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Remember, backup tape still has a large bytes/cent advantage over HDDs.

Not for most reasonably double-digit values of "quantity of backup tapes".

A 1TB HDD is around $80.

With a $1,140 drive and a $60 controller ($1,200 total), it would take roughly two hundred and forty 400GB tapes @ $27/ea just to match the $80/TB price point, let alone to significantly reduce it.

I mean, sure, you could just buy the tape without the drive I guess, and then you can legitimately claim you paid $67.50/TB, saving you all of $13, and maybe you can find a friend with a tape drive to perform the actual read/write operations.

Remember, backup tape still has a large bytes/cent advantage over HDDs.

Not for most reasonably double-digit values of "quantity of backup tapes".

A 1TB HDD is around $80.

With a $1,140 drive and a $60 controller ($1,200 total), it would take roughly two hundred and forty 400GB tapes @ $27/ea just to match the $80/TB price point, let alone to significantly reduce it.

I mean, sure, you could just buy the tape without the drive I guess, and then you can legitimately claim you paid $67.50/TB, saving you all of $13, and maybe you can find a friend with a tape drive to perform the actual read/write operations.

Remember, backup tape still has a large bytes/cent advantage over HDDs.

Not for most reasonably double-digit values of "quantity of backup tapes".

A 1TB HDD is around $80.

With a $1,140 drive and a $60 controller ($1,200 total), it would take roughly two hundred and forty 400GB tapes @ $27/ea just to match the $80/TB price point, let alone to significantly reduce it.

I mean, sure, you could just buy the tape without the drive I guess, and then you can legitimately claim you paid $67.50/TB, saving you all of $13, and maybe you can find a friend with a tape drive to perform the actual read/write operations.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150636&Subcategory=636&srchInDesc=slc

You can, but they're tiny and expensive even compared to other SSD's

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150636+1749646482&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=636&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

Unavailable? You can buy a Radeon 5870 right now at Newegg. Stock probably won't last since it's popular as hell, but you CAN buy one, and you won't be on a waiting list.

Anyone know how this compares to a GTS 250-based card? As those are also DX10-compliant and can be easily found for around $120, I'm not sure what the value of this new model is... beyond the psychological impact of hitting the magic $99 price point, of course.

buy an after market cooler.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000110000+50001647+40000576&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=-1&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

But shop sub $170 then. I still use my 6600 GT, so I am way behind, but one of these in silent mode cooled better than the stock by far (actually as a massive heatsink it compared to the stock GPU even).

try again.

DirectX 11 Support for hardware
tessellation will be an explicit part of the DirectX standard for the first time. To date, ATI's HD 2000, 3000, and 4000 series have all contained a hardware tessellation unit

DX11 and DX10.1 will be sharing a lot of features. DX10.0 does not. All the people getting an 8800gt for example, got screwed by that. I'm glad NV has a DX10.1 solution, but when will anyone have a copy of the DX11 card to test?

Sorry though, I meant to link the 5750, I was looking through stuff. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102859

barely at best, it's still slower than an 8800GT. You can almost get a 4870 for less than that. which would be DX11 compatible/significantly faster. Or get a 4850 which is still significantly faster and DX10.1.

basically, this was a bad move by nvidia, but it's all they have at the moment.

NVIDIA has scaling (with blurriness), unless the drivers decide your monitor is an HDTV and replace the scaling options with desktop resizing options (which is annoying as hell, let me tell you)....

I have this 23" 1080P monitor currently on sale at NewEgg and Microcenter. Its scaling is better than NVIDIA and serviceable, but still somewhat blurry/smeared. Cheap though.

Strangely enough this native 1920x1080 monitor cannot support 1440x1080. Go figure.

Uh, they haven't. My latest MSI motherboard has two of them to change the speeds... (they're just not externally accessable).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130233

And what about the businesses that aren't big enough to go beyond the "consumer" scope. What about Uni's with limited budget? Go look at the latest and greatest "consumer" Intel processor, I can guarantee you won't have much change out of $1000. Yet give it 12 months it'll probably be less then a 1/3 of that price (maybe sooner, I don't keep up with pricing).

With that kind of attitude 640K would be enough for anyone.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115043

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254026 - $310 delivered.

It's also very bright which helps with depth of focus. It's so nice I purchased two.

should these 2 have the same?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010190020+1310334269&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=20&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

Personally, I think any of these displays are affordable. All of them come with HDMI input, which is fine for PCs.

