MSI’s got a nice new mainboard and CPU solution if you’ve been thinking about building your own HTPC or a budget-minded desktop. The J1800i comes with an integrated Bay Trail Celeron processor, and it’s got a suggested retail price of just $60.

msi-bay-trail-60

The j1800i is very similar to the ECS BAT-I. It features a 64-bit dual-core chip clocked at 2.41Ghz, and only a small aluminum heatsink is required for cooling. With a TDP of just 10W, the Celeron J1800 isn’t going to throw a whole lot of heat. Flanking the CPU on MSI’s new mini board are dual DIMM slots that can accommodate a maximum of 8GB of DDR3 RAM.

You’re limited to two SATA ports for storage, as it doesn’t look like MSI has included an mSATA socket on the j1800i. You’ve got plenty of display options, though, with VGA, DVI, and HDMI all at the ready. Legacy PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports are also provided, as are a pair of USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, and a gigabit Ethernet port (sorry, no dual NICs here).

While the MSI j1800i is priced very reasonably at $60, and even after you add in a case and power supply you’re still only around $110. That’s quite a bit cheaper than Intel’s Celeron-based NUC. Add $75 to max out the RAM and pop in your drive, and you’ve got yourself a complete mini-desktop or HTPC for around $250.

Need more power? MSI is also planning to offer a version that features a quad-core Intel j1850 Celeron. It’ll cost you just ten dollars more, which is pretty good bang for your buck.

Update: Fanless Tech found new Intel J1800 boards from Biostar and Gigabyte. They’ll also sell for around $60.

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Lee Mathews

Computer tech, blogger, husband, father, and avid MSI U100 user.

28 replies on “MSI J1800i is a Bay Trail board and CPU combo for just $60”

  1. According to MSI this board runs just Windows 8 (so not Linux, Windows XP or even Windows 7).

  2. If it had some more SATA ports it would make for a good NAS too…

  3. This looks good. Should I wait for something similar with an AMD APU on it?

  4. So, for just under the price of two model B Raspberry Pis, I can get this, with a more powerful CPU and do some experimenting with more PC-oriented versions of operating systems, instead of compiled ones for ARM chips?

    shut up and take my money

  5. Just the word Atom makes me want it on an even smaller board. Any nano/pico-ITX boards available?

  6. Nice board and a good price.

    It would be nice if the NUC, BRIX or even nano-ITX and pico-ITX board form factors get popular among motherboard and case makers. I’d like to slap together my one micro-PC.

  7. OFF.

    F*ck Intel, f*ck x86, f*ck Windows, i like normal Linux distributions but they DONT HAVE future, the future to me is the customs Android ROMs like Cyanogen and others, look to the GooglePlay store, infinite games, and getting better and better. Man, I WANT a 8 core ARM Cortex A-15 or better in an Android mini-PC stick, like MKs 808 series, with 3GB or 4GB of memory, i want some “Windows” like softwares in Android, i want that NOW, if i have this, GOODBYE WINTEL PC.

    Sorry for my “engrish”.

    1. you need to wait for the AMD 64bit arm offering. Apparently the open source drivers are supposed to work with the gpu part. If it pans out, and the 64bit arm processor isn’t “junk” this should bring life back into the desktop.

      1. AMD doesn’t know ANYTHING about open source. For Open source Intel is BY FAR your best bet!!!!! AMD’s ARM SoC is going to suck OUT LOUD!!!!

    2. “Infinite games” but none are worth playing. Desktop Linux has much better games on Steam.

  8. I think I want that quad core version. I hope it supports a 4k display (I only need 30Hz).

  9. How can MSI charge so little when the tray price of a Celeron J1800 is $72?

    1. That’s just the suggested price by Intel. OEMs can be given discounts on hardware components just like how MS is selling Windows 8 + Office 2013 for $30 to OEMs who build sub-10″ devices.

    2. Listed Tray pricing is just for minimum quantities, but they all go down in price for orders that go beyond minimum quantities…

      One of the reasons ARM is usually cheap is because they can usually guarantee a large order, we’re talking about millions versus minimum orders of just a few thousands… So the price can go down a lot as long as the order is large enough…

      It’s easier to cover the cost of manufacturing with large orders as well… So there’s less compounded costs as well that helps lower the price as you would by managing separate but smaller orders that requires the factory be set up differently for each order… along with other costs like storing a supply of a given chip as you wait for someone to buy it that a large single order usually avoids…

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