My Google abilities suck early this Monday morning – anyone give me a hand? I’m looking for a site that can quickly compare PC motherboards by feature – particularly built-in ethernet speed, availability of composite or s-video out on the mothboard, type of built-in-sound.
The second option is this: I can spend 20 hours researching every friggin’ motherboard manufacturer and their product line, but then it’s a time versus value equation.
Last option: anyone know of any cheapies offhand that have built-in S-Video out, 3.1 or better sound, and Gigabyte ethernet? Speed isn’t really important – anything from 1.5GHz and up is fine (okay, something that runs at the speeds of a P4 at 1.5Ghz and
This particular project is to be done on the cheap and I’d rather not add everything else separately – if the the total for the motherboard is less than a cheaper mobo plus parts, that’s fine.
All-in-all, I’d still rather have access to a comprehensive feature comparison database (GQ!) than particular recommendations (IMHO!).
Newegg, one of the most popular online hardware retailers, has a feature called Power Search that lets you winnow their stock down to what you’re interested in. Here is the power search for AMD-compatible motherboards, and here’s the same for Intel compatible motherboards.
That said, the ATX form factor and its derivatives don’t have a place near the VGA out for on-board video. I won’t say nobody is making them, but if S-Video Out on the motherboard is a requirement, you’ll be best off using that to narrow down your choices. Almost every modern motherboard supports fast ethernet on the board, and it’s hard to find a recent motherboard that doesn’t support a fast CPU. I suspect you’ll be forced into the mini-ITX form factor, where computing power is limited, and you won’t be able to choose between AMD or Intel – most mini-ITX come with a CPU that’s designed to run stable without a fan. Since most mini-ITX computers are HTPCs where processing is secondary to silence and size, you may have to choose between S-video out and the processor speed.
VGA-to-SVID adapters are cheap, however, if you’re willing to go that route.
Good links, but they don’t mention tv-out in the power searches. But… neweggs has a good selection of bare bones Shuttles – maybe I’ll just go that route. The problem is (and you seemed to have guessed) is that these are destined to be thin-client front-ends for a back-end HTPC server, meaning one per TV, and hence cheap = good. Because the back end will be the real investment, all I really need is a P.O.S. with TV out on the front-end. The Shuttles, though, while small and nifty have a really, really crappy, cube-like form factor. I’ll have to review the Mac Mini specs – if they have composite- or s-video out, then that’s really looking like the way to go for the front-end, economically speaking!
Also, it seems that since HTPC’s have become popular, all of the old fashioned, desktop form factors have now been called “HTPC” form factors, and cost 20x what a comparable tower costs. Fine for the server, but the thing’s gotta fit in with the rest of the furniture.
Interestingly I’ve seen many, many $89 mobo/processor combos, and cheapo video cards with composite out, so this may be the way to go depending on the Mac Minis.
I’ve not seen a lot of VGA-to-composite/s adapters, though – a quick (and I don’t mean to imply I’ve looked thoroughly yet) puts these things in the $100 to $500 range!
Balthisar, Do you know about Pricewatch.com? It is pretty good with listing specs in the listings and covers MANY online retailers. And the search function is cool too. Also it shows you total price including shipping. Oh, and you also get special deals coming from pricewatch.com
Yeah, I love pricewatch. The thing is, I can’t seem to search on specs anywhere, beyond the basics. All I want to be able to do is search on motherboards (or barebones) for tv-out (which is going to be s- or composite-video), but I guess that’s too hard. The point’s moot, though – I’ve been doing what I didn’t want to do and spending my night researching mobo’s instead of working on the kegerator. Of course I’ve messed myself up more, because now it turns out that one of the installations I’ve been planning on upgrading is going to have a DVI input, and I just realized that means three front ends instead of two. Damn. I’m almost thinking of just biting the bullet and not trying to do this on the cheap – but it’s TV I’m talking about. Friggin television. I’m ashamed to be putting so much time, effort, and thought into friggin’ television.
They seem to be aimed toward a cutting-edge computer user, so sometimes their reviews are a little obscure for normal users, but still a good resource to look at.
I realized that the Power Search didn’t have S-Video as an option once I postviewed. :smack: But it turns out there’s a reason. The (standard) ATX form factor doesn’t have a space on the backplate for SVID. Most micro-ATX systems don’t have this either (because they’re just smaller ATX boxes at heart).
The mini-ITX motherboards are tailor-made for your application, however: This one is billed as “ideal for set-top box applications” and will only set you back about $110 (case not included). Most of the mini-ITX boards have 10/100 ethernet, which should meet your needs. You pay dearly for the size, though; most are about 6.5" x 6.5".
Take the following with a grain of salt. I think it might be worth your while to build (or convert) a desktop machine that could be underclocked with precision. Add in a graphics card that is representative of the on-board graphics in the mini-ITX systems; you should be able to find an AGP card that matches up with their graphics abilities for under $100. Add a network card with 10/100.
With the desktop system built, you could install the thin client software package, add it to the network with the real live server box, and you would have a “client simulator” while you developed your server apps. In the meantime, the price of a mini-ITX will keep dropping (especially when the nano-ITX form factor debuts in early 2006!) and you’ll have a much more precise idea of your requirements in the processing and network realm.
Of course, if that’s too much trouble and you want to go with dirt cheap micro-ATX systems, it can be done. Contrary to what you found above, VGA-to-SVID/RCA is cheap. these guys have one for $5.49! VGA to component requires a transcoder, which can cost upwards of $100, however. VGA to DVI is also pretty easy. In each case I think you lose a wee bit of resolution, but if you install PowerStrip on the clients and tailor it to each display, you should be fine.
On a completely unrelated note I have a pair of micro-ATX motherboards with CPUs (one Duron 950MHz, one Athlon 1.2 GHz) that I’m trying to get rid of. One has integrated video, and I’ve got a few AGP cards sitting around I could ship with the other. Both take PC-133 RAM, and there’s 1GB of RAM between them. There’s a third micro-ATX board with no CPU, no RAM, but it has integrated video and LAN.
…why the heck do I have all these partial computers sitting around?
Hmmm… thanks for everyone’s suggestions. I wasn’t meaning to turn this into the AVS Forum, although I’m sure I’ll be heading there soon. For the record, I’m thinking now of going with the original XBox hacked to run Linux. There’s a perfect front end system, and I’m glad I stumbled upon it! It’s got a quickish processor, S-out, adapter for HDTV available, IR receiver available, and it looks like 100bT is sufficient and I’ll really only need megabit ethernet on the server.