You got him backward, he wants HIGH dpi monitors, meaning more, smaller pixels in the same space. Fortunately Newegg.com lets you search for LCD screens by pixel pitch, answering ALL the questions in this thread (at least for the product space that Newegg carries).

http://www.newegg.com/

Carry on.

As usual, it's New Egg to the rescue. You can search monitors according to pixel size. The largest pixel sizes give you a resolution of 1920x1080 at 28" (~$370). There are also some even larger screens at lower resolution, but I don't know how big you want to go. They have large format screens - 32" at 1366x768, but those seem to be quite a bit more expensive (~$950).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254043
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889252035

Personally, I prefer a 4:3 ratio on my screens and those have become very hard to find.

As usual, it's New Egg to the rescue. You can search monitors according to pixel size. The largest pixel sizes give you a resolution of 1920x1080 at 28" (~$370). There are also some even larger screens at lower resolution, but I don't know how big you want to go. They have large format screens - 32" at 1366x768, but those seem to be quite a bit more expensive (~$950).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254043
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889252035

Personally, I prefer a 4:3 ratio on my screens and those have become very hard to find.

The link above the article was for LCD monitors.
This one looks nice, http://www.lge.com/us/computer-products/monitors/LG-led-monitor-W2486L.jsp

It is an LG, so a bit pricey and I have seen similar size HD TV with HDMI in at a lower cost.

For more models and pricing there is always New Egg

I just paid $400 for one of these: Dual core celeron, 2GB RAM, 11.6" screen. Blows the Atom netbooks out of the water.

Likewise (but 4 handsets). Model is this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16876101289

There already is a mouse like this and it was actually designed much better. The Naga, it has all the standard buttons and then it has another 12 on the side, its an interesting idea and would be rather useful in some gaming situations. They market it to MMO, I also think it would be rather nice to have in RTS

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826153054

A 1 TB drive is less than half that: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150014%20103530090%201035313496&name=1TB Unless you're referring to 2.5" drives or enterprise SAS drives... but you didn't specify.

It ain't dirt cheap like a beagle, but if you want it to work any format you can throw at it something like this would be your best bet. It has an Atom dual, ION graphics, 2Gb of RAM, 320Gb HDD, and a slim DVD burner to top it off. Put in a cheap capture card and you are ready to go.

And if you have an XP Pro license lying around you can look up "TinyXP Beast Edition" which is an ultra stripped down XP Pro that only uses 63Mb of RAM and almost no CPU, great for running something like XMBC or my favorite Mediaportal. Of course you can always go with the new Win7 HP, but I figure why add the extra bloat if you don't need it. But the above box with either media center sounds like just what you are looking for, something that will play all formats and still look nice in the entertainment center.

Here's a review of one of the Zotac ION boards at Anandtec, and here's a link to some customer reviews at newegg. They are sold with an external (brick) power supply or an ATX connector. An interesting little critter, this board, if your CPU demands aren't high, but you need decent video performance and low power usage.

A recent Lifehacker article suggested the $200 Acer Aspire Revo. Pros: 160GB HD, HMDI output, Gigabit ethernet, reportably plays 1080p, runs XBMC. Cons: single-core, 1GB RAM, no built-in expandability, WiFi or IR.

For $320, the Revo's big brother also has dual-core, 2GB RAM and built-in WiFi.

A recent Lifehacker article suggested the $200 Acer Aspire Revo. Pros: 160GB HD, HMDI output, Gigabit ethernet, reportably plays 1080p, runs XBMC. Cons: single-core, 1GB RAM, no built-in expandability, WiFi or IR.

For $320, the Revo's big brother also has dual-core, 2GB RAM and built-in WiFi.

I personally run/have run many huge enterprise apps on .NET. It's actually a pretty good platform if you know what you're doing.

Don't take my word for it, though.

When I googled for what you asked to google, I found this list of sites running ASP.NET.

