Dizzie, it looks like a great box.
I too am a DIY addict. The box I use most these days was built to be as quiet and green as possible and I went a bit overboard. It is based on an Intel D2700MUD board so yes, it is an Atom. It is sped up by using a 32G SSD and really works quite well except for one GLARING defect: The on-board GMA 3650 graphics chip is a looser! Except for some older Squeeze distros like SalineOS and Mint LMDE, it will not do anything but 1280x768 screens. I have tried everything I can think of up to and including custom kernel builds to get this bugger to give me either a 1920x1024 or a 1280x1024 screen to no avail. "xrandr" shows no support for either screen size on newer distros. Alas, no way to put a real graphics card on it!
The main virtue of this box is that the total power is about 35 watts and with so little PS dissipation, I run a slow fan in it and in the case. The CPU just has a big heat sink. The box is in my bedroom and I can barely hear it at night in our very quiet rural location. Nice for using the free download time on my satellite ISP.
I also have an HTPC with a Zotac/AMD64/nVidia mobo and another desktop with a Gigabyte/AMD64 base. both of these have 1 TB Western Dig hard drives. The HTPC runs Mythbuntu which works great with my SiliconDust HDHomeRun TV tuner-on-network box.
I too am a DIY addict. The box I use most these days was built to be as quiet and green as possible and I went a bit overboard. It is based on an Intel D2700MUD board so yes, it is an Atom. It is sped up by using a 32G SSD and really works quite well except for one GLARING defect: The on-board GMA 3650 graphics chip is a looser! Except for some older Squeeze distros like SalineOS and Mint LMDE, it will not do anything but 1280x768 screens. I have tried everything I can think of up to and including custom kernel builds to get this bugger to give me either a 1920x1024 or a 1280x1024 screen to no avail. "xrandr" shows no support for either screen size on newer distros. Alas, no way to put a real graphics card on it!
The main virtue of this box is that the total power is about 35 watts and with so little PS dissipation, I run a slow fan in it and in the case. The CPU just has a big heat sink. The box is in my bedroom and I can barely hear it at night in our very quiet rural location. Nice for using the free download time on my satellite ISP.
I also have an HTPC with a Zotac/AMD64/nVidia mobo and another desktop with a Gigabyte/AMD64 base. both of these have 1 TB Western Dig hard drives. The HTPC runs Mythbuntu which works great with my SiliconDust HDHomeRun TV tuner-on-network box.