The move to uATX

t_aitch

t_aitch

t_aitch

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After watercooling throughout my student life, ive started to lose interest, and the vibrating pumps and shear size of my rig is starting to get on my nerves a little.

I want to downsize to a smaller case, preferable a Micro ATX case like the Silverstone Sugo, or LianLi V300.

I was just wondering about the pros and cons of this.

I currently overclock my 4400+ on my DFI Nf4 board, obviously there arent any overclocking oriented uATX boards out there, but i would like some recommendations on some that would offer some oc'ing features.

Also, size is a bit of an issue. Basically the only two components i want to change is my Case and Mobo, and get a decent (quiet) cpu fan.

But the two components that im worried about getting in there are:

My ATI x1800XT and my Silverstone Strider ST60F PSU.

The x1800xt is quite a long card, and i was wondering if i would run into any problems with this, and also, in the future when i take the leap to a DX10 card eventually.

The Silverstone PSU is about 5cm longer than the conventional powersupplies, and again, would i run into any problems with this?

Any help would be absolutely spot on.

Ps. Any comments on the advantages of a uATX setup would be greatly appreciated! ;)
 
the x1800xt will fit a sugo no problem, i used to have a x1900xtx in mine and now a 8800gts.

Psu being longer than average might be a problem, check the length of psu and the length of the optical drive u want to use then have a look on Silverstones site (theres a warning and note on max length of these components iirc)

Id recommend getting a modular psu if your building a matx, standard psu's make for a messy build and crap airflow :)
 
Silverstones website should list all the info you need for dimensions on the Sugo :). As for the V300, ignore it unless you want to start cutting. The lower 3.5" bays interfere with long PCIe cards.

Aspire X Qpack is a good alternative, doesnt feel as solid as the other two but its a decent case, quite happy with mine at the mo.

mATX is a rather good and the only real disadvantage at the mo is the lack of decent SLI and crossfire boards (theres only been one and that was a socket 939 SLI board). They could do with releasing some gamer orientated boards.
 
Thanks for the info guys.

Im guessing that a gamer oriented 939 board isnt going to be released any time soon though, now that am2 is unleashed.

Im not that bothered about sli to be perfectly honest, and this will probably only be a temp motherboard (6months perhaps) while i save for maybe a c2d setup perhaps.

Just out of interest arc, what is the decent sli uATX board that you speak of?

I may be able to track it down on the bay. ;)
 
I have a v300. You need to modify the 3.5" external drive bay to fit large GPU's but it's a nice looking bit of kit. Will form the basis of my next build (currently housing my media player)
 
THere's a couple of nice mATX 939 boards but they might be getting a little difficult to find

Biostar Tforce 6100 Socket 939 - People have managed upwards of 275HTT on this just fine.

DFI Infinity RS482 Socket 939 - Like above, but has more overclocking options. I'm pretty sure this board has enough mem volt options to take on BH5 actually.

The mATX SLI board is the eVGA 131-K8-NF44

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As for your PSU, I reckon you will indeed run into problems with it. I'd sell it and buy a shorter modular PSU. Such as Tagan's Easycon series.

As for CPU cooling, something along the lines of a Zalman CNPS8000 is about as good as you're going to get in these smaller cases. Does work very well though!

Mul
 
Yeah i had a Zalman CNPS7000 on my old htpc and that was awesomely quiet. I think ill go for another Zalman GPU and CPU cooler for this. And perhaps opt for a resorator sometime down the line.

Thanks for the motherboard options, helped a lot.

Ive sent an email to silverstone about the PSU, so hopefully theyll get back to me soon.
 
Woohoo, found the DFI board above.

Gonna order!

Thanks for this guys.

EDIT: Actually ive had more of a read around the website and ive just realised that the DFI one is an ATI board, and the Biostar seems to get more praise.

I see that the Biostar definitely supports Raid 0, which is quality for my Raptors, however, there are only two ports on board, so my spare drive (ignore my sig specs, out of date) which is a Hitachi 250GB will have to go in an enclosure of some sort.

Can anyone recommend a good one?
 
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t_aitch said:
Just out of interest arc, what is the decent sli uATX board that you speak of?
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eVGA 131-K8-NF44 (as Mul posted earlier) :).

Rather fantastic little board. The blue PCIe slot is used when theres only one graphics card in the system. The two yellow PCIe slots are used for SLi. You can fit two 8800 based cards onto the board but the lanes are only x8 wide so you wont get the full performance out of them.

Been running one of those evga boards myself for the past 6 months with two 7600GT's in SLi :). Fancied a bit of a change and didnt want a serious upgrade until Vista and DX10 games are out.
 
Managed to get a Biostar Jobby for the handsome price of £50, couldnt find the eVGA one anywhere at all.

This means though, that im going to have to get an external caddy for my spare drive (SATA2).

Can anyone recommend me a decent one?
 
t_aitch said:
Managed to get a Biostar Jobby for the handsome price of £50, couldnt find the eVGA one anywhere at all.

This means though, that im going to have to get an external caddy for my spare drive (SATA2).

Can anyone recommend me a decent one?
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What case have u got/getting ? u can mod the drive holder in the sugo to hold 3 drives or stick 1 under the optical drive..tbh theres lots of places u could stick another drive in the case :p
 
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Arc said:
You can fit two 8800 based cards onto the board but the lanes are only x8 wide so you wont get the full performance out of them.
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Tute said:
Does G80 not REQUIRE x16 PCI express slots?
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I refer you to my previous comment ;).

They do work in x8 slots but there is a performance hit. In saying that the biggest problem is that there is no socket 939 CPU that can really take advantage of two 8800 based cards. The CPU basically becomes the bottleneck in the system.
 
Kezmo said:
What case have u got/getting ? u can mod the drive holder in the sugo to hold 3 drives or stick 1 under the optical drive..tbh theres lots of places u could stick another drive in the case :p
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Its not a case of the case (erk) its becuase of the mobo, it only has two SATA ports :( I guess i could get a SATA card which would eliminate my problems completely.

I know that ill be able to slot a drive into the spare 5 1/4 drive bay, which is sweet.
 
Duncan888, my apologies for being so blunt, but your very ignorant to think that "a Micro ATX case wont have room for so many drives anyway".

As said earlier, the Silverstone Sugo has two 5 1/4" drive bays and the spec sheet also says that it has 2 x 3 1/2" drive bays. So if i really wanted to, im sure its not completely impossible to get four in there, somehow.

Why i need so many sata ports? I have three drives thats why, as said earlier as well.

Can you please read over the thread before making comments next time please ;)

Cheers bud.
 
Hi t_aitch, Im in a similar situation to you whereby i need to get a mATX motherboard and would like some overclockability to it.

Was just wondering where you bought the biostar motherboard from?
I've looked everywhere and cant seem to find it.

Or does anyone else know if a good reliable site that can sell me either the biostar, DFI or eVGA sli motherboards?
 
OK, the ST60F fits the sugo, so does the X1800XT, and get the Silverstone NT06 Lite cooler.., it's is a recommended cooling solution by silverstone the NT06Lite + ST60F
 
Yeah silverstone confirmed that for me too, but they said i might need to watch the length of the CDROM drive.

joeyh51 i got it from an auction site, but it was from america and i had to pay import taxes, which blew a little,

Im trying to get hold of a second hand SUGO, not having much luck at the mo.
 
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