I need your help with my first SFF build

[BadMonkey130U]

Hi my new forum friends! Ok, my first post here is a big one. I'm planning on starting my first "small form factor" build next week and I need your expert advice. Question 1. The parts listed below are what I'm planning on using, if you see anything that doesn't look right, could be improved upon, or conflicts let me know. Question 2. This question concerns the power supply, the Antec Aria case lists "300W with active PFC" as the power supply. Will this work for the parts listed; I don't plan on installing anything else. Thanks for the help.

Antec ARIA MicroATX Cube Case with 300W Power Supply, Model "LS-968"

Intel "D865GLCLK" i865G Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU

Intel Pentium 4/ 3.0E GHz 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Technology

Western Digital 200GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model WD2000JD

BFG Technologies Asylum nVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Video Card, 256MB DDR, TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "ASLM52256

NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW Drive, Black, Model ND-3520A

CRUCIAL RAM DDR 512 MB PC3200 ? CL=3 ? UNBUFFERED ? NON-ECC ? DDR400

 

[wisdomtooth]

VERY poor choice of CPU.

A Pres-hott is the last CPU I would ever use in an SFF PC.

You should look for a Northwood instead if you want to go P4.

 

[josepavento]

Originally posted by: wisdomtooth
VERY poor choice of CPU.

A Pres-hott is the last CPU I would ever use in an SFF PC.

You should look for a Northwood instead if you want to go P4.

 

[bfulford7]

Why not look at Shuttle SFFs?... they come with a motherboard and heat sink for the processor; that cuts down on noise, plus the ARIA has been reported in the forums to have poor heat dissapation. So if you combine the fire-building Prescott with the poor heat dissapation, then you have a furnace on your desk.

www.shuttle.com and look for the features you want, then check prices at NewEgg.com. Most of the SFFs from Shuttle run @$300.

If you are playing any kind of 3d or RTS games, I would stay away from the Geforce 5200 -- it is butt slow. For not much more you could get a passively cooled Radeon 9600 Pro for @$130

 

[BadMonkey130U]

Thanks, guys! This is EXACTLY the type of info that I need! I should have stated my needs in my first entry. The only reason I'm building this is to have a small gaming rig that will fit in my carry on luggage; my Dell Inspiron 1Ghz laptop is getting old and won't run what I need. My new SFF comp needs to run Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 in a most satisfying kick ass manner. I'm going to go right now and check out the Northwood CPU's, the Shuttle's, and the Radeon 9600 Pro. Later.

-BadMonkey130U

 

[bfulford7]

Now you may want to look at frame rates and extra for HL2 and D3 for the 9600PRo... you are in the same situation I am in.....

I am looking at a Shuttle SK83G - an Athlon 64 Via chipset SFF - $199 at newegg
and somewhere around an AMD 64 3200+

I want to keep the SFF quiet but also be able to play games nicely...so I am actually considering the Gigabyte Geforce 6800 that is passively cooled for $287 from newegg.... that will take away my extra PCI slot but I am thinking that I will be more satisfied with video output than worrying about putting a sound card in to overcome the onboard audio.

 

[Trey22]

Originally posted by: BadMonkey130U
Thanks, guys! This is EXACTLY the type of info that I need! I should have stated my needs in my first entry. The only reason I'm building this is to have a small gaming rig that will fit in my carry on luggage; my Dell Inspiron 1Ghz laptop is getting old and won't run what I need. My new SFF comp needs to run Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 in a most satisfying kick ass manner. I'm going to go right now and check out the Northwood CPU's, the Shuttle's, and the Radeon 9600 Pro. Later.

-BadMonkey130U

For your needs, a Shuttle is smaller and has better heat dissipation.

Have you considered a A64 SFF? Shuttle makes some nice socket 754 and 939 barebones.

The passive 9600 Pro is VERY nice for keeping your temps down, but for about 20-30 bucks more, you could probably find a 9800 Pro (which I have in my SN95G5 w/ NO heat issues) and noticeably upgrade your gaming experience.

 

[BadMonkey130U]

I'm reading the AnandTech Half-Life 2 CPU performance review right now and I'm now seriously considering going with AMD. I'm not too worried about fan noise as I plan on having the speakers cranked up to liver/giblet threatening levels while I'm playing, or using a headset. Is there some sort of way to determine if the power supply will be adequate, i.e., cd drivess use 15 watts, memory 10 watts, etc, etc? Thanks.

