Still, at over $2,100, it’s an expensive little system
Ya don't say? This is... a frivolous waste of time and money. You're justifying spending over two-thousand dollars on a cramped "gaming" system? Who says "yeah Imma go out and get myself a $2K XYZ-toy," just to *see what it can do?* Sure you can do plenty of other things with it, but it's primary use (to justify the expense) IS "gaming." Complete fail for two-thousand dollars lol. An EIGHT HUNDRED dollar HD, that performs just how much better than similar technology or even "low-tech" mechanical drives (which for the money, would destroy it in over-all performance AND redundancy)?
I don't want to sound as sharp or harsh as some of the other posters, but sheesh for real? That HD purchase alone defines all shopper's logic... You probably should have broken down just how much performance per dollar per SPACE and weight you are "saving," VS the system you could have built (rationally), which would have been larger, a bit heavier (really just how much do you move your case to and from LAN to LAN) but would destroy this tiny-toy in all performance areas. You're telling us that a good 3-5min (or less) of "heavy" moving a regular sized box around, would justify the cost to go small and expensive? Hit the gym guy... b/c if carrying around a ~30lb box is *that* much trouble—your physical health maybe be indeed also?...
Posts like these just feed the gaming-fanboys, who love irrationally justifying any overpriced, and wanton purchase. All of which under the guise of "gaming," so it *must* be worth it? Give us a break... Gaming and gamers are the least respected "group" when it comes to building sensible systems... They wine about a box that costs more than $800, thus justifying going to cheaper AMD parts to some how supplant for lack of funds or a real job... Then in turn they'll focus on 1 performance part (GPU) so much, they over look other performance parts that would gain them a massive percentage of overall system performance (SSD + better CPU for starters) at the cost of 5-15fps.
As I've said before, for the money—give me the better (Intel) CPU+HD combo Vs the better GPU (SLI etc.) and slower CPU (AMD) rig (for now.) *Shaking head...* "Gaming," what a joke and a waste of time "hobby." Yeah I like to play some games, but the sole focus of my build... laughable. Sorta like blowing all your cash on performance parts for your car to zip around a track uber fast, but... when it snows, rains, is foggy or in any other typical driving condition ( you'll be spending majority of your time in) your car is lame and is sliding around all over the place, haha! But man, it sure can run some fast laps on a *perfect* sunny day: ZOOM-ZOOM! Ya Zoom-zoom-zoom-zoom!
Well, your last paragraph can apply to pretty much any hobby. Where I live plenty of people still buy golf equipment even though you can't use it half the year. The lakes I boat on are surrounded by houses, most of which are used only between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Some people enjoy gambling at casinos. There are tons of ways to "waste" money, but if you can afford it and enjoy it then why not?
Why this needed to be published here is what I question. Without any comparisons to other possible components or complete builds it doesn't seem any different than if they picked a user at random from the forums and had them write about their build.
Well, your last paragraph can apply to pretty much any hobby. Where I live plenty of people still buy golf equipment even though you can't use it half the year. The lakes I boat on are surrounded by houses, most of which are used only between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Some people enjoy gambling at casinos. There are tons of ways to "waste" money, but if you can afford it and enjoy it then why not?
Not really... many hobbies that you've listed involve LIVE interaction with people and there's no game in existence that can match this complex and HELPFUL social interaction. I have direct experience with youths and grown adults who are ADDICTED (but in denial) to gaming & thus ruin their social lives by avoiding going out and interacting with their family & friends; they substitute online "friends" for the latter. They blow $1000s & $1000s on a never ending carrot-on-a-stick. Money which could have bettered their lives immensely.
__MOST "gamers" whining about the $2100 are NOT even close to being in the same financial class (or their parents) as someone with a seasonal-home, boat or casino trips (often comp'd by the casino). Gambling (I've been to Vegas +10x) doesn't require blowing all your money; it's YOUR choice to. You also don't have to gamble much at all; there's TONS of attractions (social) you can partake in.
Kids (even many adults) these days are fat as fsck, lazy, bored and socially inept precisely b/c of "gaming." Ive seen BOTH eras where *I* would go out and "play" w/friends b/c THAT was our "gaming." Now kids barely move around at all, unless they are getting up from the TV/Console/PC to get junk food and sugary drinks to fuel more gaming addiction.
Again gaming leaves you with almost NOTHING to take away from it: A few people will posture that they've learned things (I have) they can take away IRL, but that's an exception to the general behavioral practices of "gamers." Builds like this represent what's wrong with the minds of gamers in general; they are too caught up in the FPS/newest/max-settings race Vs practicality of their build.