Costco - http://www.costco.com/
Crate & Barrel - http://www.crateandbarrel.com/
Home Shopping Network - http://www.hsn.com/
Buy.com - http://www.buy.com/
Dell - http://www.dell.com/
Nasdaq - http://www.nasdaq.com/
Virgin - http://www.virgin.com/
7-Eleven - http://www.7-eleven.com/
Carnival Cruise Lines - http://www.carnival.com/
L'Oreal - http://www.loreal.com/
The White House - http://www.whitehouse.gov/
Remax - http://www.remax.com/
Monster Jobs - http://www.monster.com/
USA Today - http://www.usatoday.com/
ComputerJobs.com - http://computerjobs.com/
Match.com - http://www.match.com/
National Health Services (UK) - http://www.nhs.uk/
CarrerBuilder.com - http://www.careerbuilder.com/
Newegg http://newegg.com/
Geico http://geico.com/
Capital One http://capitalone.com/
Zecco http://zecco.com/

Maybe you should tell those sites that .NET is a unproven technology? Or will you try to argue that these are not huge enterprise apps? Just because you want something to be true(or maybe you were just karma whoring) doesn't make it true. C# is a better language than Java, though each one has it's strengths. And even conceding your point(I don't) that Java is faster, speed is not everything. Or we would all be coding in assembly or machine code.

I've been running a Transcend 64GB SSD (ca. $200, PATA -- not high-end, definitely) in my laptop for 10 months. It's on all the time, except when I suspend it for transportation. It is running Ubuntu, and I've got a current uptime of 30 days. I'm a software developer; I download and install betas of OpenOffice, I upgrade Netbeans and Eclipse regularly, update and build software (including one work project that's over 1GB built), and generally trash the hard drive. I haven't had any trouble with it, at all.

I also installed an OCZ 64GB SATA SSD in my wife's laptop since mid-June (so, 4.5 months). Hers is more often in sleep mode than in use, since she has a separate, work, laptop. She uses it for writing, homework, browsing, and so on -- light duty. No problems there, either.

Neither laptop is configured to run /var/log or /tmp in RAM, or anything fancy. Both are configured with ext3 (although mine has a BTRFS partition, for play) with normal journalling.

I'm happy with mine. I don't notice the speed increase, if there is any; I mostly went this route to (a) reduce the heat, (b) reduce power consumption, and (c) reduce noise. My wife's Acer Timeline is particularly silent, as the CPU fan never comes on. I don't know if I'd put SSDs in my server; HDs are too ridiculously cheap, and I don't need extra speed for my modest music/file/web server uses. But, so far, I've been entirely satisfied with their reliability.

I do back both machines up nightly, just in case.

So? "Free" might trigger the "you get what you pay for" mentality. You could charge $50-$75 and still easily undercut Windows 7.

That's at the high end. But what if you only need 4GB? A solid-state drive will run you about $3.35/GB. Rotating media? Can't do that -- the smallest you can get is an 80GB drive for $35, which works out to $8.75 per gigabyte of used storage.

(Before you object to my choice of solid-state drives, please note that the CompactFlash interface is parallel ATA with a smaller pin spacing, and adapters cost next to nothing.)

That's at the high end. But what if you only need 4GB? A solid-state drive will run you about $3.35/GB. Rotating media? Can't do that -- the smallest you can get is an 80GB drive for $35, which works out to $8.75 per gigabyte of used storage.

(Before you object to my choice of solid-state drives, please note that the CompactFlash interface is parallel ATA with a smaller pin spacing, and adapters cost next to nothing.)

I put together a custom NAS using a Chenbro case and Zotac Ion motherboard with Atom 330. It uses about 30 watts, this case has 2 hot swappable 3.5" hdd bays and an internal 2.5" drive bay for your OS drive. I'm running it headless with Ubuntu Server, it just sits in my closet, barely puts off any heat. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811123114&cm_re=chenbro-_-11-123-114-_-Product

I put together a custom NAS using a Chenbro case and Zotac Ion motherboard with Atom 330. It uses about 30 watts, this case has 2 hot swappable 3.5" hdd bays and an internal 2.5" drive bay for your OS drive. I'm running it headless with Ubuntu Server, it just sits in my closet, barely puts off any heat. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811123114&cm_re=chenbro-_-11-123-114-_-Product

I put together a custom NAS using a Chenbro case and Zotac Ion motherboard with Atom 330. It uses about 30 watts, this case has 2 hot swappable 3.5" hdd bays and an internal 2.5" drive bay for your OS drive. I'm running it headless with Ubuntu Server, it just sits in my closet, barely puts off any heat. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811123114&cm_re=chenbro-_-11-123-114-_-Product

Another worthy option is an ASUS WL-520gU flashed with Teddy_Bear's wonderful Tomato ND USB Mod. Plug a USB drive in and Bob's your Uncle!