BadMonkey130U

 

[bfulford7]

I built a SK83G for my brother in law.. it has an Athlon 64 3400 (socket 754) with 512 mb, DVD burner, floppy, geforce 5200 for DVI (he aint no gamer) and it runs that no problem. I have heard the Shuttles will power a 6800GT.

Trey - how loud is the fan on that 9800Pro.. what version do you have?

 

[Trey22]

Originally posted by: bfulford7
I built a SK83G for my brother in law.. it has an Athlon 64 3400 (socket 754) with 512 mb, DVD burner, floppy, geforce 5200 for DVI (he aint no gamer) and it runs that no problem. I have heard the Shuttles will power a 6800GT.

Trey - how loud is the fan on that 9800Pro.. what version do you have?

On my 9800 Pro (128MB version) I removed the stock cooler and installed a VC-RE. Much better cooler and slightly quieter.

Only problem now is that I don't any control over the fan speed. XPC Tools doesn't support the SN95G5 yet, and SpeedFan v4.20 doesn't offer control yet either. Only choice would be to use a Zalman FanMate temporarily.

The noise right now is bearable, but I'm going for silent!

 

[scruffles]

badmonkey. I'll give you my specs and performance. That should help in some way.

Shuttle SB61G2V3
p4 3.2E running @ 3.606 overclocked(on stock water cooling from shuttle)
1 gig value ram(Corsair ofcourse)
74 Gb Raptor(10000rpm)
9800pro

The shuttle could not be a better buy!!! Works great!, allows me to cool a 3.2 Prescott running at 3.606.

I jsut came into a few bucks and am buying the Evga 6800gt to go in there. If you are interested, i'm gonna sell my 9800Pro, which is in perfect working order and runs HL2, Doom 3, UT2K4. And that's all with a pentium. Let me know if your interested!

I would suggest you get a AMD Shuttle (whichever you would like) (about $175-$240) and give it a gig of ram(value is best deal and tends to overclock quite well for the price) along with a card about equal to 9800Pro, or obviously my 9800pro.

You can definately come away with a hott computer for under $700

 

[BadMonkey130U]

Thanks everyone for the great advice! Do you guys notice much difference running a HD on SATA? I'm now definately leaning toward an Athlon centered system and due to you unanimous opinions it WILL be housed in a Shuttle box. What about the new PCI Express, is it something that I should worry about now or is it unecessary until later this year? Scruffles that sounds like a great system; I didn't notice any watercooled models from Shuttle, is it special order? How much are you asking for your 9800 Pro?
Thanks everyone for all your help. Later.

BadMonkey130U

 

[scruffles]

sorry, i didn't meen water cooled. it's actually liquid cooled. All the new shuttles out have the ICE heat cooling system. this has liquid in 4 pipes that go from the heatsink to the fan in the back. The liquid travels up the pipes when hot then cools and goes back to the cpu. this happens continupusly. That is what I understand anyway. There is a mod you can do if you want to. You can replace the back fan with a better 80mm one. I put a Thermaltake in mine. a bit too loud for the average user when turned all the way up, but does the job well. cooling my 3.2 @3.6 as i mentioned before.

I would sell you my 9800pro (http://www.newegg.com/app/View...ion=14-102-268&depa=1) for $160. As you can see at the newegg link that it's pretty popular, and has been for some time.

if your interested just personal message me, or leave a post here. thanks, dustin

 

[Trey22]

The whole SATA 150 vs IDE 133 looks great on paper, but from all the articles I've read there is no real world performance increase. The area where SATA drives do shine are their smaller data/power cables which are a tremendous advantage when working in such a small PC enclosure.

Same with the PCI Express vs AGP... the 8X AGP pipeline is nowhere near saturated enough to become a bottleneck in a system. But w/ PCI Express you probably will have a nice upgrade path in the next year or two when it surpasses AGP in performance (this statement only applies if you even keep a system that long ).

 

[Stark]

if you want PCIe in an A64 shuttle you'll be waiting a few weeks/months.

as for other comments about the P4 systems...
the P4e socket 478 northwood chips run cooler than the lga 775 prescott, but i wasn't crazy about any of the shuttle systems available for 478. I wanted a high powered gaming box that would also be able to work with MCE, not the other way around. My computer is in a different room than the TV and HT I use for Media Center viewing, so noise wasn't the #1 issue for me. (and it's a good thing, because the fans start cranking when i'm gaming).

