I am looking to make a small mini-itx system that can at least handle an old game like Tiger Woods 2002 while simultaneously being able to do a little bit of signal processing (real time fourier transforms and a bit of filtering). I was looking at this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813121359


Would the Atom 330 be powerful enough to handle this since it is dual core? I suspect the answer is yes if one core can handle a game like Tiger Woods 2002.

Additionally, would the TV-out on a board like this be sufficient for the game, or will I really need to invest in a seperate graphics card?

Assuming this is not powerful enough for my needs, I am willing to compromise on the mini-itx requirement assuming it is still a reasonably small system and equally cheap. The setup I was planning with the Atom board has 2 gigs of RAM and an 80 gb hard drive and case and power supply that comes to a little over $200 including shipping.

The CPU will be plenty powerful for even some of the newer games on medium settings, but it has integrated graphics. The Intel integrated graphics are going to kill almost any chance of gaming. You might be able to run a really old game like PGA Tour 2002, but Intel's integrated graphics usually can't even handle Source engine games like Half-Life 2 on the lowest settings. If it can handle it, then the CPU should have enough extra power to run some lite programs in the background since it's a dual-core. An old game like that will probably only make use of one core, freeing the other one up. I know that it's quite a bit more expensive, but I highly recommend this Mini-ITX motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813500022

The Intel 775 socket means that there is a huge range of CPUs that you can use with it. From a Pentium 4 to a Core 2 Quad and everything in between. The Atom CPU is soldered directly to the motherboard, so you'd be stuck with only being able to upgrade the RAM and possibly throwing an old GFX card in that PCI slot. The Zotac board supports a 1333 Mhz FSB, DDR2 800, 8 GB of RAM, AND it has a PCI-Express X16 slot so you have the option of putting a nice graphics card in there. Though if you're only doing light gaming, then you won't need a graphics card at all. It comes with an onboard Nvidia 9300, which is much faster than the integrated Intel graphics and will run games as recent as COD4. Sorry if I sound like I'm advertising, but the Zotac is the best Mini-ITX motherboard on the market, and I've looked high and low. But if you're on a tight budget, the Intel motherboard will probably suit your needs just fine. I just think it's important to have lots of options to upgrade, even if you don't utilize all of them.