I dropped the PIII mostly due to the way it handles on/off. The Commell P-M board is like a normal board with ATX power. Hit the button and it turns on, shutdown the OS and it shuts itself off. The PIII was like an AT power supply, it would have needed an on/off switch and shutting down the OS left all the other bits still running. Would still need to hit the power switch to shut it down.
I also want the extra performance and lower power requirement of of the P-M. With SpeedStep set up on the P-M it spends most of the time running at 600MHz and .7 volts without even being any slower performing than the PIII.
Another reason was the ability to have more than 256MB of memory. The PIII is an i815 chipset, limited to 256MB, where the Commell can go to 1GB.
Other nitpicks on the PIII are the lack of headers for power and drive activity LEDs. Didn't feel like messing with that to get the guage working. The Commell has a pretty standard array of front panel connectors, and using standard size pins. Took me all of 10 minutes to get the guage wired up on this instead of an hour or so with the PIII board.
I also want the extra performance and lower power requirement of of the P-M. With SpeedStep set up on the P-M it spends most of the time running at 600MHz and .7 volts without even being any slower performing than the PIII.
Another reason was the ability to have more than 256MB of memory. The PIII is an i815 chipset, limited to 256MB, where the Commell can go to 1GB.
Other nitpicks on the PIII are the lack of headers for power and drive activity LEDs. Didn't feel like messing with that to get the guage working. The Commell has a pretty standard array of front panel connectors, and using standard size pins. Took me all of 10 minutes to get the guage wired up on this instead of an hour or so with the PIII board.