With built-in SAMBA/FTP/Print services, rock solid QoS support and many more features this combo is solid.

Take a look at the nvidia ION platform. On newegg you can find a variety of motherboards with built in atom CPUs that require no heatsink fan and HDMI/VGA/DVI output to output to whatever your heart desires. If you can manage to find some of the components laying around your house (perhaps the hard drive) and pick up the case and PSU you could easily accomplish this for under $300. I'm putting together a NAS box using the ikea emu tin as a case and 3x1TB drives for about $360. It'll use about 30-40W, depending on the efficiency of the PSU. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=ionitx&x=0&y=0

Phone System PBX Project

I had to build such a full-fledged system but one that had to be dependable, reliable, small, quiet, unobtrusive, long lasting, cool running, low-power, well performing, be built of standard parts, and be able to accept one PCI or PCIe expansion card for the telephone TDM interface for incoming FXO lines.

I'm in the process of setting up a phone system PBX with up to 4-incoming telephone lines and a phone menu system to provide basic business information (e.g. hours, address, directions, information, etc.) for a friend's business and also offer the standard features such as voice mail, faxing, internal analog extensions, VoIP capability for future expansion, customization, etc. built on Linux using Elastix that is based on Asterisk PBX.

Wishlist - PBX PC - Intel Atom 330, 1GB DDR2 667, OCZ Agility 30GB SSD, 120mm Fan, Apex Mini-ITX - $316.94 USD

Form Factor - Mini-ITX

I checked out my favorite hardware review site AnandTech and read a number of articles about the new Mini-ITX form factor motherboards that came out to get an introduction to the form factor and expectations.

AnandTech.com - Two New Ions: ASUS AT3N7A-I and ASRock Ion 330

TomsHardware.com - Does Intel's Dual-Core Atom Improve Efficiency?

I read the articles with a lot of interest but when I looked at the prices of these Ion based motherboard with well performing graphics chips I found that I wasn't interested in paying so much for a feature that would not be used very much in a server type PBX system. Also some of these systems didn't have any PCI expansion slots so they were no good for my PBX type project.

Processor - Intel Atom 330

So I turned to look at other Mini-ITX based offerings and came across the good 'ol Intel Atom motherboards. I found the Intel Atom 230, 270 based boards to be a little low performing in many of the benchmark results that I saw but that the dual core Intel Atom 330 chip was doing quite well for only a few dollars more and very little increase in power. I looked at the offerings at my favorite retailer, Newegg and saw a nice list of choices.

Motherboards, Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo - Mini ITX

I started my process of filtering so I ignored low powered systems that came with VIA C7 chips and the Intel Atom 230 chips. I came up with these three choices.

Foxconn 45CSX Intel Atom 330 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $69.99 USD

Intel BOXD945GCLF2D Intel Atom processor 330 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $79.99 USD

ASUS AT3GC-I Intel Atom 330 479 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $89.99

Motherboard - Intel D945GCLF2

Out of these choices, I wasn't too thrilled with a Foxconn built motherboard because I had no experience with this company for any hardware. I wasn't so sure that the extra money spent on the Asus motherboard is really going to offer anything at all, so the choice went down to Intel because I wanted reliability for a system that was being built for someone else. I read a few good review of the Intel motherboard below.

Phone System PBX Project

I had to build such a full-fledged system but one that had to be dependable, reliable, small, quiet, unobtrusive, long lasting, cool running, low-power, well performing, be built of standard parts, and be able to accept one PCI or PCIe expansion card for the telephone TDM interface for incoming FXO lines.

I'm in the process of setting up a phone system PBX with up to 4-incoming telephone lines and a phone menu system to provide basic business information (e.g. hours, address, directions, information, etc.) for a friend's business and also offer the standard features such as voice mail, faxing, internal analog extensions, VoIP capability for future expansion, customization, etc. built on Linux using Elastix that is based on Asterisk PBX.

Wishlist - PBX PC - Intel Atom 330, 1GB DDR2 667, OCZ Agility 30GB SSD, 120mm Fan, Apex Mini-ITX - $316.94 USD

Form Factor - Mini-ITX

I checked out my favorite hardware review site AnandTech and read a number of articles about the new Mini-ITX form factor motherboards that came out to get an introduction to the form factor and expectations.

