What motherboard size for my car PC

[Josho]

Going through all the ideas on this one.

I can easilly get hold of a Dell laptop, 1.6GHz 512MB RAM (up it to 1GB).

Or I could just buy a Micro-ATX which is a common board and parts are readilly available.

Then I saw on eBay a few brilliant little Mini-ITX boards.

They are more expensive for good ones, Here's an Asus one. That comes with no RAM or CPU but it does have room for AMD's AM2 processors and DDR2 RAM. So that would mean I could put a Dual-Core AMD in it if I wished. AMDs also run slightly cooler I believe.

There is also the top end ones, like this.

Now this is a brilliant little board. Intel's 775 processors fit straight in that. Duo Core, Exreme no problems. It says passive cooling, but I'm sure it'll need a CPU cooler.

That can have up to 8GB RAM too. HDMI out and a decent graphics chip in that.


Now obviously that is more expensive, but if I save (if I can ) then I can get that, and it can go in the boot probably and I'll have an excellent little PC for the car.

That has WiFi, so with a decent enough antena, I can use the home network to update my files. I'd have thought there would be no room in the case for hot air, and two sides of the case can just be 80mm fans and a mesh grill.

What are your thoughts?

[Dan34]

How much RAM are you planning on using, and what OS you gonna use?

Dan

[Josho]

Gonna be a stripped down version of XP.

Probably 1-2 GBs of RAM. Processor I don't know. I MAY go dual core, but it's the heat that I'm worried about. The boot space it will take up is a bit of a worry, as I want it to look like it's supposed to be there, but I can't carpet it obviosly cause of the heat.

Will be in an aluminium case fabricated by my dad so if things bump into it it holds up.

[Dan34]

ah cool its just you said earlier about one of the motherboards taking 8gb of RAM and thought you was gonna put that in lol!, 32bit XP can only take up to 4gb iirc

Dan

[Josho]

Oh, I'll be using Centrafuse and I'll be running one screen to start, then probably be putting two at the back.

I MIGHT make my own PSU for it, as it's 12v to 12v, 12v to 5v and 12v to 3.3v.

But then I think they sell a PSU designed for 12V, which if they do, I'll use.

Yes, 32bit can only handle 4GB. Might put that in. I might make it a half decent gamer, but because it is so small, it's the cooling. Maybe I'll go water cooling. LOL, I could put the radiator outside!

[Dan34]

lol yeah cooling gonna be your biggest problem i think, water cooling could be an option expensive tho!

dan

[Blazing Storm]

You may laugh, but for a car this looks a good option: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-186-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=326

Energy efficient and should run fairly cool. Comes with the CPU so not bad for £66.69 inc VAT.

[Josho]

Might be. It's the pump and rad that will cost. If I get a job soon though, I can spend my money on that.

Watercooling would be awesome, I'd have to mount one rad outside and one in the boot with fans LOL!

[Josho]

You may laugh, but for a car this looks a good option: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-186-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=326

Energy efficient and should run fairly cool. Comes with the CPU so not bad for £66.69 inc VAT.

That may be what I'll get. Plenty of power for a CarPC. I was being greedy and thinking games, LOL.

Thanks for that, that's an excellent price.

[Dan34]

that does seem pretty dam good for the money

Dan