and general scuttlebutt. I'd rather keep with a top-tier manufacturer and have had really great luck with Asus over the years.
So that leaves me with H61 or H67, and I'm leaning toward the latter so I can throw in a Sata III drive. Asus has two MITX H67 boards, and the only one marketed in the United States appears to be the fancier "Deluxe" model. Well, that has a lot of stuff I don't need (bluetooth, Wifi) and as a crowding consequence forces one to use laptop memory. The non-deluxe one uses standard 240 pin DIMMs, has far more connectivity than I need, and looks like a winner. But I can't find it here. Googling seems to find it in various obscure places in the world - enough so to make me uncomfortable purchasing it halfway around the world. Similarly, ASrock seems to have a couple of equivalent H67 boards, but the only one that seems to be available here or even reviewed is the fancier Home Theater (HT) model, again with stuff that is of no use to me. And user reviews are mixed.
What would YOU do if you wanted a new machine now but the combination of things that you prefer simply doesn't exist yet and isn't likely to for - at least - quite a few months?
Art
I don't need high-speed graphics; the inbuilt on Sandy Bridge is fine for my needs. Consequently, with zero add-on cards, a mini-ITX machine is almost a gimme.
I've just built an MITX H61 machine as a gift for a friend, with an Asus P8H61-I board; with the 2100T CPU it's wonderful - I've never gotten it above 46 watts of current draw, it's quiet (Antec 300-65 case), tiny and unobtrusive. i could live with it but want to move just a little higher on the power curve; you all know how it goes.
So the problem is: the possibilities are so confusing as to ask for some advice here.
I'd love to have a Z68 box, but nobody seems to be in a hurry to release MITX motherboards. It looks like Zotac will be first, but I'm not sure I trust them based on the early reviews and general scuttlebutt. I'd rather keep with a top-tier manufacturer and have had really great luck with Asus over the years.
So that leaves me with H61 or H67, and I'm leaning toward the latter so I can throw in a Sata III drive. Asus has two MITX H67 boards, and the only one marketed in the United States appears to be the fancier "Deluxe" model. Well, that has a lot of stuff I don't need (bluetooth, Wifi) and as a crowding consequence forces one to use laptop memory. The non-deluxe one uses standard 240 pin DIMMs, has far more connectivity than I need, and looks like a winner. But I can't find it here. Googling seems to find it in various obscure places in the world - enough so to make me uncomfortable purchasing it halfway around the world. Similarly, ASrock seems to have a couple of equivalent H67 boards, but the only one that seems to be available here or even reviewed is the fancier Home Theater (HT) model, again with stuff that is of no use to me. And user reviews are mixed.
What would YOU do if you wanted a new machine now but the combination of things that you prefer simply doesn't exist yet and isn't likely to for - at least - quite a few months?
Art
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