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Athlon 64 SFF With PCI Express Reviewed
EconolineCrush writes "The Tech Report has an in-depth review of Shuttle's new XPC SN25P. At several times the size of a Mac Mini, the SN25P is an entirely different breed of small form factor system; one that supports one 5.25" drive, three 3.5" drives, PCI Express x16 graphics cards and x1 peripherals, up to 2GB of DDR400 memory, and Socket 939 Athlon 64 processors. The system also bristles with USB, Firewire, and audio ports, including digital S/PDIF inputs and outputs, and even has an integrated memory card reader. Looks like a pretty good balance between footprint, portability, and expansion capacity."
Does this mean sneaky little proprietary rails that keep things in by friction, but can never be exchanged with another system.
I hate those things.
The proper way a drive should be secured is with a Phillips screwdriver. It is not like a Phillips Screwdriver is some exotic tool that is hard to come by.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Mini tower, indeed. It's a *bit* shorter than my last mini tower, but barely qualifies as SFF, IMHO.
And, what the hell is with the Mac Mini comparison?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
I small concern I would have is the size of the power supply, most Shuttles only come with a 250W PSU and there could be problems driving the latest PCIe gfx cards.
On the other hand, power supply ratings are very subjective with many cheap ~500W PSUs having no greater capacity that a quality 300W unit.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
I don't understand the comparison between this and a Mac Mini. Fair enough, they try to be small form factor computers, but the end is surely different. the Mac Mini is designed to be a small, neat, consumer electronics device. Essentially a computer that is as easy to use as a DVD player.
The Shuttle is designed to be an expandable PC that has lots of flexibilty and can be modified by changing components so that it can fit the user's needs.
If the Mini does everything you need, buy a Mini. If you need flexibilty or expandablility, buy the Shuttle.
Just because they both try to be small, it doesn't mean that they are necessarily comparable.
In my (admittedly fairly worthless) opinion, the summary was using Mac Mini as a comparison just to make the front page.
I recently built a video acquisition box for work. I wanted the smallest case that could support RAID, a fast processor, and an addon PCI board (the frame grabber). The Shuttle was the perfect choice.
But if I were buying a computer for my wife or kids, the Mac would probably be better.
It all depends on your needs.
I never understood why Shuttle doesn't adjust the form factor to take laptop sized optical drives. A normal cd / dvd drive takes up almost the entire lenght of the case, the power and data cables are usually pressed right up against the power supply.
Using a laptop optical drive would get rid of that problem, increase air flow, and it would save at least an inch in the case height.
But, the Mac mini doesn't come with a mouse![!!] So, your USB mouse has infinitely more buttons than the Mac mini's mouse. :)
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
There are hundreds of cases out there in the PC world, don't like this one? Find another. Atleast with a PC I'm not stuck with whatever Steve Jobs thinks is cool.
For the record, I think Apple makes some pretty cool looking cases (like the Mac Mini). But they have some butt-ugly stuff too (like any of the iMacs).
But each to their own.
Yep. I went Shuttle with my latest upgrade and ended up with an SN85G4/Sempron3100/6800GT. The size is nice for LAN use, but it's terribly noisy. There is no way I'd use it for anything but gaming. Even then I only use it with headphones that muffle the constant fan noise *ffffffffsssssssshhhhhhhhh*.
If I ever buy another desktop PC, it'll be a normal size case with a couple of 120mm (if not larger) fans. I finally see what those quiet PC guys were on about. Quiet > Small. Unless you're deaf.
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
I think the issue is that a lot of people tend to look at competing computer products from the monopolist's perspective. They seem to think that for a particular product to be successful, it must eliminate any and all competition. Such folks can't seem to appreciate a flourishing technological ecosystem and are usually the ones that instigate retarded Mac/PC, Gnome/KDE, etc. flamewars.
I found most of the review to be a waste of time because of this oversight.