Need a good SFF system

jimjamuk

jimjamuk

jimjamuk

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Joined
30 Nov 2007
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Bristol, UK
Hi all,

Looking to spend some of my hard earned cash on a new machine. Was originally feeling lazy and was looking at one of the overclocked systems sold by overclockers and looking to spend £1000 on the base unit. Now the missus has seen my plans and kiboshed it on the size of the unit - my current system is one of the Shuttle SN45 systems and sits nicely on my desk but is looking tired and is 3-4 years old

Anyway whilst I still have some idea what I'd like - on the SFF front I haven't got a clue what is feasible esp on the graphics card front - so many of them are too big/hot to fit a SFF case!. So bearing in mind I'd look to spend up to £1000 and will use it for gaming + office stuff, would like to overclock if I can could someone put up a good spec??? Chipwise I'm certain on a Q6600 as for the rest :confused:

cheers

jimjamuk
 
Greetings! :D

Firstly, you're going to need to decide between another Shuttle system, or building yourself a full small form factor machine with case, motherboard, cooling, and all the gubbins. Both have their advantages - the SFF machine would be a lot more customisable, and probably more overclockable, but the Shuttle is smaller and saves you making the choice of case/motherboard/cooling.

If you decide to go for a Shuttle, given your budget i'd go for something like the SP35P2 with a good Core 2 Quad and an 8800GT. I've priced up what I would consider a good spec for the money below.

Shuttle XPC SP35P2 Pro Black Barebones System Intel Core 2 Duo (LGA775)
£301.96
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
£162.14
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2
£82.24
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM
£72.84
Samsung SH-S203D 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM
£17.61

Note i've not included a graphics card as the one I would undoubtedly recommend, the 8800GT, is still quite hard to find in stock. It's worth waiting for though. Given the prices, i've "allocated" £200 for it.

This brings you to £836.79, which gives you nearly £200 to spend where you wish - if you don't have a keyboard, mouse, or speakers or want to upgrade those, or you could add an X-Fi XtremeMusic sound card (8800GT is single slot) or maybe even a bigger TFT.

If you want to go for a SFF machine, then the same specs apply above, except that instead of spending £302 on the Shuttle, you'd have to spend it on a microATX case, motherboard, and CPU cooler instead.

Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£68.14
Zalman CNPS8700-LED CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)
£32.89

The case I suggest isn't available at Overclockers. It's a Silverstone one, the Sugo SG03. Oh, and it's a brilliant little thing. Smart, well ventilated, great to work in. And IT'S THE SEX! ;)

As you can see, a SFF comes to a bit less in terms of cost, but requires the extra effort to fit the case, motherboard, and cooler.
 
thanks for that - I'll look into both those options you gave and have a hunt around for those 8800GT cards

cheers :D
 
That spec looks ok to me with the exception of the gfx card and maybe the hard drive. It,s all personal choice though.

I think I would go with a HD3870. Slightly less cost but much, much, much, cooler and with duel slot cooler so the 90-100+c of the 8800GT isn't spilling directly into your Q6600. I think the 3870s top out at about 60c even when very overclocked. and from what im seeing online your everything but garentied to hit 850/1200 out of the overclock. (not sure but could that take it beond the 8800GT performance?) the heat from the 8800GT is also going to affect not only any overclock you carry out on the Q6600 but perhaps more importantly, in my oppinion anyway it could have an affect on system noise. The P/P2 cases do have the potential to be very quiet if configured correctly but believe me the higher the fans go so does the noise. Like jet turbines tbh. Anything above 50% fan settings is a bit of a pisstake, especially if the thing is right next to you imho.

Availability on the 3870 is just about as bad as the 8800GT at the moment btw so thats one thing they have in common.

As for hard drives the Seagate will get you a better warranty at 5 years but will cost you more than other drives. Personally I like Western Digital and the Samsung Spinpoints. but its all personal choice really.. just never buy a Maxter... Not Ever.... EVER...

Just my oppinion :)

TMS
 
Yeah, i've kinda lost touch since the days of the 7200.10 and Western Digital AAKS drives reigning supreme, so I just went with the newer versions of one of those.

I would also have gone for the 3870XT, although there are two factors holding me back.

Firstly, the AA performance still isn't really improved much at all. The 3870 isn't far behind at 0xAA, but pile it on and the GT opens up a rather sizable gap.

Secondly, the OP has a pretty sizable budget. If we were close to the line I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the ATi model. But it's 15% extra cost for 15% extra performance (and even more with AA applied).
 
thanks guys - just one more question??

I'm leaning towards the Shuttle at the mo - does it have the power to run either the 8800GT or the HD 3870 properly - given that I'll only have 1 maybe 2 drives and an optical drive?

Cheers
 
I do accept that the 8800GT is a better card. I just can't justify putting one in a small form factor pc giving its heat output. It's great to see single slot solutions at the high end again and thats great for the g/g2/g5 and like systems but putting it into a p/p2 which has duel slot capabilitys is a bit pointless. I think I would wait for the 8800gts 512mb or v2 if you like. it shoulldnt be that far off really. you could actually build the system now and use the onboard untill the card comes out :)
 
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