AnandTech.com - Two New Ions: ASUS AT3N7A-I and ASRock Ion 330

TomsHardware.com - Does Intel's Dual-Core Atom Improve Efficiency?

I read the articles with a lot of interest but when I looked at the prices of these Ion based motherboard with well performing graphics chips I found that I wasn't interested in paying so much for a feature that would not be used very much in a server type PBX system. Also some of these systems didn't have any PCI expansion slots so they were no good for my PBX type project.

Processor - Intel Atom 330

So I turned to look at other Mini-ITX based offerings and came across the good 'ol Intel Atom motherboards. I found the Intel Atom 230, 270 based boards to be a little low performing in many of the benchmark results that I saw but that the dual core Intel Atom 330 chip was doing quite well for only a few dollars more and very little increase in power. I looked at the offerings at my favorite retailer, Newegg and saw a nice list of choices.

Motherboards, Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo - Mini ITX

I started my process of filtering so I ignored low powered systems that came with VIA C7 chips and the Intel Atom 230 chips. I came up with these three choices.

Foxconn 45CSX Intel Atom 330 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $69.99 USD

Intel BOXD945GCLF2D Intel Atom processor 330 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $79.99 USD

ASUS AT3GC-I Intel Atom 330 479 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $89.99

Motherboard - Intel D945GCLF2

Out of these choices, I wasn't too thrilled with a Foxconn built motherboard because I had no experience with this company for any hardware. I wasn't so sure that the extra money spent on the Asus motherboard is really going to offer anything at all, so the choice went down to Intel because I wanted reliability for a system that was being built for someone else. I read a few good review of the Intel motherboard below.

Phone System PBX Project

I had to build such a full-fledged system but one that had to be dependable, reliable, small, quiet, unobtrusive, long lasting, cool running, low-power, well performing, be built of standard parts, and be able to accept one PCI or PCIe expansion card for the telephone TDM interface for incoming FXO lines.

I'm in the process of setting up a phone system PBX with up to 4-incoming telephone lines and a phone menu system to provide basic business information (e.g. hours, address, directions, information, etc.) for a friend's business and also offer the standard features such as voice mail, faxing, internal analog extensions, VoIP capability for future expansion, customization, etc. built on Linux using Elastix that is based on Asterisk PBX.

Wishlist - PBX PC - Intel Atom 330, 1GB DDR2 667, OCZ Agility 30GB SSD, 120mm Fan, Apex Mini-ITX - $316.94 USD

Form Factor - Mini-ITX

I checked out my favorite hardware review site AnandTech and read a number of articles about the new Mini-ITX form factor motherboards that came out to get an introduction to the form factor and expectations.

AnandTech.com - Two New Ions: ASUS AT3N7A-I and ASRock Ion 330

TomsHardware.com - Does Intel's Dual-Core Atom Improve Efficiency?

I read the articles with a lot of interest but when I looked at the prices of these Ion based motherboard with well performing graphics chips I found that I wasn't interested in paying so much for a feature that would not be used very much in a server type PBX system. Also some of these systems didn't have any PCI expansion slots so they were no good for my PBX type project.

Processor - Intel Atom 330

So I turned to look at other Mini-ITX based offerings and came across the good 'ol Intel Atom motherboards. I found the Intel Atom 230, 270 based boards to be a little low performing in many of the benchmark results that I saw but that the dual core Intel Atom 330 chip was doing quite well for only a few dollars more and very little increase in power. I looked at the offerings at my favorite retailer, Newegg and saw a nice list of choices.

Motherboards, Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo - Mini ITX

I started my process of filtering so I ignored low powered systems that came with VIA C7 chips and the Intel Atom 230 chips. I came up with these three choices.

Foxconn 45CSX Intel Atom 330 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $69.99 USD

Intel BOXD945GCLF2D Intel Atom processor 330 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $79.99 USD

ASUS AT3GC-I Intel Atom 330 479 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $89.99

Motherboard - Intel D945GCLF2

Out of these choices, I wasn't too thrilled with a Foxconn built motherboard because I had no experience with this company for any hardware. I wasn't so sure that the extra money spent on the Asus motherboard is really going to offer anything at all, so the choice went down to Intel because I wanted reliability for a system that was being built for someone else. I read a few good review of the Intel motherboard below.

Phone System PBX Project

I had to build such a full-fledged system but one that had to be dependable, reliable, small, quiet, unobtrusive, long lasting, cool running, low-power, well performing, be built of standard parts, and be able to accept one PCI or PCIe expansion card for the telephone TDM interface for incoming FXO lines.

