NVIDIA Ion mini-ITX System Build Guide

DIY NVIDIA Ion mini-ITX Build

Building a mini-ITX computer system is a popular topic these days and for good reason. The form factor is very small, a wide selection of platforms is available, and the component pricing is fairly decent. This build guide will quickly go through the steps of building a mini-ITX build from out of the box to completion. Once the build is completed, I will install Windows 7 RTM and run a slew of benchmarks to see how the system performs doing some tasks that you might actually do with a mini-ITX system.  The goal of this article is to show how to build a mini-ITX HTPC system capable of playing Blu-Rays for under $600 in hardware.  Can it be done?  Easily!

Image taken from Legit Reviews

The Mini-ITX System Build Parts List:

• ASUS AT3N7A-I Motherboard
• Western Digital Scorpio Black 250GB 7200 RPM HDD WD2500BEKT
• Kingston 2GB DDR2 800MHz ValueRam KVR800D2N5K2/2G
• Panasonic UJ-135-A SATA Slimline Slot-Loading Blu-ray Player
• Travla Mini-ITX Case C287

Before the operating system and software, which isn't that bad for what this system will be capable of doing. Once it is built and loaded up with Windows 7 RTM 64-bit for a trial run, it should be a fairly beefy system thanks to the dual-core Intel Atom Processor 330 (1M Cache, 1.60GHz, 533MHz FSB) and the NVIDIA Ion GPU.

Image taken from Legit Reviews

Many people might not understand just how small mini-ITX systems are, so here is the system that I will be showing you how to build sitting next to an early 1990's IBM 70MB ESDI hard drive. The mini-ITX system is actually just slightly larger when it comes to length and width, but is not as tall as the 70MB hard drive. The fact that the mini-ITX system on the left is loaded with a 250GB hard drive, motherboard, processor, 2GB of memory and a Blu-Ray player and is roughly the same size as hard drive from just a couple decades ago just goes to show how quickly computer components have advanced and shrunk in size.

Image taken from Legit Reviews

The Travla Mini-ITX Case C287 also dwarfs my current HTPC that was built using the Moneual LAB Black Aluminum 972B ATX media center case. The new mini-ITX system will basically cost as much as my chassis did from a couple years ago. Other than a massive space savings, this system should also use much less power.  My current HTPC uses an AMD 690G platform with a Radeon HD 4830 graphics card and consumes ~110W at idle.  The new build that I am reviewing today should idle under 25W, which is nearly an 80% reduction in power consumption.