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Thread: help with a barebone idea

  1. #1
    Senior Member Pirate Pete's Avatar
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    help with a barebone idea

    so for a time now i have been planning on an upgrade from a midi tower athlon xp rig to a A64 rig

    the specs i want to upgrade to follow:

    A64 3000+
    6600gt
    A8V-E
    1gb 3200+ memory (undecided on exact specs yet)

    however i have been looking at small form factor pcs for a few days wondering this

    will i be able to put the same components (minus motherboard) into a small form factor machine and get the same performance for around the same price tag?

    im a bit of a n00b with small form factor so any help is very, well, helpful

    Pete

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    Asking silly questions menthel's Avatar
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    The simple answer is yes. The performance will be the same at stock speeds. Overclocking can be tricky because of heat issues, however it is possible. My mobile barton 2500+ runs at 2400mhz rather than 1833mhs in my shuttle sn45g!
    Not around too often!

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    I have plenty in my rig, it'll stand up to anything similar regardless of the size or shape of the box. I ran it up to almost 2.5 GHz with almost no effort and only very minor issues (I had to press F1 on boot to bypass the optical drive and it ran about 4C to 8C warmer) and quite stable for a week though I didn't torture test it. I am on it 12 to 15 hours per day, 7 days per week, doing 3D CAD and modeling. Best computer I've ever had.
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    Senior Member Pirate Pete's Avatar
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    best computer youve ever had? that sounds very enticing

    you have the exact same shuttle i have been looking at over the past couple of days
    of course mine will be slightly less expensive (expecting to have a 3000+ winny and a 6600gt, mabye a 6800LE depending on funds)

    dont suppose you could post some pics of the rig? inside and out, just to have a quick look at the amount of room thats in their, and the general size of that shuttle

    was it easy to put together or fiddly? any other info or probs you had with your rig would be great to hear about

    thanks

    Pete

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    Don't have a digital camera.

    The machine is 7.9" wide x 12.2" long x 7.3" high. There is virtually no room to spare inside, at least in mine with the 2 hard drives. The PCI slot is open and clear. But Shuttle did their geometry and there isn't any room for anything that doesn't need to be there. There is room for whatever needs to be in there. It is tight.

    However, it does go together quite smoothly. I strongly recommend reading the manual repeatedly. You can download the manual off the Shuttle site. I also recommend you go over the rig thoroughly before you even try to do any assembly. I identified every component and connection and made sure each would fit and how they went together. I tried all the connections to see how they went together and how each felt when it was connected. So when I put it together for real, I was completely familiar with everything. So, it did go together smoothly. I had no problems at all. Boot went exactly as expected. Again, I had read and reread the procedures so I was completely familiar with everything. It all went like clockwork. I also had everything ready, all the CDs, all the instructions, all the tools, everything. As the Boy Scout motto goes, Be Prepared. Its the only way.

    Prior to this, I had 6 SAGER top of the line notebooks over 10 years and 3 various boxes before that. I have always tried to stay fairly close to the bleeding edge with all my machines. But I maintain this is far and away the best and most bleeding edge machine I have every owned. It utterly blows away my two year old 2.8 P4 GHz notebook. I realize that's not exactly cutting edge now, but its still a quite credible machine. The new machine boots up in a third of the time of the older one. It loads very large files (18 to 25 MB) in AutoCAD in about 1/10th the time.
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    2x120 GB Samsung SATA . Plextor 712A
    BFG GeForce 6800 GT oc . Dell 2001FP

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    Senior Member Pirate Pete's Avatar
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    thanks very much, looks like it would fit on my desk very nicely

    also a few other questions, does the 6800gt have to have a small cooler, ie not a two slot heatsink? or do u think it could fit on there? what spec exactly is the gt?

    and with the heatsink on the 3500+ am i right in saying you have to use one that is provided? is it decent, keeping it cool?

    Pete

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    You can't use a two slot graphics card. No way. The graphics slot is right next to the case. There is maybe 3 to 5 mm clearance. Of course, you could always mid the case. You can buy spare cases so you can RMA it later.

    My BFG 6800 GT is factory overclocked to 370/1000 here's the spec: http://www.bfgtech.com/6800GTOC.html. I understand you can push it all the way to Ultra clocks without much effort.

    The Shuttle comes with a heat sink/fan cooling system. In fact, its their claim to fame (other than being the original SFF). The ICE (Integrated Cooling Engine) system is really fantastic, a superior and very effective bit of mechanical engineering. There are very few if any HSFs as good as the ICE and nothing better unless you go with watercooling. And, yes, the ICE does keep that A64 cool, really cool. Plus the fan is PWM and can be BIOS or software (SpeedFan) controlled, so you can set it for minimum noise/maximum cool. Normally an A64 retail (with the HSF) comes with a warranty and costs about the same or very little more than an OEM which has no warranty, so its usually best to go with retail and simply figure out something else to do with the HSF that comes with the it. They make neat paper weights. Or you can maybe sell or trade it for something else. Maybe your little brother can wear it as a hat? Use it for an interesting hood ornament on your car.

    All in all, the SN95G5 is probably going to become a classic. That's my prediction. One of the last really great AGP machines.
    Invent the Future

    BlackJack
    Shuttle SN95G5
    AMD 65 3500+ . 2x512 Corsair ValueSelect 2.5 CAS
    2x120 GB Samsung SATA . Plextor 712A
    BFG GeForce 6800 GT oc . Dell 2001FP

    Big Daddy
    Sager 8886

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