Shuttle XPC PSU died, time for some tough choices (advice appreciated)

[TheAdvocate]

I'll link my now dated hardware below. My Shuttle PC55 400/450W PSU died, and it's expensive to replace and hard to find.

Years ago when I built this machine, I was a pretty hardcore gamer. 2 kids and several promotions later, and I'm pretty much occassional fodder in SC2 or FPS for some pissed off college kid. But I do still want to play those games, and I'd like to be able to run BF3 when it comes out.

Dont feel like sinking a lot of money into whatever I do. Looking for the best value proposition here.

My current build is a Shuttle SFF box. I want somethging similarly small. No big towers or flashy boxes. Understated, small & quiet preferred. Here's what I have now, and yes, it's OLD (2006!) D:

Shuttle XPC SN27P2 AMD Athlon X2/Athlon FX/Athlon 64/Sempron AMD Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856101004

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600 Brisbane 2.9GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor ADO5600DOBOX - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103234

XFX PVT98GYDLU GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150316

The fan on 9800 is just about done as well. It's making a horrible screeching noise. Shouldn't be hard to fix, but that card is getting long in the tooth as well.

I also have 4x1GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2

I have fallen way behind on hardware trends. Seems like everything is Core i5/i7 based now. Wondering how much of a bottleneck my cpu is. I play SC2 @ 1680x1050, but occassionally get slowdowns in big battles. Not sure how taxed my hardware is.

Thanks for reading my wall o'text!!

Advocate

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Can you please tell us your budget?
and the resolution of your montior and size
If youre in the range of 1k, we can find you a nice i5 build

 

[TheAdvocate]

Ughh just lost my reply. I want to re-use as many components as possible.

Monitor: Dell 2007WFP (TFT, no TN panel - love it!) 1680x1050

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/monitors/2007WFP/en/about.htm

I can get a replacement PC55 psu (it's a proprietary for that SFF box) for about $160-$170, and XFX really should replace my fan for free under their lifetime warranty.

Just wondering if maybe it would be smarter to apply approx $250 elswehere in terms of immediate performance gains and future proofing.

Edit - if I replace my 9800GT, I definitely need 2xDVI or DVI & HDMI. I run my 42" LCD as a 2nd monitor.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

well you'll need a better CPU and a better GPU thats for sure.

 

[mfenn]

It's not worth buying a new mobo for that CPU. The ROI just isn't there.

However, if you want to upgrade the core platform you'll be looking at something like this (at minimum):

i3 2100 + Biostar H61MH combo $175
Kingston DDR3 1333 4GB $28
Core platform: $203

Of course, you'll need a new case and PSU to go with that. The trouble here is that you're not going to get something as small as the Shuttle unless you go mini-ITX, which will cost more than the minimum build laid out above. If you're OK with MicroATX, then:

Fractal Design Core 1000 $40 (pics)
Corsair 430CX $35 AR
Case + PSU: $75 AR

Then of course your 9800GT is going to be a huge bottleneck, so you'll want to be looking at something at least on the level of the 6870 for good performance in BF3.

6870 $155 AR

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can't expect to reuse many parts from a 5 year old machine. If you get all that I've outlined above, you're looking at spending $433, but will also be getting a pretty massive performance upgrade.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Dont feel like sinking a lot of money into whatever I do. Looking for the best value proposition here.

Here's a whole new computer for a shade over $400 after a $20 rebate.

That said, mfenn's system is a better 'value' in that it will give you substantially better performance for not all that much more money. Mine is simply a cheaper suggestion in light of your comment that I quoted.

If you want to save more money, you can likely re-use your existing optical drive and hard drive. You could save a big chunk of change by RMAing your GPU. You'd almost certainly get back something more powerful than a 9800GT and it would only set you back the cost of shipping the card to XFX.

 

[TheAdvocate]

Thanks for the advice.

I did a lot of research this weekend, and I'm still weighing the potential investment. I would have rather waited as long as possible to do this upgrade, but it is being forced on me now.

One question - any good articles on the new A8 chips PLUS a Radeon in crossfire for gaming? Seems like everyone only wants to evaluate those with standalone graphics, and I can understand the limitations there, but in crossfire configuration - wouldn't it be a good way to get a dual card performance into an SFF box?

Otherwise, I'm leaning towards a fresh build, except for my DVDRW and Seagate 1TB SATA.

Thinking about an i5 2400 with 4-8GBs of quality DDR3 and a Radeon 6870. Seems like a sweet spot for performance, though I havent used a Radeon product in ages, so I'm not well versed.

Looking at maybe this LianLi microATX case or something like this. And an Asus micro ATX board with an IDE connector (for my lightscribe DVDRW - I do actually use it so might as well) and 2x PCIE 16x. I like the GUI BIOS the Asus board has.

