ZOTAC NF610I-K-E miniITX motherboard - $29.99 after MIR

[Rajahal]

Another miniITX board on sale, and this one is actually compatible with unRAID!

 

ZOTAC NF610I-K-E LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7050 NVIDIA nForce 610i Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

 

$44.99, $29.99 after MIR

 

Uses the nForce 610i series, so it should be fully compatible with unRAID, unlike the nForce 400 series board that I'm currently testing.

 

Pair with a Celeron 430 for a low power server (total $71, see below).  Or buy this bundle if you want a bit more horsepower:

 

Bundle with Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5400 Wolfdale 2.7GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80571E5400

$74.98 after MIR

 

Note: This bundle deal is only good for one more hour, until 10 AM PST.  So if you want it you had better act quick.

 

Again, basically useless as an HTPC since it only has VGA out.  Expandable to 6 drives with a cheap PCIe x1 card.

[poofyhairguy]

The bundle deal seems like it would be good for a PS3 NAS. Just enough power for PS3mediaserver.

[Rajahal]

Yeah, but I realized the bundle is still the same $15 rebate on the motherboard and no price reduction whatsoever on the CPU.  So it really isn't much of a bundle, they are just trying to get you to buy the CPU.  I would shop around and find a better price on a better CPU instead.

 

In my mind, this is the better bundle deal (since I prefer power savings over horsepower in my server):

 

ZOTAC NF610I-K-E LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7050 NVIDIA nForce 610i Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

+

Intel Celeron 430 Conroe-L 1.8GHz 512KB L2 Cache LGA 775 35W Single-Core Processor BX80557430

 

Total: $70.98 after MIR

 

Roughly the same price, but the single core Celeron 430 is 35W as opposed to the dual core 65W CPU above.  However, as poofyhairguy said, the dual core is more appropriate for PS3mediaserver, handbrake, or other CPU intensive operations.

[WeeboTech]

Roughly the same price, but the single core Celeron 430 is 35W as opposed to the dual core 65W CPU above.  However, as poofyhairguy said, the dual core is more appropriate for PS3mediaserver, handbrake, or other CPU intensive operations.

 

I think the 35w vs 65w only comes into play when you tax the CPU at 100%.

 

I replaced a 65W dual core with a 35W conroe-L and the kill-a-watt did not register any difference.

It was a waste of money in my book.

 

With some of the added functionality we're doing on the unRAID servers, I don't think the 35W conroe saves you much. One of these days, I'll provide the ability to md5sum multiple files at the same time, that's when all the single core folk will want to go dual core and/or better.

 

Now with the later and greater CPU's this may be different, but dual core vs conroe-l did not show a power saving at the kill-a-watt.

[Rajahal]

Good to know, WeeboTech, thanks.  I decided to hold off on this deal anyway since my initial testing of the 'incompatible' 400 series board is at least promising, plus that was a much better deal (mobo + cpu for $50 instead of $70).