I got a Gigabyte Atom D510 board. It does everything fine except HD video, and runs on spare sticks of DDR2 I had from previous upgrades.
Currently shoved in 4GB memory (worked fine with 2GB though) and 5 hard disks as a multi-purpose NAS/server/24x7 download rig. I'm really happy with it. Needs no fans. Really, no fans except one at the input for the disks. Still have 3 fans in the motherboard area though the board doesn't really need it.
Using an old VX450 (also left over from upgrades) in a Elite 360 case (again, leftovers). You can use any old case and PSU, though do be warned that the savings you make from an energy-efficient platform like this will be lost on a bad (read: inefficient) PSU. a typical street-market PSU costing under 1k will be around 60% efficient at this 20-25W load level. A 80+ Gold PSU will be around 85% efficient at the same load level. 25% of 20W load is 5-6W, which is a lot (relatively speaking) if it's on all day all year.
Currently shoved in 4GB memory (worked fine with 2GB though) and 5 hard disks as a multi-purpose NAS/server/24x7 download rig. I'm really happy with it. Needs no fans. Really, no fans except one at the input for the disks. Still have 3 fans in the motherboard area though the board doesn't really need it.
Using an old VX450 (also left over from upgrades) in a Elite 360 case (again, leftovers). You can use any old case and PSU, though do be warned that the savings you make from an energy-efficient platform like this will be lost on a bad (read: inefficient) PSU. a typical street-market PSU costing under 1k will be around 60% efficient at this 20-25W load level. A 80+ Gold PSU will be around 85% efficient at the same load level. 25% of 20W load is 5-6W, which is a lot (relatively speaking) if it's on all day all year.