If I am heading down a bad path, let me know! Thanks.

 

[mvbighead]

Personally, I'd take mfenn's advice. You've already found out why, but I'll go ahead and say the smartest thing you can do if you're looking for small is go no smaller than MicroATX with a standard powersupply.

The SFF builds may be pretty, but the powersupply options are typically limited, cheap, and expensive to replace. A microatx gives you some limitations, but none so much as the SFF boxes.

 

[TheAdvocate]

Well shuttle just agreed to sell me a PSU for $85, so i am thinking about doing that, regardless.

In the meantime, I had waffled on the miniITX, and gone microATX for the same reasons you said. Here was a wishlist I was working on for the build.

Really cannot decide whether to get the I3 2100T or an 65W I5.. In my experience, if I save $60-$70 right now, I end up spending it later on an upgrade, so why not just spend it now?

And is Eyefinity at all necessary for a dual monitor setup? So used to nVidia. This is new to me.

 

[sm625]

Is there anything special about that power supply that would preclude you from using a more typical $40 power supply? Aside from form factor of course. If any old power supply will work, then you might consider that option. Yes it might look horrible having an oversized atx psu hanging off the back of your pretty XPC case, but it would be cheap. Maybe it could hold you over till you eventually find a compatible power supply on ebay for $27. Never know.

I would definitely be looking on ebay for any xpc supply that is or can be made compatible with your case.

 

[TheAdvocate]

I'd really have no where to put it, and the resale value on the box, even if I left all the parts in it, would go from small to none.

I think I learned my lesson about proprietary builds. But I absolutely hate mid or full ATX cases. Have owned several and never again. Huge waste of room, loud unless you watercool, and an eyesore.

I have also been using this box as an HTPC, so it may make more sense why SFF is so appealing to me.

 

[Blue Shift]

If you're just playing Starcraft II, you might want to hold off on the GPU for a bit. SCII is very CPU-intensive, and you're running at 1680x1050... That 9800GT should be fine for now, and delaying your GPU purchase would allow you to go ahead and grab the i5 2400 for SCII. You could then make a more educated GPU purchase using BF3 benchmarks once it's released.

The only question is... Would you be satisfied with medium/high settings in SCII for the time being?


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Edit: Another route

One question - any good articles on the new A8 chips PLUS a Radeon in crossfire for gaming? Seems like everyone only wants to evaluate those with standalone graphics, and I can understand the limitations there, but in crossfire configuration - wouldn't it be a good way to get a dual card performance into an SFF box?

It's a feasible way to get decent performance in some games for dirt-cheap, especially now that FM1 motherboards can be found for $70. A full FM1 mini-tower build with a 6670 would cost $400-450. Asymmetric Crossfire has a lot of issues, though:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/6

According to Anand's tests, Starcraft II is very playable at 1680x1050 with this sort of setup, but slower than the cheap GPU alone due to drivers and scaling issues.

 

[mfenn]

In the meantime, I had waffled on the miniITX, and gone microATX for the same reasons you said. Here was a wishlist I was working on for the build.

Yeah, ITX can be cheap for a limited set of use cases, but if you want to get fancy, it can be really expensive.

Really cannot decide whether to get the I3 2100T or an 65W I5.. In my experience, if I save $60-$70 right now, I end up spending it later on an upgrade, so why not just spend it now?

The i3 2100 is still a dual-core at the end of the day. A very fast dual-core, but a dual-core nontheless. Which means, it's fine for normal web browsing, most games, and other light tasks. You'll really want the quad if you start encoding videos on a regular basis, heavily multitasking, or playing games that can use all 4 cores. As a side note, I would not bother with the 2100T. Despite the TDP rating, it doesn't use much less power than the normal one. Same for the 2400S.

Few things I would change about this:
- That H67 board is priced well into Z68 territory. If you're willing to spend that much, I'd go with the ASRock Pro3-M instead.
- The 430CX would be plenty of power for that GPU and CPU.
- Obviously, only buy one of the CPUs.
- The Vengeance is priced kind of high and has really obnoxious heatspreaders. I'd get some normal DDR3 1333 instead.

And is Eyefinity at all necessary for a dual monitor setup? So used to nVidia. This is new to me.

Nope, it is not necessary for dual monitors. Basically, Eyefinity is a technology that makes multiple monitors appear to the OS as a single larger one. You can still do dual monitors the normal way.

 

[Gillbot]

There is little that can compare to the firepower the shuttles pack into that small space, especially for the price. However, their PSU's have always been their downfall. That said, I used to be hardcore into the shuttle SFF systems until I had a string of PSU failures and I got tired of shelling out the $ to replace them. I migrated to mATX which is about 2-2.5x the size of a shuttle SFF but the flexibility is MUCH better since you can use pretty much standard gear and mATX boards are plentiful.