New SFF Rig for University (SN21G5?)

Air Marshal · 22 Aug 2006 at 18:00

New SFF Rig for University (Update: SK22G2?)

First post, first rig, etc etc...

As the first year of university is drawing near I've decided it's finally time to replace this old Toshiba M30-304 with a semi-powerful SFF, a machine I can actually upgrade somewhat. I originally planned to run a SN21G5 in this rig, but since I've read here that 939 may be on its way out, if anybody can come up with a solid Conroe spec within budget with the V300 or SD37P2 or going socket AM2 using the SN27P2, I am also considering these options should the SN21G5 not cut it. Basically, the rig needs to:

...be built around a budget of £1000, give or take £200.
...run AutoCAD, Matlab, Adobe CS and Civ 4 smoothly.

I'm planning on using this with a 17" 1280x1024 LCD, but no preripherals are required in the spec. This is what I've come up with so far, but there's probably a lot of changes that can be made, and I'm sure I'm missing something. Note that this something is NOT the RAM; In this particular build, I would probably use OCZ Platinum CAS2 sticks rather than the G.Skill, but judging by stock I will need to source these elsewhere:

FS-065-SH Shuttle XPC SN21G5 Aluminium Barebones System - AMD 64 (Socket 939) (FS-065-SH)
£184.90 £184.90
CP-127-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£134.95 £134.95
GX-011-EA EVGA GeForce 7900 GT "Signature Series" 256MB GDDR3 HDTV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-011-EA)
£234.95 £234.95
HD-087-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-087-WD)
£98.95 £98.95
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £59.95
CD-033-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-033-NE)
£22.95 £22.95
Subtotal £736.65
VAT £128.92
Total £865.57

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) (MY-057-OC)

Any ideas? Thanks.

Air Marshal · 22 Aug 2006 at 20:55

Are there any drawbacks to using a Lian-Li V300 as the chassis rather than the Sugo? Personally, I'm not a big fan of the design.

Air Marshal · 23 Aug 2006 at 12:40

Would I have any trouble with space constraints with this spec?
I'm mainly looking at the size of the cooler and the X1900:

CA-077-LL Lian-Li PC-V300 Aluminum Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - Black (CA-077-LL)
£67.95 £67.95
HS-003-SY Scythe Ninja Plus Heatpipe CPU Cooler (Socket 478, 754, 939, 940, LGA755) (HS-003-SY)
£31.95 £31.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£129.95 £129.95
CA-009-TG Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG)
£69.95 £69.95
MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£44.95 £44.95
CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£107.95 £107.95
CD-030-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£21.95 £43.90
HD-087-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-087-WD)
£98.95 £98.95
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £59.95
GX-124-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-124-SP)
£119.95 £119.95
Subtotal £775.45
VAT £135.71
Total £911.16

Update: Yeah, that cooler is going to be too big to fit under the drive cage. Should I sub the E6300 and the Ninja for a retail E6600? Or is there another cooler which is simlar in performance but under 4" high?

Air Marshal · 23 Aug 2006 at 18:08

jollygreengiant said:
Get yourself a SUGO I changed about 2 months ago and have been much happier:

Full power supply (you can have almost as many watts as you like)
Increased space = better airflow and less bl**dy fiddly
Better upgradability
You can get a proper cooler rather than that shuttle ICE junk - (Zalman CNPS8000 is the one i've got and i've found it very good)
upto 5 PCI slots, 2 hard drives and 2 Cd spaces.

Now put that in your shuttle and smoke it

Also if I were you - I wouldn't bother with the WD Raptor unless you really want it - because they are bl**dy loud.

my 2 cents

Air Marshal said:
Are there any drawbacks to using a Lian-Li V300 as the chassis rather than the Sugo? Personally, I'm not a big fan of the design.

At the moment I'm looking for a replacement for the Scythe Ninja, and also if anybody knows whether the X1900 will fit in the V300.

Air Marshal · 23 Aug 2006 at 18:43

Okay, I've switched the cooler, DVDs and PSU around, and apparently the X1900 GT is 250mm/8.2" long:

CA-077-LL Lian-Li PC-V300 Aluminum Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - Black (CA-077-LL)
£67.95 £67.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£139.95 £139.95
MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£44.95 £44.95
HD-087-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-087-WD)
£98.95 £98.95
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £59.95
GX-124-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-124-SP)
£119.95 £119.95
CA-001-SS Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-001-SS)
£64.95 £64.95
HS-018-ZA Zalman FS-C77 Fatal1ty CPU Cooler - Retail (HS-018-ZA)
£33.00 £33.00
CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£107.95 £107.95
CD-078-SA Samsung SH-S182D 18x18 DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) (CD-078-SA)
£20.95 £41.90
Subtotal £779.50
VAT £136.42
Total £915.92

Air Marshal · 23 Aug 2006 at 20:29

Argh, I don't have my unit conversions down today...

