Small Form Factor Case

JSKILL

Hi I am getting ready to purchase my SFF barebones kit but I am having problems finding one to fit my needs. My goal is to build a powerful SFF but yet still want it to be able to be used as a pvr/media pc. I am looking for one that will support the AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor. I also plan on putting a fairly powerful pci express video card into it. Well since i want to have it be a pvr at times the only way i can find that to work is by putting in a pci tv tuner. So I need a pci slot too (unless anyone has any ideas). As for drives I only plan to put in 1 HD and 1 DVD. Any suggestions or help on this issue is greatly appreciated because I do not know that much about SFF.

drasnor

I did a Newegg search for your parameters and added "Nforce 4 chipset" and got one match:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16856115025
I can't recommend or advise against a machine I've never used but just be aware that SFF runs hot so no overclocking. Also, your video card cannot have a tall cooler.

This machine features codec audio. I personally don't care for it but your mileage may vary. If you end up not liking it a few vendors like Creative and M-Audio sell USB and 1394 sound cards that may be more suitable for a media PC, or you could try to find a mini-PCI sound card or switch to a machine with more PCI slots.

-drasnor

Missileman

I built one a couple of weeks ago using the AOpen EZ482.

Put 1Gb of RAM in it and an X2 3800+. Runs smooth as glass. Very cool, very quiet. Has on board ATI X300 mobile, but can be disabled and a PCI-E X16 put in.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16856140018

Runs the ATI chipset.

Looks good too

Note if you get one. The power supply voltage switch ships in the 220 position. Can really mess you up since they don't say that anywhere.

muddocktor

If you want to game and also do the pvr thing too, I would suggest getting an ATI All in Wonder video card, like the X1900 AIW. That way you have the tv tuner built into your video card and don't need to add a separate pci tv tuner card to your minibox. Plus, from what I've read the new X1900 AIW should be a pretty bang up good vid card in it's own right.

JSKILL

Yea I read that the shuttle sn25p? or something like that barebone could handle a 4200 64 X2 with a 7800gtx, I think if i decide to do pvr i will use a usb device jus so that it wont run any power unless i need it too. Anyone had any experience with that shuttle?

drasnor

I'm sorry I can't agree with you mudd. I've got a AIW 9800 Pro and though it has a tuner and a framegrabber it has no hardware acceleration for encoding tasks. Additionally, ATI refuses to release information on the AIW cards to open source developers so the cards are mostly unsupported by Video4Linux and MythTV, IMHO the best PVR software in existence (I say mostly because the GATOS project has been reverse engineering the AIW cards but the full V4L API isn't implemented yet).

A better choice would be as you are planning an external IEEE1394 framegrabber or PCI card with hardware encoding support.

-drasnor

muddocktor

Maybe so with Linux, but how about with Windows, drasnor? And I was just tossing it out anyways as a possible choice, but I don't have actual experience using all the features of an AIW card myself.

drasnor

My experience with AIW cards in Windows is "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't". I get random hangs in Windows Movie Maker and ATI's TV software when doing recordings or watching the tuner. Driver versions change the frequency with which said hangs occur.

-drasnor