FIC IC-VL67 vs. Regular ATX form

[nrgtek]

Hey all,

I am in the process of designing a new system. However, I'm at a bit of a crossroad. I love the idea of a mini pc like a shuttle or FIC box. I could benefit from the portability but am worried about the performace. I'm not a fanatical about every little bit of power i can squeeze out, but i do want to run games smoothly and applications effeciently. So my question is how do the little mobo's like the: Intel 82865G + ICH5 which is in the FIC Barebone system at Newegg stack up against the normal built machines that anandtech reccomends in their guides? Primarily I would be using the same reccomended hardware which is in the mid and high end system guides on this site.

Thanks a lot!

 

[nrgtek]

Has anyone tested these mobo's? or know if they are compatible with P4 x.xE's?

 

[geecee]

You might be better off posting this question in the SFF/Notebooks forum. However, to answer your question, I don't believe these is much of a difference between these and systems built off of full size boards, aside from the obvious space/expandibility constraints. They should be about on par performance-wise.

Here's a review with some benchmarks for the IC-VL67:
IC-VL67 Review

Here's a shuttle review from AT:
Shuttle SB65G2 Review

The higher end P4 "E" CPUs (i.e. Prescott) have given some of these systems some problems but that's on a case by case basis. There might or might not be power supply/BIOS issues. Here's an example:
Feel the Burn

I would guess if you want to run a Prescott in a SFF system, make sure the system explicitly says it will run a Prescott. Otherwise, just get a Northwood.