The Core 2 Duo Mini-ITX Box

After running my old Mini-ITX system as a PVR for a few months, I started to get somewhat annoyed at its lack of power. The embedded processor was great for simple tasks but even with the help of the powerful TV tuner card its operation was slow. The performance of the system was once acceptable, but when relaxing who wants to be waiting for a system to load when other options, like TiVo work so well? It was time for another upgrade. At about the same time as all this was happening my Mini-ITX motherboard died so there was no doubt that was time for a major overhaul. Unlike the old system, the new one was designed for serious performance, not just the bare essentials. What specifically does that mean? Core 2 Duo, Windows Vista, SATA storage, and more.