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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."
Once upon a time people called that a mini tower.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
What makes this any different from mini-ATX?
Looks very alike to me
-Glitch "We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." - Linus Torvalds
How can people care so much if their box is all snazzy and fancy, it's the hardware dammit, it's what's on the inside that counts...or atleast that's what I tell myself everytime i look in the mirror...
excuse me, i think i have something in my eye..
I like how now every thing is in a little box, gamecubes, mac minis, the cube lan party rigs. I would be cool to make a lunchbox that looks like that.
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.
Insert lame joke about said hardware not being able to handle a slashdotting, despite the fact that said hardware is not running the web site.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
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.
Don't know why they don't mention this things in the article... MirrorDot
I bet it's a bitch to try and upgrade. Your best bet is to hire a midget with small hands to help out...
-Glitch "We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." - Linus Torvalds
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
Just what we need. PCs labeled as being "bristley".
"I would have loved to buy that powerful Athlon 64, but the system bristled with ports, unlike the smooth surface of my legacy free Mac mini."
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I have the previous-generation Shuttle AMD64 model - the SN95 - and I must say that even with two 3.5" drives, cooling them can be a problem.
So even though it has 3 3.5" slots you'd probably be better off putting in at most two drives and investing in heat sinks for them.
Without additional cooling, even with one hard drive I had to set the fan to 'medium', up from 'Smart fan' to avoid overheating within a few hours.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Why is the industry going with PCI-X, rather than PCI-Express or PCI-66 which are both speedy AND backwards compatitble?
Looks interesting. Good to see a greater Atholon 64 availability with PCI Express. I wish it had been as easily accessible when I bought my comp.
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.
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.
On steroids, yeah.. Except that it's disqualified from running OS X (the main reason people buy Mac Minis, I guess).
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
You're making an irrelevant comparison.
Shuttle builds components. The SN25P, like all of the XPCs, is simply a custom barebones. It's not intended to compete with the Mac Mini because it's not a complete computer.
If this was an OEM selling full systems built around an XPC, it would be a little more on point... but still not really.
Does the Mac Mini support top of the line processors or external videocards? I think not. I'm a big Mac fan, but you're just trolling.
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jonathan barket
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.
I've got a pegasos machine currently for my low end server behind my DSL line. It satisfies some of my requirements (fairly small, low power consumption) and it is fun to play with a different arch. However, it is too slow, too hot, and too loud.
I guess I could replace it with a mac mini and then I'd only have the problem of it being too slow, but I've been thinking of fixing all the problems by replacing it with a 'low end' SFF A64 since they use less power when idle but have the grunt when necessary. However I have been concerned that Shuttle haven't thought about noise ever since I played with a SFF P4 box that sounded like a jet engine.
...how many serial ports does it have?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Oh come on slahdotters! I thought it was funny... To bad I don't have any mod points today...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Oh noes, it's EMS versus XMS all over again.
I felt the same way when I owned an Apple ][+ and there were a lot of fellow geek owners.
//gs and Apple systematically dismantled its Apple II efforts for the Mac. There were still a few diehard Apple II 'ers then.
I felt the same way when I owned an Apple
Now I own a PC and don't feel the same.
Inside the Case
Outside the case
several times the size of a Mac Mini, the SN25P is an entirely different breed of small form factor system
Translation:
"I know she's kinda weird, into Wicca and generates a lot of heat, but she's cute in the face, so I'll compare her to Keira Knightly anyway."
-dameron
Well, there is the reality that if you buy a computer platform that doesn't sell well, you'll have a tougher time with it later. One issue is hardware support and extendability... a discontinued product is a lot harder to get fixed or buy new peripherals for. Also, in the case of the Mac Mini, higher sales will increase the installed base of OS X users, encouraging more software development for the platform.
I agree that you should buy what's best for yourself, but if you're the only one on the planet with your platform, then you're not gonna be able to do much with it.
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?
What does the mac mini comment do here? It may be the first computer to be that small, but it's in no way an original idea. Why do people think that every product Apple makes has to be the reference?
Oxford announced the addition of the word "macmini" to their dictionary which appears to be a unit to measure size and coolness at the same time. Typical examples of its usage are:
- Cool, my new Mac Mini is exactly one macmini
- Duh, my iPod is less than half a macmini
- Who the hell would buy a 10 macminis Shuttle XPC SN25P
- Add a full macmini to your p****, 100% safe!
For those of you looking for dimensions, the review lists them as: 325mm x 210mm x 220mm. The article also shows a picture of it next to the smaller original G series case.
I noticed your later post clarifing your confusiong PCI-X and Express.
At any rate, there are a number problems with PCI-X:
1) It's a parallel protocol. That means that all the traces for it need to be the same length to make it work properly. Makes motherboard design tricky.
2) The connectors are HUGE. You have to make a quite physically large card to accomadate that, even if the electronics don't justify it. ESpically a problem in small cases.