I'm in the process of setting up a phone system PBX with up to 4-incoming telephone lines and a phone menu system to provide basic business information (e.g. hours, address, directions, information, etc.) for a friend's business and also offer the standard features such as voice mail, faxing, internal analog extensions, VoIP capability for future expansion, customization, etc. built on Linux using Elastix that is based on Asterisk PBX.

Wishlist - PBX PC - Intel Atom 330, 1GB DDR2 667, OCZ Agility 30GB SSD, 120mm Fan, Apex Mini-ITX - $316.94 USD

Form Factor - Mini-ITX

I checked out my favorite hardware review site AnandTech and read a number of articles about the new Mini-ITX form factor motherboards that came out to get an introduction to the form factor and expectations.

AnandTech.com - Two New Ions: ASUS AT3N7A-I and ASRock Ion 330

TomsHardware.com - Does Intel's Dual-Core Atom Improve Efficiency?

I read the articles with a lot of interest but when I looked at the prices of these Ion based motherboard with well performing graphics chips I found that I wasn't interested in paying so much for a feature that would not be used very much in a server type PBX system. Also some of these systems didn't have any PCI expansion slots so they were no good for my PBX type project.

Processor - Intel Atom 330

So I turned to look at other Mini-ITX based offerings and came across the good 'ol Intel Atom motherboards. I found the Intel Atom 230, 270 based boards to be a little low performing in many of the benchmark results that I saw but that the dual core Intel Atom 330 chip was doing quite well for only a few dollars more and very little increase in power. I looked at the offerings at my favorite retailer, Newegg and saw a nice list of choices.

Motherboards, Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo - Mini ITX

I started my process of filtering so I ignored low powered systems that came with VIA C7 chips and the Intel Atom 230 chips. I came up with these three choices.

Foxconn 45CSX Intel Atom 330 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $69.99 USD

Intel BOXD945GCLF2D Intel Atom processor 330 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $79.99 USD

ASUS AT3GC-I Intel Atom 330 479 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $89.99

Motherboard - Intel D945GCLF2

Out of these choices, I wasn't too thrilled with a Foxconn built motherboard because I had no experience with this company for any hardware. I wasn't so sure that the extra money spent on the Asus motherboard is really going to offer anything at all, so the choice went down to Intel because I wanted reliability for a system that was being built for someone else. I read a few good review of the Intel motherboard below.

Phone System PBX Project

I had to build such a full-fledged system but one that had to be dependable, reliable, small, quiet, unobtrusive, long lasting, cool running, low-power, well performing, be built of standard parts, and be able to accept one PCI or PCIe expansion card for the telephone TDM interface for incoming FXO lines.

I'm in the process of setting up a phone system PBX with up to 4-incoming telephone lines and a phone menu system to provide basic business information (e.g. hours, address, directions, information, etc.) for a friend's business and also offer the standard features such as voice mail, faxing, internal analog extensions, VoIP capability for future expansion, customization, etc. built on Linux using Elastix that is based on Asterisk PBX.

Wishlist - PBX PC - Intel Atom 330, 1GB DDR2 667, OCZ Agility 30GB SSD, 120mm Fan, Apex Mini-ITX - $316.94 USD

Form Factor - Mini-ITX

I checked out my favorite hardware review site AnandTech and read a number of articles about the new Mini-ITX form factor motherboards that came out to get an introduction to the form factor and expectations.

AnandTech.com - Two New Ions: ASUS AT3N7A-I and ASRock Ion 330

TomsHardware.com - Does Intel's Dual-Core Atom Improve Efficiency?

I read the articles with a lot of interest but when I looked at the prices of these Ion based motherboard with well performing graphics chips I found that I wasn't interested in paying so much for a feature that would not be used very much in a server type PBX system. Also some of these systems didn't have any PCI expansion slots so they were no good for my PBX type project.

Processor - Intel Atom 330

So I turned to look at other Mini-ITX based offerings and came across the good 'ol Intel Atom motherboards. I found the Intel Atom 230, 270 based boards to be a little low performing in many of the benchmark results that I saw but that the dual core Intel Atom 330 chip was doing quite well for only a few dollars more and very little increase in power. I looked at the offerings at my favorite retailer, Newegg and saw a nice list of choices.

