On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 04:35, Keith Bachman <kcbnac at gmail.com> wrote: > If considering a Nettop, pay attention to the CPU & GPU in them. Many > (N270, N450) are single core but have Hyper-Threading (2 pipelines) - > some, like the D510 - are dual-core and have HT on them. > > The Intel NM10 chipset is much newer than the 945 series - and at half > the power draw. Also has a (slightly) better IGP. > > I ended up grabbing one of these: > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167041 for a > file server/shell box/backup machine. $173 shipped, add 1 or 2 sticks > of DDR2 laptop RAM and HD or two of choice. Ubuntu Server 10.04 > installed just fine, no hiccups on hardware at all. > > If you're going to be doing more graphics-heavy stuff, they now have > one with an ATI GPU: > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167042 > Another $20 for a proper GPU, if you're doing web-stuff might be worth > it. > > Adds HDMI and DVI to the VGA outputs, and a "capable" GPU. (Radeon HD > 4330 is a slightly beefier version of the HD4200 - AMD's IGP solution) > This will handle Youtube quite well, at least on Windows (Haven't > tossed Linux on my desktop yet) Also would allow dual displays. > (Generally pick two outputs, might be VGA + 1, I'm not sure) > > No Windows Tax, lets you reuse laptop RAM castoffs from other machines > (scavenged or remaining from upgrades), and whatever HD you want (or > don't - I know someone else who has the previous machine booting off a > CF or SD card - they removed the internal CF slot to add a second RAM > slot) > > My only complaint is that the 50mm fan is a little noisy when I have > it sitting out in the open, haven't found its permanent home yet. If > anyone knows of a quiet 50mm I'd be terribly interested... (I don't > hear the air movement, I hear the high-pitched whine sometimes) I haven't looked into all the different NetPC options yet. But, I've looked at the ASUS primarily because AFAIK it's fanless which is what I'm after. I hear the fans running in the current desktop PC and it's too loud IMO. Also, I'm trying to drop power consumption and reduce space. Thanks for the additional links. -- -Shawn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20100728/a9d9a1f0/attachment.htm