CA-077-LL Lian-Li PC-V300 Aluminum Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - Black (CA-077-LL)
£67.95 £67.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£139.95 £139.95
MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£44.95 £44.95
HD-087-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-087-WD)
£98.95 £98.95
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £59.95
CA-001-SS Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-001-SS)
£64.95 £64.95
CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£107.95 £107.95
CD-078-SA Samsung SH-S182D 18x18 DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) (CD-078-SA)
£20.95 £41.90
HS-022-ZA Zalman CNPS8000 Ultra Quiet Low Profile CPU Cooler (HS-022-ZA)
£25.95 £25.95
GX-114-SP Sapphire X1600 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-114-SP)
£69.95 £69.95
Subtotal £722.45
VAT £126.43
Total £848.88

Air Marshal · 23 Aug 2006 at 22:10

EVH said:
...next they'll be demanding a Sugo section to the forums

I'd say it looks like a good setup (however, I'd go with a SN27P2 if you're going AMD), and through personal experience I'd go with the 2GB OCZ Platinum RAM over the others.

Were you referring to the SN21G5 setup or the V300?

I also saw on the Shuttle site another AM2 barebones in the form of the SK22G2, which can be sourced cheaper due to lack of crossfire support and a smaller PSU. Should the Via chipset on this chassis be avoided, or is it fair game? If the chipset checks out, here's a prospective AM2 spec:

CP-172-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5000+ 2.60GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-172-AM)
£189.95 £189.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£124.95 £124.95
GX-124-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-124-SP)
£119.95 £119.95
CD-078-SA Samsung SH-S182D 18x18 DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) (CD-078-SA)
£20.95 £20.95
HD-087-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-087-WD)
£98.95 £98.95
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £59.95
Subtotal £614.70
VAT £107.58
Total £722.28

+ Shuttle SK22G2 and possibly a PC50 PSU if 200W is not going to cut it.

Air Marshal · 27 Aug 2006 at 21:29

I've also heard that with the 7200.10 drives there's little point to getting a Raptor as well, so I may just run two 320GB drives or swap one out for a 3.5" bay to use later. Basically, since I won't be starting with any huge clocks, should I go with the Via chipset in the SK22G2 or avoid it like the plague?

Air Marshal · 28 Aug 2006 at 10:42

hp7909 said:
That card is rubbish, gets 'licked' by the X1800XT! The GT bit is its achilles heel!

I want to hang on to my other PCI slot.

hp7909 said:
Also, did you have a look at the link I gave earlier, http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/07/14/intel_core_2_duo_processors/1.html? Because you would have noticed that the 5000+ is no match for the E6600

Supposedly no decent Core 2 boards are out, plus at the moment I'd have to either run a SG01, which I'd rather avoid, or a V300, which supposedly limits me to a X1600/7600 or worse. If somebody could spec me a decent E6600 rig without resorting to the SG01 I'd be sold, but I need to get this running by the end of September, so it's up in the air whether I can wait for the SG02, Q965 boards, etc. The best I can come up with is this:

CA-077-LL Lian-Li PC-V300 Aluminum Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - Black (CA-077-LL)
£67.95 £67.95
MB-176-AS Asus P5B-VM Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-176-AS)
£79.99 £79.99
CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£204.99 £204.99
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£124.95 £124.95
GX-114-SP Sapphire X1600 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-114-SP)
£67.99 £67.99
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £119.90
CD-078-SA Samsung SH-S182D 18x18 DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) (CD-078-SA)
£20.95 £41.90
HS-022-ZA Zalman CNPS8000 Ultra Quiet Low Profile CPU Cooler (HS-022-ZA)
£25.95 £25.95
CA-000-SS Seasonic S12 430W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-000-SS)
£43.99 £43.99
Subtotal £777.61
VAT £136.09
Total £913.70

Ignoring the Core 2 dilemma for the moment, is the Via chipset of the SK22G2 going to drastically bottleneck my system or destabilize it?

Air Marshal · 29 Aug 2006 at 10:15

Are there any changes to the most recent spec that could improve performance without going over budget, such as the video card, etc.? In addition to this I need to get a keyboard, mouse, speakers, and a copy of x64 I believe. And maybe some different thermal compound.