3) The electronics necessary to implement it are more expensive than PCIe.
4) There's no real expansion path to it. There isn't any plans for how ot scale it in speed that wouldn't require a reworking and probably add more complexity.
PCIe is real nice because in it's slowest implementation, 1x, it is still fast (about the same speed as PCI-66) but takes a very small slot with very few traces. Nice and cheap to implement, and easy to stick in small cases. However it scales real easily, you can whack on more lanes to a slot, and you can have multiple slots with lots of lanes. So on a low end board with integrated graphics you can have a couple 1x slots, on a workstation barod a 16x, a 14 and a number of 1xs and on a highernd server or visualtion board, multiple 16xs.
Also since you can have more than one 16x slot, unlike with AGP which is single slot only, you can have multiple high power grapihcs accelerators in a system that supports it.
Like with Serial ATA, it is a technology that's needed to keep scaling well and to simplify things. Yes, right now there's really no performance reason to go SATA over PATA, however there will be soon, and SATA should keep scaling. Plus the smaller, simpler connectors are a real boon in many applications.
Also PCIe is compatible with PCI in the fact taht you can have PCI slots on a PCIe motherboard without any problems. So you get a PCIe board and you can still use your old cards, then you slowly replace them as technology progresses, and eventually ouy just don't need it anymore.
Actually, Shuttle also has complete systems available as well as just the barebone boxes.
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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!
At several times the size of a Mac Mini, the SN25P is an entirely different breed of small form factor system;
If it's entirely different, then why even mention the Mac Mini? They don't compare on size, market, utility, platform, expandability, speed, heat, appearance, and certainly not on price.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
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.
TechReport's and Sudhian's reviews don't give me a sense for just how "big" the is. (yeah, I could measure out the dimensions but still...) In contrast, Apple's web page shows its Mini 1) held in a person's hands or 2) holding a CD, so I have the impression that that is pretty small. I think it would not hurt Shuttle to provide this small convenience.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?desc ription=56-110-030&DEPA=0
Asus Terminator C3 - $115. VIA C3 processor, running at 800MHz. Comes with processor, floppy and CD-ROM. Put in your old PC2100 RAM, a couple SATA hard drives, install your favorite Linux/*BSD distro, and you have a perfect home server. It even has a PCI slot, FireWire, USB2 and TV OUT.
I found most of the review to be a waste of time because of this oversight.
Shuttle also hides the SN25P's 5.25" drive bay behind a stealthy door, keeping beige optical drives from scarring the system's otherwise attractive face. The spring-loaded door opens and closes automatically under the force of the optical drive tray.
Like this is a huge deal? Other highlights includes multiple slams of the Intel CPU. I could go on but so what? With the exception of the 64 bit CPU this seems to be a 4 year old computer. I mean look at the bus speeds Bus speeds CPU: 200-250MHz in 1MHz increments DRAM: 100, 133, 166, 200MHz
This message was brought to you by "Lack of Sleep."
Sorta, the All-In-Wonder line from ATI is moving to pci-e as the base cards do.
This is a bit sub-optimal as AIW cards 'honor' macro-vision crap (if the card detect macrovision it proceded to turn the resultant video into what looks like a scramble cable signal) and there is no fix for modern AIW's and drivers on this issue yet. There is a hack for 7k series and one 8k series radeon based AIW's that the creators are working on updating IIRC to more modern cards.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
I have a similar setup but with the newer 95G Shuttle and a 660GT. It is noisy, that is true. However the noisy part of it is the 6600GT fan since that was apparently never designed to be quiet.
;-)
If you swap the gfx fan for something quiet then it would be quite quiet. OTOH I guess since the GFX is so loud I don't really notice any other sounds in the box.
You know that the president's house has the address whitehouse.gov, right?
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
According to PCI-SIG, the guys that created PCI, PCI Express is not only software backwards compatible, but also hardware backwards compatible with PCI and PCI-X using the appropropriate hardware bridge.
"I can't use flat panel monitors anyway because I have a sight defect that means I get very bad headaches at anything less than ~75Hz refresh rates"
I couldn't help but wonder at that... why would that preclude you from using LCD panels? I thought LCD technology is flicker-free by design, since pixels aren't constantly re-lit (as in a CRT) but only switched when their color actually changes.
I have a CRT and an LCD side-by-side in front of me, and while I can perceive a slight flicker in the CRT even at 85Hz, I cannot do so in the LCD at all.
Don't whistle while you're pissing.
> up to 2GB of DDR400 memory and Socket 939 Athlon 64 processors
Wow. Now *that* is a lot of processors.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I have shuttle SN95G5 - nforce3 socket 939. The LAN controller on my box has some bad VPD data inside, and Linux performance was suffering in a bad way (the system would freeze every second or so) Several people have reported similar problems on the net, but Shuttle has refused to fix the problem because it's not a problem for Windows (you can find error informatio in Win, but I guess it's not a performance problem). ASus has a board with a similar problem, and their patch has done wonders for my Shuttle. I just wish Shuttle supported their products (and Linux) a little better. That aside, I really really like my SN95G5 now that Asus has provided a fix for it ;-)
I count 3 fans on the rear chassis, 2 fans on the CPU cooling system, and a final fan on the graphics card.
