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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."
I may be blind but I couldn't find the dimensions of this bare-bones unit anywhere in TFA. So then I went to www.shuttle.com, and I couldn't find this particular model anywhere. As the article states, it apparently is not for sale yet. Then I started looking at the specs sheets for the P-series models and couldn't find dimensions there either.
It appears to be bigger than a breadbox to me, and with my total inability to find the dimensions (which are likely on the front page of the article) that description will have to do.
Why is it always a competition?
If you find something that fits you and you're the only person in the world that likes it who cares if it sells 1,000,000 copies or 1, as long as you get what you like.
BTW, Dell will sell more shitty OptiPlex GX280's than Apple will sell mini's. Does it make them better? Or do the specs make the better? Or is it the price that makes it better? The reality is your opinion is what makes something better. Unfortunately you have yet to learn it is only better to you.
At least the article didn't ask the question: Is this the Mac Mini killer?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I have a Shuttle SN95G5. It's very cool and quiet. I've got a Winchester core Athlon 64 3200+, which is supposedly lower power than the older cores. All I know is the machine is fast, cool, and quiet. (Unlike the grandparent post, I have only one hard disk in this machine so I have not seen any cooling issues.)
Note: excuse my references to the Lanboy. I'm not trying to whore for Antec; it's just that their product is the most readily recognizable example of the design I'm referencing.
During the last two years of college, I got very into the LAN scene. All the guys I worked with were big on LAN gaming, and some people at my apartment complex were into it. Even my girlfriend had her LAN machine (in addition to her art major necessity Mac), which she decorated with Hello Kitty stencils on the requisite LAN computer window and dubbed "Halo Kitty."
We mostly leaned toward aluminum cases for weight benefits coupled with smaller LCDs. Because a fair amount of us were PC repair techs, we'd always have that one slightly older machine that could still easily hang with the games we played. New people would show up, get hooked, and start wanting to build/buy something so that they could participate.
A few people ended up with Shuttles or similar SFF cases. While fairly convenient in size, we consitently saw overheating issues and high noise levels. Shoehorning a good graphics card into these things (since LAN action is obviously a target market) sends heat levels through the roof, and the smaller size means only one fan. The need for a single fan means that fan must turn at very high speeds. This made for some excessive noise levels, especially for people who wanted to use these as their primary computer, and (logically) envisioned setting them atop their desk beside the monitor.
So the question out of all of this is here: are these SFF designs worth it? I love the convenient size of the Mac Mini as much as the next guy, but (in addition to being much smaller than most SFF PCs) they target a totally different market. When I look at these squatty boxes and compare them to an Antec Lanboy or other similar aluminum chassis w/ handles, I start wondering.
Isn't it just smarter to buy a lightweight mini-tower? With space for 3HDDs, isn't that what this thing really is, anyway? A Lanboy comes with a carry strap, weighs less than 20 lbs. loaded with an HDD and optical drive, and avoids the excessive heat and noise levels generated by the SFF design. While a Lanboy might be 2 or 2.5 times taller, it's also skinnier, so we're not talking about a huge gain there. On top of this, I get to choose my own internal components, whereas I was always put off of these because I'd end up having to use a shuttle mainboard.
So SFF buyers, what draws you to these things?
This is much smaller then micro-ATX, and a complete deferent form factor then anything else.
The reason shuttle is able to make the boxes like they do is not using a standard form-factor. The regular G sized shuttles are close to Flex-ATX, but not quite. This is a bit bigger. Then there is the BTX i Chassis which is really close to the BTX form factor but a good bit bigger then this machine.
where the real difference comes with shuttles is the packaging. You will be very hard pressed to find a micro atx case that is anywhere near this small, and has a CD that isn't vertical mounted, and accepts Full height PCI/AGP cards. Shuttles mean you have no trade offs from normal ATX machines, but they are much smaller.