Going with AMD b/c it offers "comparable" FPS, but severely lags Vs Intel in EVERY other (practical) category is lunacy. Again once it's time for new games and this and that... Where will your AMD box be then; BEHIND, lagging, and thus the cycle of self-delusion and chasing FPS continues. If I spent a paltry amount more on Intel; I'm assured that this problem is much less severe---AND I can still use the machine longer b/c it's FASTER overall, thus still meeting min-sys requirements Vs your AMD rig which is now unable to even compete.
__Think about it this way: while 15fps isn't a huge deal at the top of performance graphs, BUT fast-forward 4-5yrs and now the diffs of 40FPS Vs 25FPS determines "playable" Vs NOT at all.
Intel is "better," for the moment, but using gaming as a crutch for AMD's failures is invalid.
Hey STAFF... FIX THE DANG B/U/I & misc buttons PLEASE!
Yeah... you got it... it's hard to catch all the little mistakes, esp w/no *edit* function. Plus, I wasn't going to go through opening word for a complete grammar and spell check underline appraisal ;-) Thanks...
Hey Tom's staff, hows about a readily available EDIT FEATURE and or B/I/U buttons that actually WORK more than 1/2 the time?
There's nothing particularly special about the idle power of this build. I've got i860 + P55 + 5850 + X-25M + 1TB/7200 at home and it idles @ ~75 W. If I unplug the TB, guess what it idles at? "Just under 70W"
Stuff is just more efficient these days. The 32nm dual-cores really don't bring anything to the table in that respect.
A great idea for a setup, but i have a couple of suggestions to bump the value a bit.
#1. Use 2x Intel x25-M G2 80GB or 3x x25-V 40GB in RAID-0 off ICH10R instead of the colossus. This will give 400-600MB/s read bandwidth and more IOPS than you know what to do with. These can be mounted ANYWHERE in the case with duct-tape (or something simelar) and will be securely mounted that way too.
#2. If you need a bit more storage for LAN and need to have the computer portable and don't midt a slight bump in price, use a 320-640GB 5400RPM (for noise) 2,5" harddrive, or 2 in RAID-0 if you need more bandwidth (requires 1Gbit lan to utililize for filetransfers).
#3. Use a custom cooling sollution for 5850 and not the reference design. Will reduce the noise at load by a great ammount.
#4. Put in a noctua (or simelar) 80mm-120mm low-noise fan for intake/exhaust air to ventilate. Fresh cooler air in the case during load means other fans have to work less, wich gives lower noise.
The amount of time folks spend researching the smallest minute details about each component cracks me up. If they paid themselves a conservative $20/hr for all the time they wasted reading 10 sites reviews on each little itty bitty detail...they would spent their entire budget on the research.
Until somebody actually builds a cross-referencing database of comprehensive reviews and compatibility that allows a potential buyer to "test" the interaction of several components at once, most everything people lay out is either speculation or anecdotal personal experience. I'm not saying that the input isn't valid, its just that folks get worked up about a technical "truth" that may get blown out of the water tomorrow.
Maybe some of these FoldingTeams can back off proteins for a bit and help contribute to such a database? You know, bring some of the actual capitalism style free market that this country really needs (Thanks for screwing that up NYSE, marketing & sales people)
Imagine building a machine in a hybrid-cart with each component you add giving instant feedback on compatibility (i.e. several hundred other folks who have the exact same combination successfully running either at stock or overclock). With each component you add you also get X (user-selected) number of suggestions for either %cost +/- or %performance (benchmark relative). When the system is finally built, you get the virtual benchmarking scores (+/- 1 standard deviation) and then quick options for changes you want to make or trade-offs you can take. (Give me 10% better graphic scores..or..I want 10MB/s faster random read/write rates, etc.) When all is send and done, the cart automatically calculates which single retailer has the best price or lets you know if a combination of a few will save you significant money. I'd gladly pay $50 each time I wanted to build a system to have access to such a purchasing app.
However, until Utopia arrives (where, BTW, mail-in rebates will be a crime and any company offering them will have the board of directors executed), I guess the best we can hope for is a revamped NewEgg review system or for testing sites to throw together whatever equipment the vendors throw at them.....
Right, because being informed is such clearly a waste of time. Glad I just bout $120 Monster Cables, and spent $2100 on a dual core PC in 2010. Thank Loyd, and thank you dear poster for re-enforcing my favorite slogan (I tattooed it on my face): Ignorance is bliss (at 20 an hour).
Being OVER informed is what leads to baldness, strokes, heart attacks and early death.
Shhhh..if we didn't have people spending way too much money on kit, then innovation and experimentation would signifcantly decrease.
A lot of research time on a car I'm going to drop $25k on(and another $10k maintaining) and own for 10 years makes sense. Stressing out about $500 I may or may not have spent in the best manner over a system which will lose my interest within 6 months.....yeah not so much.
One might question getting a slogan tattooed on your face though. Unless, of course, you're getting paid to market something...
