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Has anyone built themselves a SFF box on these forums? it seems really odd that the SFF board here seems to be entirely flooded with shuttle threads (ok, they're good, but when it comes down to it it's at least £180 for a box and a motherboard and a 220W PSU
On many of the other modding/computer type sites a fair proportion of people build there own, as I am currently doing - with the mainstay of mini-itx boards, or at a squeeze microATX..
Is it just me, or are you all hiding? =)
Josh
I dunno, I was having a look around ultim8pc the other day and in many cases (especially the miniITX's) the flex mobo's alone were going to cost more than I got a SN45G from Aria for (£130 inc).
So, the maths for an ITX rig, say £120 minimum for a mobo, £100 for a case, £50 for the PSU. Having said that, I preferred the looks of a lot of the other SFF cases over the Shuttle.
yes, the mini-itx motherboards are expensive, but on the other hand they do incorpriate a processor, and the only thing which stands against them is a lack of an agp slot. This is something which seems to be changing, I saw one the other day that takes P4M processors, and has both a mini pci and mini agp slots. dont know about adaptors for these, but it sounds like a step in the right direction.
You can make also some pretty damn small pc's with mATX, which are really not expensive, and have all the ports, slots and onboard you could need in an SFF =)
MY SFF(ish) lan rig is mATX Nforce 1 based
lemme dig up a piccy :)
http://www.aopv87.dsl.pipex.com/hexus/newcase1.jpg
http://www.aopv87.dsl.pipex.com/hexus/newcase3.jpg
I've built 2 non Shuttles :)
An MSI Hermes with a P4 2gig and a bargain HDD and burner from ebuyer :) My other half uses it for photos, film making, and the odd game. Its TINY :) and hads so many plug holes I dunno what to fill them all with ;)
And I have a Soltek Qbic......:) and that makes me SMILE. 1700 @2400 and its nforce 2 with some crucial in it, another Ebuyer deal on hdd and burner....built in Geforce 4 mx (sharpest ive ever seen tbh) and tv out etc...
LOVE IT :)
Would recomend the QBic to any LAN party goer...and the MSI is a perfect "second" PC ..ideal really :)
good stuff, i knew ther'd be a few of you here =)
I dont personally have any SFF yet, but i have a 2U mATX nf1 rig in the works, with a home built case. (2U = 40cm x 9cm front, mine happens to be 25cm deep, but depth varies. U is a rackmount unit, and is 40cm x 4.5cm. 2U is standard size for hifi seperates etc) I also have a mini-itx media rig in the works, which is 20cmx27cm x12 cm and packs in a 200W PSU, mini-itx board, full size pci card (vertical), slim CDRW/DVD and up to 2 HDD's.
so yeah, there will be project logs at some point =)
Josh