[geeks] Reminds me of an IPC - sort of...

[Lionel Peterson]

Every once in a while I see a product that reminds me of some piece of
old Sun kit, this time I found a low-cost case (w/ power supply) that
takes in a mini-ITX MB and either two 2.5" or one 3.5" drives, all in
a box smaller than the original IPC.

Here's a link to the part at newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811165491

It is priced about $65 + $10 S/H

It has no ability to house any optical media, and the box is plain & simple.

My system is one of the mini-ITX AMD MBs with an E-350 CPU (dual core
1.6 GHz), it has DX11-capable video, audio, USB 3.0, and takes 2x 4
Gig DDR3 memory sticks. Currently my system has a 120 GB SATA SSD that
I had on the shelf and runs very nicely.

The odd thing about the chassis is that there is an expansion card
slot in the back of the case, but you need a proprietary riser that is
not included to use it.

As an interesting side-note, I found a really nice low-power mini-ITX
MB that accepts 2x 8 GB DDR3 desktop DIMMs - it is based on the same
AMD E-350 CPU and has three SATA3 connectors & a gigabit NIC, as well
as VGA and HDMI video output.

I got the MB at my local Microcenter:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.aspx?sku=994368

After rebate it's $70

So, for around $225 plus your choice of HD/SSD you can have a really
nice little box with 16 Gigs of RAM, a dual core CPU and pretty decent
integrated video.

And the box is quiet.

Thought some here might be interested in such a combination - of
course, you can go more mainstream with the MB/CPU selection, but the
included PS is rather small at 150W...

-- 
Lionel Peterson
lionel4287 at gmail.com