I understand that this is the 6th page of comments and my opinions have already been stated in the previous.
I do at least want to +bump these opinions though.
Did any intelligent thought go into picking these components?
Why is this article posted?
It isn't pushing some micro PC boundary or some other extreme...
I work as a system admin and when people ask me what I think about x product or how they would like to build a computer I point them to this site. I certainly wouldn't if it was full of these articles.
This is certainly blog quality and doesn't really deserve to be put anywhere on the front page.
This is one , I don't get either. A third of the article telling us, yes these are crazy choices, but I chose them. Then a 1/3 telling us in depth what a bitch it was putting it together, yawn!
So you had to put the hsf on before m/b installation, NO WAY. Then we held our breath with anticipation as you slipped in the video card, power connectors already in place, NICE, lol. I enjoy the ride of spending the money with you, but if there were 10 builds with various combination s, users would vote this rig last without even seeing the other selections.
I understand not having benched this build yet, but what I don't understand is just starting off a build with goals, a list of components and just start building.
Why these components? Why this case, why not a cheaper, smaller SSD, why not another brand of graphics card with a quieter cooler?
Right now it just feels like buying the most expensive components and sticking them on a small mb in a small case et voila, money spent, job done.
What the hell are you asking that for? Why why why? Why not?
The choice of hardware was only a sample and a suggestion. The purpose was a gaming rig! Why i7 when it can be i5?
And why the hell do you need benchmarks? Would the score be any different if it wasn't for the small form factor, the short cooler etc? No they wouldn't. So why are you asking for benchmarks? Don't you all seen the i5, 5850, SSD benchmarked?
Of course you have all seen it.
So stop ****** around and thank the man for showing the idea of great gaming machine in a small case.
What the hell are you asking that for? Why why why? Why not?
The choice of hardware was only a sample and a suggestion. The purpose was a gaming rig! Why i7 when it can be i5?
And why the hell do you need benchmarks? Would the score be any different if it wasn't for the small form factor, the short cooler etc? No they wouldn't. So why are you asking for benchmarks? Don't you all seen the i5, 5850, SSD benchmarked?
Of course you have all seen it.
So stop ****** around and thank the man for showing the idea of great gaming machine in a small case.
No thank you. I'm asking for information that in my eyes would make this article, you know, informative.
No need to take this tone, I clearly don't stand alone in this opinion.
A smaller case does make a huge difference for overclocking, cooling etc, so yes, some info on those would have helped. Or, as the case is meant to be a quiet gaming rig, how about some noise figures?
Anandtech is hardly a showcase for rigs is it?
I've been thinking about trying to do something similar. A few things I would do different:
1. Use Antec p180 mini case (since it can fit a more powerful radeon 5870)
2. Use a Sapphire Radeon 5870 Vapor-X (it should have same idle power usage as a 5850 and the Vapor-x cooler should be quieter.)
3. Use an 80 plus gold rated power supply
4. Use a Corsair p256 SSD instead (it is cheaper, smaller and has slightly lower idle power usage)
I liked this article. I've been considering building a compact, and efficient but powerful system. This article gives me some good leads.
One thing that concerns me, how can you determine if a particular component will fit, especially video cards? Do you just cross you fingers and hope for the best? I'm aware of the fact that many video cards are quite long. What is the "normal" length for a video card?
This is similar to I system I just recently built for myself at around the same price.
-Shuttle SX58H7
-Core i7 920 C0 stepping overclocked to 3.2
-6 gigs 1600 Cas 6 memory
-2 Intel SSDs in RAID 0 (Boot Drive)
-WD Caviar Black 1TB (Storage)
-Samsung IDE DVD drive
-Radeon 5870 XXX Edition
This rig is screaming fast and came in right at $2000.00 from NewEgg.
I installed a 2 bay hot swap carriage for the SSDs to make it easier to upgrade in the future. Heck I love it so much I am contemplating building and selling these systems. I can even clock it at 3.4 and run the memory at 1700 CAS 7, but it's already plenty fast.
I chose the Shuttle because in an article I read it scored within a couple percentage points as the top of the line board at the time.
It comes with a power supply as well, although I think you have to use a laptop-style optical drive.
Bring on some more.
In fact, I thought this might be a mini-itx build, but I can keep hoping. I want to see a straight gaming cube as small as possible, with intelligent design.
You could cram a Core i5 and an ATI 5xxx in a Shuttle K45 (and yes there are power supplies that will power it safely, and the K45 comes with a place for a laptop optical drive) Just waiting on the motherboard I suppose, I hope they show up soon.
Have been using SFF boxes for awhile now, Shuttles mostly. Let us know how it turns out for OC'ing and everyday usage. SFF's are habit forming, be careful.
