Doin' the shuttle

[Louster]

So I have no damned idea about anything to do with shuttles, but given my university is located ~500 miles from home, it occurred to me that it would be real nice if I could make my gaming system more portable.

Basically, I'm wondering if it's possible to stick my current PC's parts into a shuttle case. My specs: P4 3.2 Northwood (socket 478), Geforce 6800 GT (AGP), 2 x 512mb PC3200 RAM. Also one 200gb ATA-100 Western Digital HD and one 250gb SATA Maxtor HD, but these I'm less concerned about.
Most importantly, is it possible to fit the CPU and the graphics card into a shuttle? As I say, I literally have no idea how this crazy stuff works. I gather there are issues with limited power supply, or something? Halpe.

 

[xane]

A Shuttle "barebones" XPC is basically a proprietory motherboard using regular chipsets stuck inside a neat case, with a handy cooling system, they make both Intel and AMD versions.

There's a whole bunch of socket 478 versions, I'm sure someone can recommend one.

 

[Ch3tan]

Yep you'll have no problems getting that into a shuttle.

microdirect and overclockers sell a good choice of models.

 

[WPKenny]

Is your GT a single or a double slot card? I bought a OEM GT that was a single slot card but when it went wrong and I RMA'd it I got a retail in return that had a HSF big enough for a 2 slot.

 

[Louster]

Yeah Clown told me earlier that there might be an issue with that, but it looks like mine's a single-slot anyhow so no worries on that front.

Given that it's possible, is it feasible? Should I expect a noticeable drop in performance or increased instability due to power/heat upon switching to a shuttle?

 

[Ch3tan]

No, shuttles are designed to run whatever you can cram in them. They have good quality power supplies. It may be noiser than what you are used to, and yes it probably will be hotter than a huge case with lots of fans and cooling shit, but not anything to worry about.

 

[Louster]

Okay so. Does anyone have any idea why there's an asus barebones 's-presso' available from overclockers for £70 which looks like it does almost exactly the same stuff as a shuttle that costs £170?
For reference - the overclockers page (it's a little way down) and the shuttle from, for example, scan.

Looks aside (and yeah the asus thing looks like shit but whatever), it seems like the main difference is there's only one IDE channel? And this produces a £100 disparity? This seems dodgy.

 

[Clown]

Think of it like Hi-Tech and Nike.

 

[Louster]

Right, and I really don't give a shit about branding or appearance. You're saying that that £100 difference doesn't necessarily imply any difference in actual quality? Edit - I mean insofar as useability goes. I can easily imagine a difference in, say, build quality without any real effect on framerate or stability.

 

[Clown]

Nike is so much better than Hi-Tech though
But yes. All it really is, is a small motherboard and small case.

 

[Ch3tan]

But shuttle have vast experience and excellent build quality and reviews. Can you say the same about the asus one?

 

[SheepCow]

Well I've had experience with a Biostar one and it's quality is well ... The case is fine ...

The motherboard only accepts Kingston (or some other brand I've never heard of) RAM. I built a PC with one of these for my girlfriend without knowing this little fact, got some quality Crucial RAM and the computer just rebooted whenever anything RAM-intensive was going on. Switched RAM to Kingston and it's fine now though.