i'm thinking about putting one of these together...right now i'm running one of those huge towers with a 500w PSU and 5 fans...it gets pretty hot (and somewhat noisey) in my room

i'm looking at making all but my OS drive into externals (as i don't need them running all the time)...yes, i realize i could do this without building a new computer, but i'd like to upgrade to a motherboard that runs 3gb/s SATA, has a PCI-E x16 slot, has integrated 5.1 audio and i've been curious about these small form factor (Shuttle XPC) barebones systems

does anyone have any experience with them? any recommendations? i don't want to build a completely new system as i've got 3 processors lying around to choose from (2.2ghz pentium4-m, 2.93ghz celeron D LGA775, and a 2.93ghz celeron D 478), 1gb of pc3200, a dvd burner, and a couple of HDs (2 sata - 1 150mb/s and 1 3gb/s, the rest are ata133)

i don't mind buying a new processor if i can find a good deal on the barebones kit (looks like the cheaper ones are 64-bit socket 754...my goal is to spend around $200 for the kit and another $100 for the processor if i have to

i've only found 2 models that come close to fitting my requirements (i can skip on the 3gb/s SATA, but the 5.1 audio minimum and PCI-E x16 are necessary)

the AOpen EX761 XC Cube seems decent ($200 - http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1648348&CatId=1210), but i'd have to buy a new socket 754 processor

the Shuttle XPC SD11-G5-SV-V1 ($230 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16856101480) will run the pentium4-m, so that's kind of appealing

if anyone has suggestions (whether they be useful, intelligent, or sarcastic), i'd like to see them

8/20/2006 4:44:18 PM

Stay away from the non-shuttle SFF kits. They almost all (especially the el-cheapo ones) have really bad and LOUD cooling solutions.

I have a Shuttle SN95G5 socket 939 system I built two years ago, which I'm actually looking to sell because I got a laptop and don't use it as much anymore. I love it though, it's suprisingly quiet for having raided 10k raptors in it (74gbx2), 2gb pc3200, 16xdvd-rw, leadtek tv tuner and 6800GT 256mb video.

They have newer models out with PCIe and SATA-II, they pretty much all have 5.1 audio (mine has optical outs and spdif out as well.

Mine has been awesome, and the next desktop-ish PC I build will almost definitely be another Shuttle XPC.

8/20/2006 6:02:41 PM

you mean like pc/104 type things? we use these at work to run XPC-target for data aquisition and servo control stuff. i'm not sure of all the specs right off, but i couldn't imagine using it for regular pc.

[Edited on August 20, 2006 at 8:37 PM. Reason : .]

8/20/2006 8:37:17 PM

^ we're probably talking about different things...these things are geared toward media centers/portable computers/people who want tiny computers instead of larger ones

8/20/2006 9:37:49 PM