Help me build a SFF

[jammur21]

A few years back I had a Chyang Fun e-Cube with a 2.8 P4 and 9800 pro. I sold it because of the HSF and PS noise.


Quiet enough to keep powered on and in a bedroom or use as HTPC - possibly MCE2005 as OS
Video card powerful to game on a Dell 2005FPW, but not noisy or hot
No water cooling

Thanks for helping a noob

 

[deathwalker]

Aspire makes an attractive line of SFF cases...X-Qpack. Newegg.com sells just about all of the styles available. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...lue=548:8292&bop=and&srchInDesc=aspire With this box you buy the Micro ATX form factor mobo of your choice and all the other hardware required. This leaves you the option of either buying a motherboard that supports either AGP or PCIe for your graphics interface. Your options are nearly limitless ...within reason. I am assuming that you can build your own system..if not..then Newegg.com has a very complete line of Shuttle SFF systems. Of course you still have to build them, but they do come with the motherboard already installed.

 

[dexvx]

http://global.shuttle.com/Product/Barebone/SD11G5.asp

You cannot beat this in terms of quiet and heat to performance ratio


Reviews:

SFF-Tech.com
Silent PC Review

 

[deathwalker]

Jammur21....The reccmendation by dexvx is a very decent option. However, without trying to be arguemenitive...the Pentium M solution does have its drawbacks. It is mostly in the CPU performance area. This CPU is a Laptop designed CPU and performs very well in that environment and delivers good performance for what most people expect from a laptop. However, it is not the equal of processors designed for Desktop use. It will not multitask well and does not have the floating point strength of AMD64 processors. Also, the integrated graphics solution will not meet your needs for gaming...thus you will have to buy an aftermarket PCIe graphics card and..there in lies a much bigger problem. Todays graphics cards that provide adequate gaming performance are also very demanding on the systems ability to provide power. This box does not have a internal power supply...it uses a external power brick that provides only 220 watts of power. I doubt seriously that it will provide the needed power for a "good" gaming graphics card. Having said that, this does not mean that his recomendation would not work well for you. It may very well meet your needs but you should understand what you are buying and understand its limitations.

 

[Traire]

I would reccomend:

Shuttle or Biostar Socket 939 Barebones kit (Case + Motherboard)
AMD Athlon 64
Radeon 9550SE passively cooled graphics card
Hauppuage PVR150 or ATi Theater 550 TV Tuner

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: deathwalker
...the Pentium M solution does have its drawbacks. It is mostly in the CPU performance area. This CPU is a Laptop designed CPU and performs very well in that environment and delivers good performance for what most people expect from a laptop. However, it is not the equal of processors designed for Desktop use. It will not multitask well and does not have the floating point strength of AMD64 processors.

Do you want me to link some benchmarks that have Dothans put the smackdown on P4's and A64's?

Yea Dothans suck on scientific apps, under perform in multimedia, but gaming is their strong suite, as well as power/performance ratio.

Originally posted by: deathwalker
Also, the integrated graphics solution will not meet your needs for gaming...thus you will have to buy an aftermarket PCIe graphics card and..there in lies a much bigger problem. Todays graphics cards that provide adequate gaming performance are also very demanding on the systems ability to provide power. This box does not have a internal power supply...it uses a external power brick that provides only 220 watts of power. I doubt seriously that it will provide the needed power for a "good" gaming graphics card.

They installed a GeForce6800 GT. 6800GT's consume more power at load than 7800GT's. Arguably, a 7800GT would also work. You forget that a Pentium-M consumes much less power than a P4/A64, so while 220W might seem small, it doesn't have to power a 100W CPU (25W for the Pentium-M).

But seriously, if you want to game, a 6800/7800 or X800/X1800 will most likely be the loudest part of your machine.

 

[deathwalker]

dexvx...I had not read that particular review that you linked to which had PCIe graphics card testing on it. I must say I am a bit surprised and you do get the one-up award on me for that one. Not to say though that it wouldn't still make me feel a little nervous. Your are a very active forum person and i have seen a number of your posts and i do respect your opinions. I guess im just old school and have a some problems with some of these new approaches. I will say this though that while it did seem to do just fine in benchtesting the real proof is in longterm user experience. I have a Dell 9300 with a 1.8 PM and a go6800 graphics solution that does game quite well. Im sure that jammur21 could do much worse than the solution you recommended.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: dexvx
http://global.shuttle.com/Product/Barebone/SD11G5.asp

You cannot beat this in terms of quiet and heat to performance ratio


Reviews:

SFF-Tech.com
Silent PC Review

<3 shuttles... There really quiet and provided u have good circulation, they dont heat up very much. Only problem your allowed a MAX of 2 HD, thats if u toss your floppy and 1 Optical drive. The thing has 1 PCI and 1PCI-e / AGP, so if ur going wireless, u better think of USB solutions instead of PCI, and if u have a high end card, that is going to heat it up quite a bit too. But the shuttle has a intigrated heat pipe cooling solution which isnt so bad.

:]