Any alternatives to the Soltek EQ3801?

[PrinceofWands]

I'm getting ready to replace my main system and I've decided to go portable. I'm looking at SFF options, and so far the Soltek EQ3801 is leading the way. I need two 5 1/4 bays, don't need a floppy, need an agp (or other video port) and pci slot (video and tv card), and like the idea of athlon 64 (cost vs performance).

Anyone else know of anything already out or coming out soon that would be reasonably close? Two 5 1/4 bays is an ABSOLUTE necessity for me, as is the pci and graphics expansion.

 

[Alex08]

Hi princeofwands,

can I ask why two 5.25 bays is necessary?

 

[PrinceofWands]

Cd/DVD copying. Copying to hard drive first is ridiculous, should be able to do it on the fly. So one combo drive and one good DVD burner.

 

[Alex08]

what about having one drive in an external enclosure?

there's so many great sff barebones with only one drive. My problem with some are the loud squeeling psu's used in some. My ideq200p i owned 4 months ago, just tore my ears apart. my sn85g4 was great, but i had to give it up to have some money for a laptop.

if i were to purchase another sff that's an a64 edition. I would have to go with:

antec aria
gigabyte matx a64 mobo

those two would cost less than a shuttle sff/soltek and you would also have more room for expansion.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Originally posted by: Alex08
what about having one drive in an external enclosure?

there's so many great sff barebones with only one drive. My problem with some are the loud squeeling psu's used in some. My ideq200p i owned 4 months ago, just tore my ears apart. my sn85g4 was great, but i had to give it up to have some money for a laptop.

if i were to purchase another sff that's an a64 edition. I would have to go with:

antec aria
gigabyte matx a64 mobo

those two would cost less than a shuttle sff/soltek and you would also have more room for expansion.

I don't tend to like external anything. The point of the small system is to be complete and self contained and ultra portable. A lan gaming rig etc. I'm pretty much immune to noises so I'm not too worried there.

Since I don't need this built tomorrow or anything I can wait and see if anything else comes about...but the 2 bay thing is pretty much a requirement, and so is athlon64 unless something else comes out soon that can beat it at a similar cost. As for expansion, with most systems sound is built in, raid is built in, nic is built in...one slot for a video card, one for my tv tuner card...what else is needed? I've noticed most sff's today can take two hard drives so that's a bonus. I just can't imagine needing anything else for expansion.

 

[kuljc]

Hey! I don't have time to look it up right now, but I if i recall there is only one soltek with two 5 1/4 drive bays. If so, I've built a comp with this sff and it's AWSOME! it's bigger of course than other sff's but that's because there are 2 drives. Also only bad thing about it was that everything is kinda crowded in the case. but still ran at a good temp, no over heating. this is what I put in it:

p4 2.8gig
9600 all in wonder
120 gig sata
etc... all the rest are normal stuff...


didn't have to mod anything. No additional fans. Runs awsome. Also just remember, if you're not happy with your temps you can always buy a pci fan, or mod one onto the case. the pci fan works great.. used it for another computer I built.


*EDIT* lol.. just read that you said it was an athlon 64... lol... mah bad.. well anyways hope my advice helps some... The sff has been running great, I really like soltek.