Thanks for the release date info update thorin. Will check Fry's, newegg, and eWiz to see if they will carry it.
bupkus - there are other mini-itx solution available with more power, but they are more $$$. One is the
Albatron KI690-AM2. It's Mini-Itx and uses one of the better intergrated video chipsets. Uses regular AMD AM2 CPUs.
The thing is, how do you cool one of these AM2 CPUs in a mini-itx form factor? I have a regular Athlon 64 3000+ AM2 desktop system with a big Arctic Cooling Freezer 64. It's undervolted, and runs at 32C at idle, but cranks up to around 50C at full load.
There's so some other mini-itx that can take Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs,
Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile mini-itx mb. Also wondering what's the cooling solutions for these in a little mini-itx case.
The laptop market is much, much larger, even surpassing desktop sales now. I don't see mini-itx affecting laptops, but I do see the opposite happening, laptops affecting mini-itx.
I think Intel will offer a SoC (System on a Chip) next year (CPU, chipset, video, I/O, etc... all on one chip). These will go in to low cost laptops, but I can see this also being made into cheap mini-itx. Also, I can see laptop SSD tricking down to mini-itx for cheap/fast booting for kiosk solutions.
Like widefault said, Intel's target is for emerging markets like China, India, SE Asia, etc... They're trying to push out sub-$300 systems.
Dell announces cheap-o Mini-ITX desktop for China EC280