SFF or Laptop as main pc?

[beardybuck]

I posted elsewhere here a few days ago on merits on a laptop ( Like the Rock Quaddra Ti or the Dell i9100) as a main system.

Most of the guys reckoned buy a dirt cheap lappy and go with SFF to keep the upgrade route a lot more flexible.

I was looking at a Shuttle SB75G2, from http://www.gemma.co.uk/

I have all the gear to go into it from this bloody huge PC70, CPU, Memory, GFX, and a Liteon 811S.

Do many of you guiys use a shuttle as your main PC?

Im just trying to find the best route here, I've been an avid upgrader and overclocker for years now and have an amazing number of rheobuses, baybuses, fans, leds, Cold cathodes as well as two haevily modded PC70's one with full watercooling. Im just sick of it, the room and the cost and find that I really want a a gaming console, but dont want to give up the flexilbilty of my Pc, eg vid editing, and image manipulation, surfing etc..

Any thoughts? heat limits? PSU limitations?

[Bartop]

I recently moved over from a killer midi setup and got the SB75G2. I transplanted most of my gear over with no problem at all and I'm well chuffed.
I can't see myself going back now tbh.
If you're going to get a SB75G2 it's worth checking to see if they are shipping the Rev2 which comes with the silentx 250w psu instead of the 220w and Heatsinks on the PMW mosfets which will help if you're going for a high end spec.

[beardybuck]

Cheers

Waht passes for hi-spec in a SFF? I have a 2.4C P4 (at 3.3) in my current setup, with 2x512 Corsair XMS3500, and LOADS of HDD. Needless to say the HDD's will be sold and fast one put in with a huge external. By your sig Bartop I'm guessing the shuttles have good o/c options in there?

Also I have a Iiyama Pro 454 19" CRT, any takers lol. Want to move to a TFT.

[Bartop]

Your rig should be fine
You can get 2 HD's in there as well if you need. Hell some people have 2x74gb raptors in Raid 0 but not really recommended

You do need to be aware of heat but on the whole it copes pretty well..

There's a good review on Hexus thats worth a read but I've snipped some of the oclocking bits here - hope thats ok !

'For the tweaker, the Front-Side Bus can be raised to an improbable 355MHz. Increases in FSB aren't just a token measure here. The SB75G2's BIOS allows for a locking of the PCI/AGP buses, so the overclock will be limited by either a motherboard or CPU ceiling. Shuttle errs on the side of caution. The CPU's ranges from 0.825v - 1.5875v in 0.025v increments. DDR sees a top limit of 2.75v, and the AGP voltage can be raised to 1.65v.
System RAM can be set to either 1:1 (synchronous), 5:4, and 3:2 ratios of the CPU's FSB. The three lowest parameters make reference to the board's Canterwood status. It should return some fast numbers. We share Shuttle's opinion that a lack of size isn't detrimental to performance.

Shuttle's had some time to get the BIOS right. We reckon this is as good as any SFF PC's, for there's enough voltage adjustment to gain stability in an overclocked state, yet not enough to cause irreparable damage in the SB75G2's small confines. '

Full Review Here

[beardybuck]

I was just reading that review when my other tab in opera refreshed to show me you had replied! Cool - these things look the dawgs balls. I nearly went the laptop route but f**k me you are seriously tied to a machine that will be worth feck all when you think about upgrading.

[Bartop]

Exactly - plus the gaming performance on any laptop isn't gonna touch a loaded Shuttle..

[menthel]

I can highly recommend a shuttle as you main rig. I have a nice little tablet pc to sort out any mobile needs!

[beardybuck]

Im serioulsly swaying away from a laptop - at least until they get external pci express upgradeable GFX cards

Has anyone used the wireless lan module for the shuttle? I'm assuming it is USB?

Its just that I would want to move it from room to room now and again, but I am an online gamer, and am unsure of any latency issues the USB interface would cause.

And I would rather not use the only pci slot for a pci wireless card.

[XiXora]

I can highly recommend a shuttle as you main rig. I have a nice little tablet pc to sort out any mobile needs!

agreed!

/me looks at his set up.
/me already has that set up.


oh yeah

[menthel]

Nice! Tablet XP new versionis out soon- free download on miscrosoft.

[XiXora]

yeah its in sp2 rc1.
so i'm already using it. the new tip is much much better.

[Rexticle]

Can't beat a new SFF from Shuttle for your main rig.

Loaded up these systems rock.

[beardybuck]

I know noise is a subjective thing - but I have spent many hours making my full tower (pc70) as quiet as fek. So much so it is in the back of my living room and only gives of the gentle hum of my Zalman PSU and the Hydor L30 pump which cools the gfx/nb and cpu.

If I go the SFF route - which will either be the Canterwood Shuttle, or the what seems very nice Soltek EQ-3401M, am I going to have to move the pooter out of the Living room? I would hate to go back to a whiney fan of any sort.

Also another thing I have not seen mentioned, or perhaps not noticed in many reviews - do any of the SFF systems Soltek, Shuttle, Biostar, etc have Memory divider options in the bios? I run my IC7 at 5:4, best compromise for maximum performance to me - I would hate to lose this bios feature.

[Bartop]

The sunon fan that comes with the shuttles isn't the quietest shall we say

I've changed mine for a Noiseblocker S4 but there's a fair amount of choice out there. A popular mod if you want to go for a lower cfm/db fan or just improve the cooling / reduce noise is to remove the rear grill. However this involves the use of sharp instruments/dremels and will invalidate your warranty.

Lots of people also replace the fans in the PSU's / go for passive cooling on the northbridge etc etc.

Or you could watercool it !

[drp]

Rather than do summit cary like replacing the fans in the PSU, go for the safer option of the SilentX

[beardybuck]

This advice is invaluable, thanks.

Taking the fan grill of with a dremel nearly second nature now, no problems there.

I'm assuming that the Silent x is the newer quieter 250w fan? Do any Uk retailers stock it with the SB75G2? Modding the system fan would be no problem, passively cooling NB easy enough too.

Guess what I'm after really is reassurance that this unit wont be too noisy to have in my Living room.

Nobody know about those 1:1 5:4 and 3:2 memory dividers existence on any SFF bios?

As for watercooling - kinda kills the portability, although I love it in my current system.