What drew you to a SFF system?

[coolred]

I am building an HTPC, and at the advice of many many people from the boards, I will likely us emy current ECS K7S5A, 2100+, 512MB crucial 2100, ATI AIW 8500DV, Hercules GTPX, and a few other parts for the HTPC, and use any ne wparts I buy in a system used as my main rig. Currently my rig is housed in an ANtec SX1030B, pretty beefy case really. Don't get me wrong I liek it a lot, its a great case, but I am considering making my next system SFF. Just wondering why you chose to use a SFF system,

 

[ozziegn]

me? I finally got tired of a full tower system taking up 30% of my entire desktop space and the noise of the multiple fans didnt really appeal to me either.

my Shuttle SB75G2 looks sleek, is almost dead silent and takes up alot less space than my previous system could ever dream of.

 

[Zim Hosein]

I don't have a SFF system yet as I'm upgrading my to a new system, but as soon as I'm done putting my new rig together, the next project will be a SFF PC for the living room for my parents since they think that a full tower for a home-built PVR is an eye-sore, and I agree

 

[SKC]

ozzie, can I ask you what the financial outlay for your sff system was? I'm looking into building one for my room, so it'll be less cramped.

 

[bolomite]

that's easy -- I just love the Antec Aria, had to build a system with it!

 

[Mo0o]

The space it opened up. really important for me in a college dorm

 

[Hallis]

After hauling my 85lb+ watercooled full tower up 2 flights of stairs to my frien's room for a weekend of gaming and downloading i promised myself that i was never going to build another huge system again. lol. All that severe excess and i can do everything with a SFF that i could with my monster rig. Without having to worry about a water leak lol. And there are still plenty of mods to be done to a SFF. EVEN watercooling I'm just tired of monster towers draering everything else in my room.

 

[spongebobfan]

I've built 3 SFF systems so far and I built them for portability. My main LAN party system is built around a Chenbro hornet mATX mini-tower. it has a 3.0 P4, 2gig DDR400, SATA etc. Lovely....

 

[coolred]

Well just as I suspected most of you chose SFF due to its smaller size, LOL. Just wondering if I should, it would be ncie to have a smaller system, but I don't attend many LAN parties, and I don't absolutely need the space that a smaller computer would give me.

 

[WackyDan]

A few reasons actually...

1. It was time for a new gaming rig!!!!!!!

2. I already had an IBM server running win2k advanced server, a PIII tower, and old PS/2 (don't laugh-playtoy-firewall box) and of course my ThinkPad. I had and still have everything on a kvm and audio switch. I just needed the smaller footprint due to all the other systems at my desk.

3. Looking at all the integration with the SFF, I didn't need slots for a NIC, sound, USB 2.0, Firewire. I couldn't think of anything other than a high end video card at the time, and I don't use dialup anymore so I still have 1 PCI slot free. And I can always add stuff via Firewire or USB so it's all good.....

4. Looking at the size and relative cheapness of today's hard drives, I didn't need space for more than 1 drive ( I got the shuttle), and if I upgrade that, I'll just ghost my image onto the new drive.

5. I only needed one optical drive, and I can burn DVD's and CD's all in one so the one 5 1/4 bay is plenty.

6. I bonused the system by adding a card reader in the 3 1/2 bay where the floppy usually is installed.

I like the looks too, but that was my last consideration. Heat was a concern, so I did a lot of trolling of forums and review sites to ensure I was making the right choice.... which I did.

Now I'm thinking of retiring a tower and building another Shuttle SFF.

 

[wyvrn]

ozzie, can I ask you what the financial outlay for your sff system was? I'm looking into building one for my room, so it'll be less cramped.

This is not too much larger than an SFF, and much more cost effective.I am building a micro-atx system to use as an HTPC. It is going to cost around $360, more if I upgrade the hdd size. List of parts:

Black Inwin Desktop Case
Duron 850 (might use an Athlon 1.7 I have lying around)
Matrox G450 eTV for both video encoding and decoding
IBM 60GB hdd
512MB Crucial PC2100
NuTec 8x DVD burner
Refurb Shuttle MN31N from Newegg

The hdd, ram, and matrox card were all bought used from AT FS forums.