Motherboards, Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo - Mini ITX

I started my process of filtering so I ignored low powered systems that came with VIA C7 chips and the Intel Atom 230 chips. I came up with these three choices.

Foxconn 45CSX Intel Atom 330 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $69.99 USD

Intel BOXD945GCLF2D Intel Atom processor 330 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $79.99 USD

ASUS AT3GC-I Intel Atom 330 479 Intel 945GC Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail - $89.99

Motherboard - Intel D945GCLF2

Out of these choices, I wasn't too thrilled with a Foxconn built motherboard because I had no experience with this company for any hardware. I wasn't so sure that the extra money spent on the Asus motherboard is really going to offer anything at all, so the choice went down to Intel because I wanted reliability for a system that was being built for someone else. I read a few good review of the Intel motherboard below.

Yep. I highly recommend picking up a Kill-A-Watt and measuring your electronics.

My NAS is an old VIA C7 board. It consumes about 45 watts.

This is with... 4x SATA HDD + 2xPATA HDD

It's a cruddy Jetway board - the onboard SATA doesn't seem to be supported properly. If I had to do it again, with newer parts, I'd probably go Atom or Ion.

It's not under 300$, it is 349$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856158007

26W at idle, 38W with processors at 100% and GPU 100%

Read reviews over the net, especially this one: http://www.missingremote.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3727&Itemid=1

Fully decode at 1080p through hardware (CPU around 5-10%).

Disclaimer: I have one! It's great

Here is what I have:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121383
2gb ram
Plus 2 hard drives in raid 1.
What does it all do? Here's what:
Debian lenny amd64 as the base xen dom0
Debian lenny i686 in domU as a gateway/router running shorewall, squid, dansguardian, psad
Debian lenny i686 in domU as web, smtp, imap, torrent, amule, and various perl web bots, server.
Like I said all of this through xen like here: http://www.shorewall.net/XenMyWay.html
The box with one hard drive drew 38 watts idle and 44 max. I haven't measured it since I added another hd.
Note that the psu on the box is very old and inefficient. I am sure a newer one would lower the power draw 5-10watts
Stats here. Not posting my main website since I normally only come here to troll
http://christi.ath.cx/stats/

Also, the mac mini draws 110 watts

I'd be surprised if it actually uses that much. The figures shown on consumer products for power consumption seem to be peak or maximum, not nominal figures. Using a meter such as the Kill-a-watt will likely show significantly less consumption. (read Watts, not VA)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Electronic+Gadgets-_-P3+International-_-82715001

A few years ago I built a desktop using a E6300 Core 2 Duo overclocked to 2.25 Ghz. With added Ethernet and Firewire cards, and typical optical and hard drives, consumption measures only 82 Watts. (tested while doing video compression) Components were selected with energy use in mind. It helped to use basic ICH7/GMA950 graphics.

Clearly the Minis still use much more energy than some alternatives suggested here, but for a true picture of power savings measured consumption is needed. It would be interesting to results at different clock rates.

At aa 13 cents a kwh above baseline rate, I figure it costs roughly $1. per month for every 10 Watts of continuous (24 hr) load.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119011&cm_re=RS-233-_-56-119-011-_-Product

Basically a netbook in a box, for about $170US (each) i built a pair of small linux servers to handle all my chores...1.6Ghz Atom Procs, 2GB of RAM, 500GB 5400RPM drives.

The only downside i've found thus far is no gigabit, but they have a single PCI slot if you really need it, gig-e cards are cheap.

I have 0 complaints thus far, one box has been running since July, another i just brought up last week. The temperature in my office dropped 5 by turning off the box I replaced, and I went from about 120-130W constant draw to about 60W.

Its not as good as a Mini as power consumption, but I have two machines, and still have less than even the low-end mini in them in up-front costs.

I have been working on lowering my power consumption for just over a year now, with a lot of success (reduced my power bill by 20-30%). I did a couple of somewhat lame writeups on my website about my server upgrades and the power consumption changes:
http://www.peelman.us/wordpress/2009/08/01/new-server-pollux/
http://www.peelman.us/wordpress/2008/10/29/file-server-upgrades/

I have this Jetway, a slightly different model. I wanted 2 drives in a RAID array. It's designed to hold 1 3.5" and 1 2.5" drive, but I put 2x3.5" drives in (granted, one is mounted with a bit of duct tape). I also added one extra case fan. It's been running great and nice and quiet (and cheap!).