SFF Specification, Part II

[xane]

Back in this thread I speculated on getting a SFF system based on the Shuttle SN25P.

I now find there is a SN26P, which looks exactly the same specification but uses the nForce4 SLI chipset instead of the nForce4 Ultra MCP of the SN25P.

The specification still stands, with slight modifcations:

• Shuttle XPC SN26P
• Athlon 64 "San Diego" 4000+
• Radeon X800 256MB PCI-Express (preferably with an ICE cooler)
• 250-300Gb SATA Drives (to be RAIDed)
• Shuttle PN18 Wireless Adapter
• assuming existing my 1Gb of PC3200 RAM will transfer

Any suggestions ? Should I go for the SN26P over the SN25P ? It is preferable to go for the 4000+ "San Diego" CPU rather than the 3800+ "Venice" I originally spec'ed ?

TIA

 

[xane]

Another question: is it worth going for a Radeon X850 over the X800 ?

 

[inactionman]

Looks nice. Although I'm not convinced you could run say 2x 7800GT's on a shuttle! Unless they have seriously boosted the power supplies in them!

If you are going for an SLI mobo, there's no point in getting an ATI graphics card! They only support SLI, not crossfire. If you must buy ATI, get one of these from OCUK, Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 GTO², follow the instructions on the page, and you get a X850PE for ~£175. I'd still recommend paying the extra £50 and getting a 7800GT though, a faster card and current tech for not much more money.

The processor is a good one. Although I've managed to get my hands on a couple of spare OEM socket 939 opteron 146's, if people are interested, am about to fleabay them, but I'll let you guys get first dibs. They've not been tested, but should overclock to at least over 4000+ levels, even in a shuttle! Stock on the opteron is 2.0GHz, 4000+ is 2.4GHz, they should do at least 2.5GHz on default volts. A lot go to over FX 57 levels (2.8GHz, some get to 3GHz+). £150 a pop, plus postage.

 

[SheepCow]

As inactionman said you won't be able to use SLI with 2 ATI cards, I assume you've going with the SLI chipset incase you plan on getting 2 NVIDIAs in the future?

The Athlon 64 "San Diego" 4000+ isn't a dualcore one and costs about £250, the dualcore 4200+ is only £50 more, or you could drop to the 3800+ and save £10.

Dualcore won't do much in current games but in the future I'm sure it'll be dandy.

 

[xane]

TBH, I'm not really taken in that much by SLI, so perhaps it would be worth saving the £150 difference between the SN25P and SN26P, sticking with the X800/X850, thanks for pointing it out.

As far as the CPU goes, I estimated since my last specification that the gap between "Venice" and "San Diego" has closed up, so it is worth going for the 4000+, whereas the jump to X2 is going to cost a lot more and I'm not sure I'd see the benefits right now of dual-core.

 

[Ch3tan]

Xane! your building my PC. The sn26p really isnt worth it. Lot of money for SLI.