Celestia Forums

I've been looking at options for a new machine and I came across this: Zotac GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi motherboard which allows either integrated or discrete graphics (or both at the same time using SLI) in a mini-ITX form-factor.
This uses the Geforce 9300 chipset, and because it has a PCI Express x16 slot and has SLI capability it can handle for example a GeForce GTX 280 card instead of, or in-conjunction with, the integrated graphics.

What do other people think of this idea?... a very capable "Celestia" machine in a 7 inch square form factor! To give some perspective, this machine would be about 1/4 the size of the screen you are looking at right now. OR, look here: http://hothardware.com/Articles/Beyond-Atom-Exploring-Higher-Performance-ITX-Solutions/?page=2

This in my opinion would be pretty cool, even if a little limited in terms of future expansion options.

The only thing it hasn't got which I'd really miss is Firewire (IEEE 1394).

CC

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john Van Vliet wrote:the only problem i can , offhand, think of is the integrated pseudo 3d chipset

What do you mean by "pseudo 3D" John?
Whilst integrated graphics are not the best performers, this is still a genuine 3D chipset (and open-GL 2.1 capable I think), and from what I've read, this is the best performing "integrated" chipset available.
It still of course pales in comparison to a discrete graphics card like the Radeon 4850, but what appeals to me about this motherboard is that you have the choice of adding a discrete graphics card if you wish (because it crucially includes a single PCI-E slot)) eg. have a look at the first picture on THIS PAGE, which shows a Radeon 4850 installed on this Motherboard in a Silverstone case.
There's also a standard LGA775 socket which gives reasonable flexibility in CPU choice.
To quote from the first link I provided...

What we have here, then, is a something with the potential to be entirely more powerful than a mere hot econobox. With this, you could build the PC equivalent of a hot rod if you like, all while retaining the cute, compact form factor of a Honda Fit. Now that is an exciting enthusiast platform.

john Van Vliet wrote:for minor 3d rendering they are not bad but if you need some computing horse power , then they are not so good
to quote from the link you gave

This means ITX simply will not work for some builds, like very-high capacity servers or AV recording and processing machines.

John, I think this comment in the review has more to do with the limited I-O capabilities of the motherboard.
I-O bandwidth and disc-IO speed is very important if recording huge video files to hard-drives, but AV recording and processing doesn't really have anything to do with the 3D features of the graphics chip (whether it's a grunty GPU, or an integrated chipset), and I suspect what they're getting at with this comment, is the difficulty of using very fast disc solutions (eg. RAID) with this motherboard, which of course important for servers as well.

This however does not prevent it from being a high-performing 3D machine (with the addition of a suitable discrete graphics card).

It's rather late, so I hope I'm making sense. Basically, what I'm saying is that most ultra small form factor solutions based on NVIDIA ION (eg. Acer Aspire revo) have been very limited in terms of expansion and performance (soldered on CPU's and integrated graphics) whereas this particular one seems to allow the possibility of a reasonably performing machine, albeit with some limitations still (only one PCI slot, etc), due to the small form factor.
If you or anyone else has any other observations, particularly wrt. limitations, your comments would be appreciated.

CC