If you are not adverse to buying components and building a system, I can't recommend a fanless cpu/motherboard combo from Intel enough: Intel Desktop Board D525MW A little underpowered (1.8 GHz) but fits the RAM spec you noted. I have one of these and it's really awesome. You can get one for under $100 here in Canada. You've got a PCI slot, so stick in a firewire card and you're good to go. It's also tiny, 170 x 170 mm. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/desktop-motherboards/de… On 5/30/12, Sciss <contact(a)sciss.de> wrote: > hi, > > I don't know if this is the best place to ask, as it's more of a hardware > question... > > I will need to get a good + cheap + reliable machine to sound installations. > I can invest _max_ £400 (EUR 500) and I need to get hold of the machine > latest by August. Unless a miracle happens and a new Mac Mini model is > announced, dropping the prices of current models by at least £150, I am > looking for something comparable of the i5 2.3 GHz Mac Min, Linux based. > > It can't be desktop size, it really should be a portable thing, size factor/ > weight not much larger than first gen Mac Mini. > > The nettops seem all underpowered for computation expensive realtime apps. I > came across this : http://www.zotacusa.com/zbox-giga-id72-plus.html -- but > seems like a new model or so, can't find any retailers or pricing info, at > least not in the UK. > > Minimum specs would be i3 2 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 100 GB HD. Will be audio only, so > I guess graphics card doesn't matter. And of course, it needs to run Linux > audio -- my stuff will use SuperCollider and various things on the Java VM. > > How about audio interfaces? I guess there is no chance I can connect a MOTU > 828 Mk II to any of these boxes? The Z-Box looks interesting saying that it > has 8-channels digital audio output via HDMI. I have no clue how to get that > to 8 analog line signals, but maybe there is a cheap way? Will there be a > problem getting Jack to talk to this kind of interface? > > Thanks for your suggestions, I hope it's not off topic! > > Best, > > .h.h. > > _______________________________________________ > Linux-audio-user mailing list > Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org > http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user >

On 05/30/2012 03:09 PM, Sciss wrote: ASUS EEEbox comes to mind. If you like bare-bones: search for "Advantech Single Board Computers". They come without HDD, w/o power-supply and w/o case (it's not a "box" per se), but there are powerful models available that meet your specs and even with PS, HDD and case will be within in your budget. http://buy.advantech.eu/Embedded+computer+embedded+pc+bo/3+5+Single+Board+C… I'm just setting up an installation using a PCM-9363D-S8A1E (Atom CPU 64bit, 1.8GHz, 2 cores [4 w/hyperthreading], 4 GB RAM) + USB2-Audio Presonus 1818VSL: 8 channel audio I/O -- jackd runs stable at "-p64 -r48000 -n2" ~6ms round-trip latency with debian/wheezy's RT-kernel.

Firewire is rare these days. Besides: "MOTU is hostile towards Linux" [http://www.ffado.org/?q=node/63] :) How many channels do you need?

On 05/30/2012 06:21 PM, Sciss wrote: [..] Really hard to tell. esp. for audio applications. I also have no clue how efficient supercollider is.. Are you using supernova to make use of multiple cores? As rule of thumb: Atom CPUs processing power is comparable to that of an i3 of the same clock-freq. But most Atom chipsets lack some CPU features - e.g virtualization support. Yet Atom != Atom and i3 != i3 ; it really depends on the model. I suppose the only way to tell is to try.. What I really like about Atom CPUs for audio is that they can run fan-less. best, robin _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user

As rule of thumb: Atom CPUs processing power is comparable to that of an i3 of the same clock-freq. But most Atom chipsets lack some CPU features - e.g virtualization support. Yet Atom != Atom and i3 != i3 ; it really depends on the model. I suppose the only way to tell is to try..

On 05/30/2012 09:21 AM, Sciss wrote: I have an Atom N450 netbook. In practical terms, its limits for a single task are: * Time-stretching a clip in realtime to 50% to original time span. * A set with 4-5 monophonic synths, and 4-5 pure audio tracks. * All of the Renoise sample programs * Most anything you can throw at Mixxx.

While it has very good audio performance -- it has significantly less headroom than a Core2 or i-series processor (feels like a factor of 2 or 4). Other non-audio tasks: * Large compiles take 4-6x longer (e.g. kernel, Qt) * Number crunching tasks are very slow. It's like the floating point stuff is driving drunk.

* Processor has a high performance hit for inefficient memory access (compared to Core2, i-series).

* Processor doesn't benefit as much from SIMD (SSE) optimizations. E.g. you're lucky to get a 2x performance boost using SIMD instructions... whereas a Core2 or i-series will see at least a 2x performance boost. * Most Atom devices have only 1GB RAM (2GB if you're lucky). I've not seen an Atom device with more then 2GB.

Finally, all this experience is in 32-bit mode. I've been running in 64-bit mode recently, but haven't done much audio with it. Overall, it feels about the same.

I have an Atom N450 netbook. In practical terms, its limits for a single task are: * Time-stretching a clip in realtime to 50% to original time span. * A set with 4-5 monophonic synths, and 4-5 pure audio tracks. * All of the Renoise sample programs * Most anything you can throw at Mixxx. While it has very good audio performance -- it has significantly less headroom than a Core2 or i-series processor (feels like a factor of 2 or 4).

Other non-audio tasks: * Large compiles take 4-6x longer (e.g. kernel, Qt) * Number crunching tasks are very slow. It's like the floating point stuff is driving drunk. * Processor has a high performance hit for inefficient memory access (compared to Core2, i-series). * Processor doesn't benefit as much from SIMD (SSE) optimizations. E.g. you're lucky to get a 2x performance boost using SIMD instructions... whereas a Core2 or i-series will see at least a 2x performance boost.

* Most Atom devices have only 1GB RAM (2GB if you're lucky). I've not seen an Atom device with more then 2GB.

Finally, all this experience is in 32-bit mode. I've been running in 64-bit mode recently, but haven't done much audio with it. Overall, it feels about the same.