couple of sff/shuttle questions & help!

[aleco]

couple of sff/shuttle questions & help! [updated with possible spec check!]

Hi all,

I'm basically after a small and quiet pc for a small student room (with a moderately decent graphics card if poss, although i'm not a hardcore gamer at all, and have a Wii for most gaming needs).

As it's a small room, I'm hoping for the PC to function as the TV as well to save space (plus i don't think my 32" lcd will fit in, so would be stuck with a 10 year old 14" tv!).

Anyway, I guess my question is: are pre-built pcs like the shuttles quiet, or would I get quieter results from building my own (i.e. are the shuttle customised cooling systems better than something I could buy and stick in)? If self-built is quieter, I presume that would come at the cost of size?

Also, from experience with my ATI X1900, until I added it to the watercooling loop, I know that graphics cards can make more noise than everything else put together! If I go for a shuttle with something like a 8600GTS or X1950GT (I presume the nvidia offering is more powerful?) do they customise the cooling at all, or are the default coolers left on them?

Shuttle ones I was looking at included:

• x200m vista (love the design, downside of just onboard graphics. x100 has an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400, but no tv tuner)
• g5 3300m vista (powerful, proper graphics card, possibly noisy?)

Any of those recommended?

Sorry if these are basic Qs!

 

[lsg1r]

Personally I would go with a sff pc, such as the sugo sg01e.
Reasons:
- more pci/pcie slots
- can use the fans of your choice to set the noise at the level you want (although the stock ones are pretty quiet in my view)
- can use the nt06 (in sugo and with a 120mm psu fan) and you get a passive cpu cooler
- you can change the motherboard easier than shuttle (too hard to get replacements in my view at the moment)

 

[aleco]

Thanks for the reply - I guess I'll give the DIY sugo a go then as it sounds like that'll offer a tad more power but hopefully quieter.

One other question (for the mo anyway!) - which mobo would be best:

Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R
or
Asus P5K-VM Micro ATX

The Asus appears to offer faster ram speeds but is that about the only difference?

 

[Tute]

Thanks for the reply - I guess I'll give the DIY sugo a go then as it sounds like that'll offer a tad more power but hopefully quieter.

One other question (for the mo anyway!) - which mobo would be best:

Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R
or
Asus P5K-VM Micro ATX

The Asus appears to offer faster ram speeds but is that about the only difference?

Pretty much yeah. I went for the Asus, however it's better to go for the one that's cheapest, as they're identical.

 

[aleco]

ok thanks again for the info!

I'm hoping to order soon, no-one around to collect til Fri so I'll be ordering Wed eve/Thurs morn probably. How's the below spec look?

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-8500 1066MHz Reaper HPC Edition Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2RPR10662GK) OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-8500 1066MHz Reaper HPC Edition Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2RPR10662GK) £129.99
(£152.74) £259.98
(£305.48)
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500 Media Centre Edition Dual TV Tuner Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500 Media Centre Edition Dual TV Tuner £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £159.99
(£187.99) £159.99
(£187.99)
Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Samsung SpinPoint T HD501LJ 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM Samsung SpinPoint T HD501LJ 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £55.99
(£65.79) £55.99
(£65.79)
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £77.99
(£91.64) £77.99
(£91.64)
Samsung SH-S203BEBN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM Samsung SH-S203BEBN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Sub Total : £725.92
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £128.78
Total : £864.65

I'll be getting the sugo sg01 case and Silverstone SST-NT06 Lite NT06 w/o 120mm fan from elsewhere.

I'll probably be adding some form of 8800GTS, but currently investigating noise and heat levels to see if it's suitable for the PC.
Oh and a monitor but I'll worry about that later!

I plan on buying Vista of some form, eyeing up the upgrade of Retail Ultimate to get both 32bit and 64bit versions of the OS included, and avoiding the OEM potential problems with mobo changes.

However, I'm changing my mind I think on the ram for a couple of reasons:
1. will the higher speed ram make that much of a difference?
2.a. are 4 sticks worse than 2?
2.b. would 4 sticks produce a lot of heat?
3. £300 a bit much for ram?
4. Does ram running at a lower voltage mean less heat (but more efficient?)

The ones I was looking at were:
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-6400C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ)
and
OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK)

g skill has CAS Latency : 5-5-5-15 and Test Voltage : 1.8-2.0 V
ocz has slightly worse cas of 5-5-5-18 and 2.1 Volts

so I guess the g skill would be the better bet (assuming lower voltage is better)?

I'm not really planning on overclocking due to it being sff, and I want it to be as quiet as poss, so less heat = less noise, but then due to not overclocking, high default speed would be nice.

Thanks again for any input!

 

[Tute]

There's no harm in having 4GB RAM, however it's questionable how much of a difference it would make, and if it would be noticeable to you.

Personally i'd just take the 2GB RAM and be done with it. The 2x2GB kits are are quite new and immature, and expensive for what they are. And as for 4x1GB, it takes up all the memory slots and I believe you also lose some overclockability.

 

[Biffa]

Tutes right,

I'd say its marginal on the overclocking front, but its better to be safe than sorry so go for 2x2GB

Also with the Quad you are better off getting faster ram, the C2D chips don't really care about RAM latencies, you get less than a % difference really in performance, I'd go for the OcUK 8500+ memory, as it clocks up to 8900 speed in SPD so gives you huge FSB leeway on the memory side, plus its cheap as chips

 

[Tute]

Tutes right,

I'd say its marginal on the overclocking front, but its better to be safe than sorry so go for 2x2GB

Well I read in another thread that the 2x2GB kits are quite poor overclockers, often not going much above their rated speeds if at all.

As I said, I think just taking a 2GB kit (2x1GB) would be best, it's more than enough RAM, and you get the best of both worlds - good overclockability, and room for expansion.

 

[aleco]

That OcUK ram is rather cheap, at that price I may as well get 2GB of it (as no 2gb sticks to pair up for 4gb) and can always bin it once some decent 4GB stuff starts to make an appearance!

Thanks guys

It won't need cooling or anything (in its non-overclocked state at least) as it's not got heatsink things on it like the others, will it? I've bought ram without them on before and they've been fine, just not so sure if it makes a difference in the confined space available?

I think I'll put the money saved towards a graphics card Actually, as there's some new nVidia stuff due out in a couple of months, and the mobo has built in graphics to do the basics with, I'm thinking I might wait until Nov to get the graphics card...hmm.