Spec me a SFF pc

CryptKeeper

CryptKeeper

CryptKeeper

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I am looking to put together a small form factor PC that will be used for some office work, web building, writing and watching videos. It should also be able to play some classic games (Red Alert 2, UT 2004 style things). I don't need a big HDD and want to keep it as small and cheap as possible. I have thought about Nettops, but I feel they may be to slow to do serious 12 hours work days on them while multi-tasking lots of office apps, firefox, VLC and dreamweaver at the same time.

I also need a 22inch or bigger monitor with a comfortable mouse and backlit keyboard.

Do not need a DVD drive, but must have wifi. GFX can be onboard if they can run UT2k4). 2gb ram is plenty.

I don't know much about shuttle configs, so any advice as well as setups would be appreciated.

Thanks guys
 
Something nVidia ION based with a dual-core Atom may suit you. It's coming soon to netbooks which would give you a portable option and is already available in SFF desktops like the Acer Revo.
They're still a bit slow though so you could find it a bit tedious to use at times if you're used to better but I think it would be okay for what you mention.

Alternatively you could build a C2D/Q system around the Zotac 9300 board which a lot of people here use. It'd be plenty quick enough and if you don't need an optical drive then you could probably squeeze in a 3.5" drive somewhere as most of the cases only take 2.5" drives.
 
AbsenceJam said:
Something nVidia ION based with a dual-core Atom may suit you. It's coming soon to netbooks which would give you a portable option and is already available in SFF desktops like the Acer Revo.
They're still a bit slow though so you could find it a bit tedious to use at times if you're used to better but I think it would be okay for what you mention.

Alternatively you could build a C2D/Q system around the Zotac 9300 board which a lot of people here use. It'd be plenty quick enough and if you don't need an optical drive then you could probably squeeze in a 3.5" drive somewhere as most of the cases only take 2.5" drives.
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Be interesting what spec someone could come up with regarding the Zotac approach.
 
I wanted to avoid those tedious moments to be honest. Would really prefer a "proper" CPU. I was thinking a Shuttle system or something similar might be the best value for money in this field?
 
CryptKeeper said:
I wanted to avoid those tedious moments to be honest. Would really prefer a "proper" CPU. I was thinking a Shuttle system or something similar might be the best value for money in this field?
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Shuttles and other barebones are pretty poor value for money, none have decent IGP's and few have wifi.

Something like:
E5300 / 4GB / Zotac 9300 ITX / In-Win case would be about £260 and very capable. Then add your choice of HDD and Optical drive. Could easily get an older CPU and the RAM secondhand too.
 
AbsenceJam said:
Something like:
E5300 / 4GB / Zotac 9300 ITX / In-Win case would be about £260 and very capable. Then add your choice of HDD and Optical drive. Could easily get an older CPU and the RAM secondhand too.
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Could you elaborate more? I would like to build a systme as above. I have a 2.5 hard drive and could buy a slim DVDwriter. I was looking at a Mac mini but the above looks great.

I am used to a pretty quiet PC though and is that attainable with the above system?

Could someone do me a complete spec, excluding a Hard drive? Just want one that is quite powerful, extremely quiet. Thanks
 
raptormonkey said:
Could you elaborate more? I would like to build a systme as above. I have a 2.5 hard drive and could buy a slim DVDwriter. I was looking at a Mac mini but the above looks great.

I am used to a pretty quiet PC though and is that attainable with the above system?

Could someone do me a complete spec, excluding a Hard drive? Just want one that is quite powerful, extremely quiet. Thanks
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Depends on what you want to do really. From the look of it the In-Win cases will take a 5.25" and 3.5" drive so you don't need a slower and smaller one/.
 
I would sugest something along the lines of my own media pc, Zotac geforce 9300 mainboard, C2D E6600 cpu, 2.5" main hdd (quiet and lower power) all housed in a Silverstone Sugo SG05-B case. I have it connected upto my Sony lcd tv and via the digital out to a DAC->amp>speakers, I use quite a bit of external storage too.

There is no reason at all you can't simply adapt this to serve as a normal desktop, for example;

Zotac Geforce 9300 mini ITX motherboard
Intel C2D E5300 or whatever you like, C2Q if you wish.
4GB of DDR2 Memory, I use Geil in the Zotac myself.
Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB 2.5" hdd.
slim-line optical drive.
Silverstone Sugo SG05 (black or silver)
Dell 2209WA 22" lcd (very good 22" lcd, I use 2 on my main setup)

Peripherals of your choice, perhaps something like a Saitek Eclipse II and a Razer Death Adder (what I use on my desktop).


This will play the games you mention and more, the Geforce 9300 onboard gpu is actually surprisingly good.
 
The Silverstone Sugo SG05 is one of the smallest cases that you can actually build a 'proper pc' into, it'll take DTX and ITX formfactor motherboards and comes with a pretty decent 300w mini psu.
 
Has it got a silent / very quiet PSU?

Failing that, what about the smallest Case that will accomodate my Micro-ATX motherboard?

Sorry for questions but i need all the help i can get!
 
The psu is extremely quiet yes, but it is not silent, nothing with a fan is quite silent. The SG05 will not take an mATX motherboard, it is too small for that, you would need something bigger, such as Silverstone SG01 or a Lian Li V351 or similar. I couldn't tell you the very smallest case that can accomodate an mATX board, but the SG01 is fairly small, certainly compared to a traditional tower case that will take a full ATX board it is, but quite a lot larger than the tiny SG05 DTX/ITX case and others like it.
 
depending on what resolution you game at, that 9300 integrated could be pretty choppy. i suggest getting a 9600 or better so you could run hybrid SLI to improve framerates.
 
timefalls said:
depending on what resolution you game at, that 9300 integrated could be pretty choppy. i suggest getting a 9600 or better so you could run hybrid SLI to improve framerates.
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You cannot run Hybrid SLI with a 9300 and anything better than a 8400GS or a 8500GT. Even Hybrid Power will not work. Contributors to some forums maintain that you can offload PhysX to the mGPU, but I have been unable to do this myself and, frankly, it is a bit pointless.
 
timefalls said:
depending on what resolution you game at, that 9300 integrated could be pretty choppy. i suggest getting a 9600 or better so you could run hybrid SLI to improve framerates.
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Well that depends on what you want to play too, UT2K4 and similar games from that period will run fine upto 1680x1050 and probably beyond, I'm not sure about Red Alert 2 as mentioned by the op, as I don't know how demanding it is.

The 9300 is no power house and is no true substitute for a real discrete card, but it's as close as you can get and it's not a bad chip at all, I would say it's unexpectedly powerful for what it is. It's no GTX 260 though, it isn't going to play Crysis or even something like Oblivion at higher resolutions but older and less demanding things, certainly.

So it really comes down to, what you want to play on it.
 
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Perhaps the following numbers will give an idea about the graphics power of the mGPU on the Zotac 9300 ITX: On FurMark 1.7.0 it scores 312 o3Marks (at standard benchmark settings, resolution: 1280x1024,fullcreen, no MSAA, duration: 60 sec). A BFG 9800GT 512Mb EcoIntelligence I tested achieves 2520 o3Marks. Further benchmark results are available at http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/#comptable.
 
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