My experience with SFF chassis is that they tend to accentuate noise levels since they typically sit on the desk near the user, and with that many fans in the chassis, this puppy should sound like a freight train after a few months of use.
Is 300 different cases enough, if they're all butt-ugly? Is 3 not enough, if they're all beautiful?
First, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The (lamp) iMac and eMac are ass ugly to me, for example. 300+ cases mean *choice*. I want a case to match my purple with orange polkadot wallpaper? I bet I can find one. I like the color green? I bet I can find a green case. I can personalize my computer to my own aesthetics, even if you think it is ugly. Personally, I think wasting time over a case is kinda silly because I can always put an ugly case in a closet or otherwise out of sight, as long as the case has other qualities I like, such as good airflow, nice mounting brackets, etc.
Apple's cases aren't cool because some committee told us we're supposed to think they're cool. They're cool because they'r beautiful, *in addition* to being practical: the hallmark of good design.
Sure they are... the committee decided those are the only cases you will get. No choice, you have to like them or love them.
First, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
:-) (It's a cute saying, and it's good for avoiding arguments, but it's not helpful in figuring out what's good.)
A good way to try to sidestep the fact that they're all butt-ugly!
Are you saying that the measure of beauty is not subjective?
300+ cases mean *choice*. I want a case to match my purple with orange polkadot wallpaper? I bet I can find one.
If you have purple and orange polkadot wallpaper, I question your ability to judge beauty.
And sadly, in the PC world, "choice" means "I can find one butt-ugly enough to match my butt-ugly wallpaper".
No... you'd simply have a different set of aesthetics. Some people like to dress in clothes that have colors/patterns that are not "beautiful" to me. However, I assume that they think they are, otherwise they wouldn't be adorning their bodies with those clothes.
Personally, I think wasting time over a case is kinda silly because I can always put an ugly case in a closet or otherwise out of sight, as long as the case has other qualities I like, such as good airflow, nice mounting brackets, etc.
Translation: "Hey, this PC case isn't ugly! OK, this one is, but you have choice -- not all PC cases are ugly! I mean, OK, they're all ugly, but who cares?"
Nope, again... you have the choice to make your case as nice or as plain/ugly as you want. Also, what about the PC mods that are put into Mac cases. Does this somehow mean that those cases are no longer belovedly Apple beautiful?
Anybody who's banged his head on the desk trying to put a CD in an out-of-sight PC tower should realize that it matters. Tear up my geek membership card if you must, but being able to put a CD in the drive without (literally) hitting my head on my desk is far more important than "nice mounting brackets".
Most PC users are smart enough not to repeatedly bang their heads on a desk.
Sure they are... the committee decided those are the only cases you will get. No choice, you have to like them or love them.
Jonathan Ive (or was that Princell Leia?): "I am *not* a committee!"
Seriously, though, Apple computers aren't designed by committee. They're designed by Jonathan Ive, and his team. You can tell because they have what Fred Brooks and Alan Cooper call conceptual integrity. Dells and HPs don't -- they obviously *were* designed by committee.
Ok... Apple computers are designed by a [self-]constituted organization for the promotion of a common object, which happens to be the definition of "committee" as per Merriam Webster I guess in this case, it's a Steve-constituted organization though.
People do have a choice about what to like. Not all Apple products are loved. The first iBooks, for example, were hated by many (including me); the new design is much, much better.
This statement completely contradicts what you said above. You implied that beauty is not subjective and yet here you clearly say it is.
When it comes down to it, as an expression of personality, the modding scene is much, much more evident in the PC world than in the Mac world. There may be a number of reasons for this ranging from... PCs are initially ugly and modders make them 'beautiful' to their own tastes, PC modders simply have the artistic and mechanical skills to personalize things they already have, to Mac users are of a single mind-set and know no better than to embrace what the Great Steve blesses them with from time to time.
Honestly... since the Mac Mini was released and seeing the comments in this thread of Maclots claiming that the Mini is the "true SFF", form over function arguments, proclaiming that all PCs are ugly and Macs are embodied perfection... the more that "The Cult of Mac" makes sense. It's more of a religion to Mac users than anything else. As I saw elsewhere, The Great Steve could probably relieve himself in a Mac M
Yes, but the component they manufacturer is the barebones XPC itself (and monitors and optical drives, but that aside). The only real reason Shuttle has for pushing complete XPC systems themselves is the fact that outside of Voodoo PC and Alienware selling their top of the line, few OEMs are making real use of their components.
It doesn't change the fact that the SN25P is a barebones system and nothing more.
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jonathan barket