Mirco-ITX is a good idea. But considering the size....hahaha..so malas one lah...
Found this Intel DG41MJ at ~RM300....
i'm still researching on it..

Found this review...http://www.silentpcreview.com/article960-page7.html

Conclusion...
The Intel DG41MJ is very power efficient, and with the exception of an actual high bitrate H.264 encoded Blu-ray movie, plays most content with little difficulty. The chipsets run fairly cool, but the board's automated fan control system is a disappointment. It is too passive, letting the processor get too hot before kicking in, and once activated, it is not aggressive enough in the face of high CPU temperatures. It may be optimized for use with Intel's stock heatsink/fan, or another HSF that has higher native speed than the fans we tested with. It is probably best to disable it if you plan to stress the system on a regular basis.

The DG45FC is equally power efficient, but its video decoding ability is superior. In addition, it offers a bevy of features including HDMI, S/PDIF, RAID, eSATA, an extra SATA port, and a PCI-E 1x slot instead of PCI. Not everyone needs these extra features, but in particular, digital audio and video outputs are essential for the most common application of mini-ITX systems: Home theater PC. Between the two, we would choose the DG41MJ only if cost was a major issue because the DG45FC can be had for only $25~$30 more. (It should be noted that both Intel boards only support processors rated 65W or lower.)
This one tested with Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 processor - 2.53GHz, 45nm, 65W

total price still almost the same with board with dual atom ION...

This post has been edited by xsi: Mar 19 2010, 03:14 PM

Why not consider Intel core i3 + H55 Mobo, i3 have everything you want in HTPC. One chip for all.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3704&p=3

i3 & H55? if i have those kind of budget, i will not be asking in the first place....hahahahaha..!!

IMHO the lowest budget HTPC right now should be from AMD chip.

Intel DG41MJ is using intel G41 chipset, the same chipset use in current intel lower-end mobo. It utilize Intel GMA X4500. This intergrated graphic accelerator doesn' support HD video so most HD video will be process by the processor, not X4500. I own one before (G41M-ES2L).

If you plan to play HD video (h264,1080p files) and planning to use the integrated graphic, then go for DG45FC but the price much more expensive than H55 chipset mobo which is more superior (sadly, hard to find mini-itx version).

What your budget?

mobo ~200, processor ~200. The lesser the better..
after browsing so far, realized impossible to get mini-itx with that kind of budget.
So have to settle for AMD micro-atx.....and based on my reading...i can even go for x2 (instead of x4) cpu if i get a 'sufficient' GPU to do the decoding....
Question now, what is the minimum GPU shud i go for..?

the cheapest gpu that could do hd audio bitstreaming is the ati 5450. do check if it's available now in stores. last time i check it's not yet in the market, but already released overseas.
other choices is the ati 5670 or the ati 5770. cheapest should be RM300.

but if budget is really limited, then you might as well let the cpu decode and just run the internal graphics

Hello mate,

Good morning.. woke up so early today eh? Going to work? Btw, IYHO , do you think ATI GPU are better than NVIDIA GPU's?.

I'm considering of migration to ATI instead of my current GeForce 210, to ATI GPU, but haven't got a clue which i should go for..

Please shed some light..

QFT = Quoted for Truth la.

Paskal, please use google next time.

weh i did use google lah.
i put 'jargon qft' into the search field.
the quit fuking talking is the first result.

haha. mana i know the abbreviation for other thing.
sorry sorry

---

Added on March 20, 2010, 11:39 ami'm an early bird
today is weekend la, nobody works on weekend. no offence to you guys that's working.

you wanna game or not?
if wanna game then get the highest that supports hd bitstreaming, ati 5770.
else get the 5670. if budget really short wait and get the 5450.
but don't trust me, as i have no idea whether the 5770 is any good for gaming. i don't game for many years. i just think the higher number translates to higher gaming performance

i think i read somewhere that gaming for hdtv should only be left for console. and i do agree. get a ps3 slim and you could do gaming plus you get a blueray player with bitstreaming ability. i think just RM1k-something now.

This post has been edited by paskal: Mar 20 2010, 11:39 AM

i have yet to do any searching...but what is hd bit streaming..?
if 300 is the cost for minimum graphic card for 1080p playback, might as well dump the money on the processor then...300-400 can get a quad proc already...
next i guess i have to do research on sub 200 mobo then...assuming that quad processor can do the decoding with onboard graphic..
thanks for the help guys...

Bit-streaming is passing of lossless/uncompress audio (DTS-MA, Dolby TrueHD, LPCM) to be decoded by say your AVR if it supports it. Else let the player do it.

Bitstream = pass through

Mini-itx will cost a lots more than micro-atx.

AMD is good choice if you want build cheap htpc specially with it 785G chipset. If you couple with AMD Athlon II X2 250, it already capable of playing 1080p movies. Processor you can find around RM200 or below but for mobo RM3++.

Most probably you will not using hd bit streaming and you may forget about it. It need AVR to decode it, and an AVR cost almost the same as HTPC and usually higher.

Like above suggestion, AMD Athlon II X2 250 is good enough or you can get Phenom II x2 550 and unlock it core to get quad.

this is the first time i've heard such thing.
any tips on buying these unlock-able chips? any particular batches to look for?

Like you, I planned to build cheap HTPC months ago and I stumbled on the unlocking idea from some forums. I still don't have any experience on the unlcoking part so don't know about the stability or the success rate, but as far as I know, with a good chipset like 785g, you can unlock several processor like AMD 140 and 550BE. Please google "Phenom 550 unlocking" and you'll find lots of articles.

i've already got me a htpc as i've salvaged parts from my unused desktops and got me a free one.
and right now i'm contemplating to either buy a cheap ati 5450/5670 to get hd audio or get me an i3 and h55 because i have 4gb of ddr3 module lying around

my current htpc mobo only supports 4 sata drive and i'm gonna need at least 6 (more like 8 ports) for all my media library.

So many. Why not build a NAS?

Currently I'm using i3+h55 but still haven't test the HD audio because no avr to test. For 1080p video, it can play the video smoothly with my cpu utilization barely reach 20%.

i've filled 3 of my 1.5tb in 3 month now on the 4th drive
NAS with 8 port is expensive. i reckon the same price (or higher) than a htpc.
then you'd need another media player to read from the NAS. and you'd also need a gigabit switch (just to be safe) for a judder free bd.iso playback.
and the last i checked, all (or nearly all) media player have at least some problem reading streamed bd.iso from the network.
the total procurement cost of 8 port NAS with all supporting hardware could be even higher than me upgrading to a new mobo and cpu.

so all in all, a htpc is the most logical choice.
gigabyte h55m-usb3 has 7 internal sata port and 1 external esata port. jayacom pricelist states RM395 for it