Geek: Small form factor PC's?

[echootje]

Has anybody had any expereince with small form factor PC's like these:

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/product_detail.asp?model=MEGA_651&search_text=mega pc

http://us.shuttle.com/specs2.asp?pro_id=396

I like the look of the MSI one. Anyways, I'm looking for another toy and some of these things are totally spec'd out and the box is sooo cool... It's like a reverse laptop. I wonder how reliable they are though... I'm gong to search some reviews now but maybe some experienced tribers might help me out?

Rob

 

[RhesusMonkey]

1) Never used one
2) Mini-AT form factor is as good as the standard AT FF
3) Go for the AMD vs the P4; P4 sucks power like a MoFo. unless of course you'd like this to double as a portable heater.
4) downside is that because of the compact size, upgrading and/or replacing bits will most likely require you to rip everything out of it to get at what you want (except the one PCI card you can add... maybe it's two).
I think this whole phenomenon was to compete against the G4 'cube', and we all know how well that sold. (note: it didn't sell very well.)

 

[echootje]

Originally posted by RhesusMonkey
1) Never used one
2) Mini-AT form factor is as good as the standard AT FF
3) Go for the AMD vs the P4; P4 sucks power like a MoFo. unless of course you'd like this to double as a portable heater.
4) downside is that because of the compact size, upgrading and/or replacing bits will most likely require you to rip everything out of it to get at what you want (except the one PCI card you can add... maybe it's two).
I think this whole phenomenon was to compete against the G4 'cube', and we all know how well that sold. (note: it didn't sell very well.)

1) Okay
2) Yup, that's what I've been reading
3) Actually, the Shuttles have some fancy shmancy patented ICE Cooling technology. It's a buzzword for a heatsink/vapour cooling system. Pretty snazz.
4) yeah, there is some mention of this in the reviews at www.hothardware.com, but once it's in you ony really change things internally a few times a year at best. The ones I might be looking at have one PCI + one AGP 8x

As for the Macintosh G4 Cubes the Macs tend to have a longer desk-life than PC's do, owners usually buy upgrades rather than replace with a higher end machine simply because of the price poitn and overall reliability o fmacs. I think the Cubes put off some consumers from this trend because they weren't very upgradable. In contrast apparently this is Shuttle's 3rd generation of min-PC's and other manufacturers are following quickly (Tyan, MSI, Soyo, IWill... I'm sure ASUS is soon to follow). Something seems ot be working.

Rob

 

[bitchass]

when i had to buy a new motherboard last month i actually bought a mini-AT MSI board because it was so cheap. i don't need ANY pci slots (it has one) because it has an onboard network connector and an 8x agp slot. that said, it sure looks funny in my super-oversize network case - but at least it runs really cool.

 

[RhettD]

I have a shuttle 20th anniv. edition, and I love it! Now that I've gone to SFF, I'll never go back to huge, clunky towers. I have all the power of a desktop (my current specs are: p4 2.6c overclocked to 3.3 ghz, radeon 9800XT, gig of pc4000 ram, echo mia sound card), but its small, portable, and looks slick.

 

[acheron]

new in china for 1Q 2004

 

[Gunark]

the shuttle ones are nice

this one

is nicer though

http://www.thinkgeek.com/pcmods/cases/652a/ (you can probably get it cheaper elsewhere if you really wanted to)

Those chinese cube things are retarded. Why the hell are they writing their own proprietary operating system instead of using linux or something? Just give up an learn english already. Your alphabet is weird.