Updated 20 Jun, 2013, 1:21 pm IST

Build Your Own Nettop

11 Sep, 2009 | by Anand Tuliani

When the nettops available in the market just don't seem to fit your needs, it's time to build your own.

Nettops are ideal for home/office users and students who need a PC mainly for office productivity suite and Internet browsing. But if you need more computer power and storage space for tasks such as image editing and watching full HD movies, you’d want something more powerful.

There isn’t yet a nettop out there which has a dual-core processor, more than 2 GB of RAM and a capacious hard drive. The only way to get such a powerful nettop is building it yourself. Imagine a Tiffin box-sized PC that can play full HD videos and movies streamed from a remote PC over the Wi-fi network. Not to mention, you can also surf the Internet on your HDTV while relaxing on your couch. Components for building nettops have recently become more prominent on shelves because of user demand. Here’s the list of components that we feel is the best for building a powerful Intel Atom-based nettop at home.

Motherboard and CPU

Out of the broad range of mini-ITX motherboards that Zotac offers, the Zotac Ion ITX-A is the most feature-rich model. It measures a diminutive 6.7-inch x 6.7-inch and features a built-in Wi-Fi adapter and dual-core Atom N330, 1.60 GHz. It’s built around the Nvidia Ion platform and has an HDMI output on the rear panel, which means you can enjoy full HD 1080p movies and Blu-ray playback. This board is powered by a 90 watt adapter and hence you don’t need a PSU to power it up.

Sound and LAN

Watching high-def movies is no fun without surround sound. The on-board 7.1-channel sound chip delivers good output and hence you don’t need an additional sound card. The motherboard has both coaxial and optical S/PDIF output on the rear panel. The on-board LAN is gigabit, which is standard in most motherboards nowadays.

Graphics

The onboard Nvidia Ion graphics is equivalent to GeForce 9400GT which is capable of handling both games (at 1024x768) and high-definition video playback—respectable for a nettop. The graphics chip supports Nvidia PureVideo HD and CUDA.

Memory

Prices of DDR2 memory have fallen and it’s a good time to pick up a pair of modules. Considering the resource utilization of Windows Vista and the upcoming Windows 7, 4 GB of RAM is the least that you should consider for your PC to run smoothly. Two sticks of 2 GB Kingston DDR2-800 should be good for our PC. Also you can rest assured for 5-years as Kingston offers robust warranty and support.

Hard drive

The choice of hard drive depends on how much space you need for storing your music and movies, and how much you download. But note that you’ll need a 2.5-inch hard drive because this PC is really tiny. Currently 320 GB and 500 GB SATA drives offer the best price per GB (around Rs. 10.50). A 320 GB should be capacious enough and affordable for anyone.

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Tags: nettop , pc , desktop