SFF Gaming PC

[Oxaqata]

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[DaveSimmons]

This SilentPCReview article on a Silverstone Sugo SG06 system might be useful.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Silverstone_SG05_SG06

mATX is probably cheaper and easier though -- bigger case but a much wider choice of motherboards.

 

[Zap]

Silverstone now has a few mini ITX Sugo cases. They're all the same thing, except for color and front fascia. These are kind of the de-facto "gaming" ITX cases for the time being (I know of one company coming out with a competitor by Q2 2010). These cases are "limited" to 9" long graphics cards. By "limited" I mean that is the official maximum length. Some people have fit 9.5" long cards, and some have modded the chassis to fit even longer cards. The power supply is 300W and provides a single 6-pin PCIe plug. Basically any card that only requires one 6-pin card and is under 9.5" or so should work. It does fit dual slot cards.

For mobo/CPU, currently the only one widely available is the Zotac supporting socket 775. For CPU, if you can afford the higher price and can find them, go for a low wattage chip. For instance there is the Core 2 Quad 9550, and 9550s. Both same speed but one uses lower voltage.

If you can wait, I would suggest waiting for 3-6 months. Here are the reasons:

In 3 months we might start seeing socket 1156 mini ITX boards. Both Intel and DFI have shown such boards. Socket 1156 uses Core i3/i5/i7 chips. You can have dual and quad cores, with or without HyperThreading. They use DDR3 and have integrated memory controllers, plus socket 1156 has basically the whole Northbridge integrated into the CPU and so the mobo won't need much cooling, plus there will be some power savings (typically chipsets are made on older process than CPUs).

In 6 months we might see a more powerful power supply. A Silverstone representative has reported that they will be making a 450W SFX power supply (the size used in the ITX Sugo) that will support two PCIe power plugs.

I suspect we might start seeing more on the ITX 1156 boards by CES in January, so it is probably worth waiting for unless you need a system quick.

 

[cbn]

How good is cooling of these inside a small case?

It sounds like the Silverstone Sugo sg05 does a pretty good job cooling any hardware powered by the 300 watt PSU.

Speaking of the PSU here is a review of it---->http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/757 (seems like a pretty good unit).

 

[Skott]

If you are wanting to buy/build now I'd say go with mATX if you want/like the bigger more powerful video cards. Like Zap said right now ITX limits you to video card size. However if you can wait a while then do so because we may see something better from the ITX market. If you are fine not being able to use anything bigger than a medium gaming GPU then ITX is a good choice now but I would expect better in the next 3-6 months.

The question is, 'how much of a video power house do you want?' This is going to dictate wether you go ITX or mATX.

 

[Oxaqata]

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[CurseTheSky]

For 300 watts, I'd suggest something like a 9600 GT. An HD 4850 or 4830 would be better, but that might be pushing it .

Of course, that depends on your CPU (dual or quad?) and how many HDDs you'll be running.

 

[Oxaqata]

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[bunnyfubbles]

What about the Shuttle XPC systems? I've lost track of those but it seems like you can get a decent bare bone system for a reasonable price (at least in the US)

 

[Zap]

any ITX AMD boards with a PCI/PCI-E slot?

Yes, but very rare in the States There was only one more consumer oriented model available and the company did not have a local presence, but Geeks.com imported some for sale. Dunno about down under. You have to check your regional shops.

What about the Shuttle XPC systems?

These are definately still an option, however Shuttle obstinately keeps putting the PCIe slot at the edge of the motherboard, thus rendering the system not able to handle dual slot graphics cards. Also, while they make a huge variety of barebones including some higher end stuff and really cheap stuff, seems like for a gaming oriented rig it would still be fairly cost effective to piece together a $130 Zotac board with a $120 case. The cheaper Shuttle systems with PCIe use pretty old chipsets.

 

[Oxaqata]

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[Zap]

J&W Minix 780G-SP128M

Socket AM2+, uses SODIMM memory and with a PCIe x16 slot. A friend of mine bought it and it worked for a while but then died. He had a HELL of a time trying to get a month-old board fixed under warranty. The company did not have a USA office and indeed did not distribute boards in the USA, so he couldn't obtain service. Geeks.com ended up taking the board back even though it was not their policy, so props to them I guess.

Here in the USA the pricing is the same as the socket 775 Zotac ITX board, so no price advantage on the board. SODIMM memory usually costs more, but of course there are cheap AM2 CPUs. Then again, there are cheap socket 775 CPUs. I just picked up a Wolfdale core Celeron E3200 for around $50. It is a dual core 45nm CPU around 2.5GHz-ish and with 1MB cache like the old Pentium Dual Cores, so it is a phenominal value. It is really a tossup between the boards.

Oh yeah, and for warranty I've heard that Zotac isn't that great either, so I guess everyone is on their own for these boards.

 

[Oxaqata]

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[Zap]

Are any cards able to run on a 200W-250W, or completely out of the question?

Part of it depends on the power supply. What power supply will you use? A good quality 250W might be able to run lighter weight graphics cards that do not need the 6-pin power plugged in.

 

[Fox5]

Shuttle XPCs are a good choice for LAN party type stuff. Nvidia and ati integrated graphics should handle CS:Source and War3 pretty well.

300W power supplies are about the best you'll get, which may be able to run a 4770 class GPU, maybe even 4850/GTS250 with a low power cpu.
There are 450W-500W power supplies available for the Shuttle XPCs though.