The only shuttle i felt confident in running 3 HDDs, a DVD burner, a cutting edge video card, and a ton of USB2.0 peripherals was the SB81P with it's 350w power supply. My second choice would have been the SN95G5 with an A64 and the best AGP card available, but again the 240w PS was a little weak for my taste.

I had a bad experience with a couple of GF video cards initially, but it seems that problem is resolved and I'm fully satisfied with my new little black box.

 

[thehstrybean]

I got the Aria..It's a great case...Heat is a little bit of a problem, but I'm water cooling mine ...My specs aren't top of the line (yet), but soon they will be:
Aria Case
Gigabyte GA-K8S760M (SiS 760 + SiS 964 Chipsets) (http://www.newegg.com/app/View...ion=13-128-244&depa=0)
Athlon 64 2800+
512mb Corsair XMS PC2700
Maxtor 120GB SATA HDD
HP i5somethin DL DVD Burner
ATI All in Wonder 9600XT
Linksys Wifi G PCI Card

I would love to go with the MSI K8NM-FISR...If your lookin for the NVIDIA chipsets on a SFF board for the Athlon 64, try http://www.nforcershq.com/modu...d=chiporder&order=DESC ....The only thing I have against a Shuttle box is that I don't think you can upgrade the mobo without buying one from them...Personally, I don't like this...But hey, whatever...

 

[intogamer]

Originally posted by: bfulford7
I built a SK83G for my brother in law.. it has an Athlon 64 3400 (socket 754) with 512 mb, DVD burner, floppy, geforce 5200 for DVI (he aint no gamer) and it runs that no problem. I have heard the Shuttles will power a 6800GT.

Trey - how loud is the fan on that 9800Pro.. what version do you have?

check out sudian.com people over there have 6800GT in their shuttles!!!

 

[scruffles]

Originally posted by: Stark
if you want PCIe in an A64 shuttle you'll be waiting a few weeks/months.

as for other comments about the P4 systems...
the P4e socket 478 northwood chips run cooler than the lga 775 prescott, but i wasn't crazy about any of the shuttle systems available for 478. I wanted a high powered gaming box that would also be able to work with MCE, not the other way around. My computer is in a different room than the TV and HT I use for Media Center viewing, so noise wasn't the #1 issue for me. (and it's a good thing, because the fans start cranking when i'm gaming).

The only shuttle i felt confident in running 3 HDDs, a DVD burner, a cutting edge video card, and a ton of USB2.0 peripherals was the SB81P with it's 350w power supply. My second choice would have been the SN95G5 with an A64 and the best AGP card available, but again the 240w PS was a little weak for my taste.

I had a bad experience with a couple of GF video cards initially, but it seems that problem is resolved and I'm fully satisfied with my new little black box.

I didn't know that you could fit 3 hd's in a shuttle. where did you put it? my shuttle only has 2 hd slots.

 

[Stark]

Originally posted by: scruffles

Originally posted by: Stark
if you want PCIe in an A64 shuttle you'll be waiting a few weeks/months.

as for other comments about the P4 systems...
the P4e socket 478 northwood chips run cooler than the lga 775 prescott, but i wasn't crazy about any of the shuttle systems available for 478. I wanted a high powered gaming box that would also be able to work with MCE, not the other way around. My computer is in a different room than the TV and HT I use for Media Center viewing, so noise wasn't the #1 issue for me. (and it's a good thing, because the fans start cranking when i'm gaming).

The only shuttle i felt confident in running 3 HDDs, a DVD burner, a cutting edge video card, and a ton of USB2.0 peripherals was the SB81P with it's 350w power supply. My second choice would have been the SN95G5 with an A64 and the best AGP card available, but again the 240w PS was a little weak for my taste.

I had a bad experience with a couple of GF video cards initially, but it seems that problem is resolved and I'm fully satisfied with my new little black box.

I didn't know that you could fit 3 hd's in a shuttle. where did you put it? my shuttle only has 2 hd slots.

pic

The top 2 drives are SATA in RAID1
the 3rd HD is IDE ATA133 and replaces the floppy. the optical drive is just above HD#3 and below the top HD on the right.

 

[thehstrybean]

You can get three HDD in the Aria...