P3 or C3 for mini-itx system?

[kaulike]

I am building a mini-ITX system to eventually go into a homebuilt or case mod. Haven't decided on the mod yet, but it will have adequate airflow.

I am debating between these systems. Both have similarly equipped motherboards, and both will be able to be made very quiet. The differences are going to be in motherboard support, performance, overall cost, and cooling requirements.

Either system:
512MB memory, appropriate for system $60
40GB Maxtor HDD with fluid bearings $50

P3 system:
Pentium III Tualatin 1.2GHz $80
Freetech P6215 socket 370/FC-PGA2 motherboard $95
enough fans: $20

C3 system:
VIA C3 Nehemiah 1GHz, soldered down
VIA M10000A motherboard $150
enough fans: $10

I am aware of the Celeron/P4 mini-ITX boards, but they are beyond my budget and in my estimation would require way too much cooling for this project. I am also aware of watercooling---beyond both budget and interest for now.

So... the P3 system will have probably twice the performance, will cost an extra $30 or so, and will likely require more fans and as a result will be louder. I believe Freetech is the only manufacturer with a mini-ITX sized motherboard for the Tualatin. Any less performance than that would probably simply lead me to the C3.

The C3 system is very slick, nearly ubiquitous among first-time case modders, and VIA's support for them is well known. There is no upgrade path, though there wouldn't be much of one with my P3 system either. It would be very, very quiet. However, the performance would be even less than a Celeron of similar clock speed. I want the system to be useful as well as small.

Thoughts and opinions are much appreciated!

thanks

[Tibors]

Welcome to SPCR

What are you going to do with the system?

I have a VIA Epia M10000 Nehemia board. I use it as my day to day system. It is capable of running Windows 2000, Office 2000, Firefox, Ages of Empires, Settlers IV and playing DVD's. I've read it can't handle playing XviD movies and the like, but since I don't have those I don't know for sure. I moved my software development to a P4 system, as compile times of larger projects are too long.

[kaulike]

Thanks very much for the reply.

This machine will be my wife's workhorse. She is not a gamer, though, and will only be running email and browser plus a page layout program and Photoshop, and possibly running a flatbed scanner, all while playing music. I would like the system to boot and run faster than her current system, an ancient PII, and also be able to wake on LAN (so I can perform backups from my office).

I am thinking that the better part of wisdom might be to buy the VIA board and give it a user test. If it isn't fast enough, the VIA will be easier to sell than the random P3 system.

thanks for the advice!

[Tibors]

When I am browsing the web and listening to MP3's at the same time. The music starts to stutter when I open a site with a large Flash animation. Smaller Flash animations don't give problems. Photoshop can be demanding of the CPU, depending what you do with it. So that might give the same stuttering.

[kaulike]

Heck, my P4 3.0 does that!