In my experience with video cards, "quiet" and "XFX" are not two words that belong on the same page, let alone the same sentence. I'd suggest looking at the Sapphire Vapor-X line if you want really quiet Radeon cards.
This is honestly amazing. You spent $2100 on a PC with a 64-bit OS and only walked away with 4GB RAM? And only a dual-core processor?
The real kick in the pants is its being billed as a "gaming rig." Why? Because this invalidates a lot of the assumptions going into the project. The tower is billed as small enough to take to a LAN party. I've owned some big towers, but not one too big to put in a car and carry, barring physical disability. It has low idle power--- for a gaming rig with a top-notch GPU. Like a Ferrari with a low-power glove compartment light. And whisper quiet--- for a gaming rig. If you're not allowed to operate a computer in your house that is louder than a whisper, buy headphones. Otherwise use speakers. In either case, a gaming rig is, by definition, going to make plenty of noise. From the games.
You could have gotten a better gaming rig for $1000 less, and hot-glued $100 bills to the case. You could have gotten better gaming rig AND a great laptop for the same price, if low sound levels and power consumption when not gaming were the priorities. It's almost as if the rationale was to bring a horribly bad build idea to life, or just to show that the builder can spend a lot of money. Heaven help Alienware for the thrashing they'd receive for offering up this level of performance at that price.
The choices made made perfect sense once you accepted the premise of the build:
1. Small and easily portable
2. Efficient at idle
3. Quiet
4. Gaming centric
None of your suggestions even qualify number 1, which was the most important qualification for this build. It's easily portable (not just "portable", as your suggestion is - though to be fair, even a Refrigerator is portable if you have a dolly). Your Ferrari analogy doesn't make any sense to me. This computer is supposed to be a small computer that is gaming focused. How does that compare to the efficiency of one minor component of that Ferrari?
Low Noise is a good thing in any build, with or without speakers. I appreciate a quiet case when I'm gaming, or just plain listening to music with that computer. And no, the rig itself is not supposed to make noise. That adds to background that I don't want to hear.
The choice of SSD was, as Loyd pointed out, a bit of an extravagance. In fact, he even suggested where you could reasonably trim down the cost a bit with some substitutions. However, each of those reduces the performance of the overall system, and sacrifices one of the key component of this build. I think Loyd made reasonable (other than the drive) choices for a very good gaming rig.
This is a hobby-build article by an author who tends to write such things...seriously, if so many of you don't like this type of article why did any of you read it????
I found it interesting, maybe because I didn't go in thinking it was a hard-hitting blood-and-guts in-depth review/critique. It's just a by-the-way fascinating autobiographical thing and that's all it needs to be. And the response from the peanut gallery? Mostly a bunch of Simpson's Comic-Book Guy types whining "Worst...build...ever."
Not to mention all the "you are clueless because what I would've done instead is..." garbage sprinkled in there. So? Start your own blog.
Sorry...just sick of all the hubris and bravo-sierra from people who could better express their disdain by simply reading something else next time.
If the author had given a coherent explanation of some of the component decisions, I would agree with you more, but some of the choices seem to directly contradict the explanations given. Why the i5-661 instead of the i5-660, which would seem to better meet his goal of low-power/little heat while not losing anything since he isn't using the IGP anyway? Why use a Colossus when a 2.5" drive would likely provide more storage for less money and also take up less space, helping with the problems regarding breaking a connector he mentioned. In some ways this build seems to be less about a well-thought-out combination of components and more about just buying the most expensive item available in each category.
Core i5-750: $149 at MicroCenter (up until about three weeks ago)
EVGA P55 Micro E652: $130 (on sale at Amazon.com three weeks ago)
Antec MiniP180: $79 (on sale at Amazon.com three weeks ago)
Radeon HD5770: $169
HardDrives: 40GB Intel V-series G2 SSD: $120; WD 1TB Caviar Green: $89
RAM: 4GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz DDR3: $93
PSU: Whatever you want for $130 or less. I'd get a Corsair HX650.
Optical drive: I just go with DVD/CD, don't care about BluRay, so we'll just keep your BluRay drive ($110).
OS: I run Win7x64 Pro, which was $99 pre-ordered. We can keep your $105 lesser edition though, whatever.
Total: $1174.
In my build, I got 8GB of RAM, but my OS was a little cheaper, and my optical drive was a LOT cheaper. I spent $994 (including tax) and I have a $10 rebate on my Corsair PSU that I mailed out, so should get $10 back on that eventually.
And this thing is ridiculously power efficient compared to the Core2Duo/8800GT rig I was running previously.
Between the Core i5 & P55 C-state/speedstep/whatever power saving technology and the HD5770's power saving technology, this system is amazingly more efficient.
And working with the MiniP180 was probably a lot less of a hassle when it comes to the build and installation. Oh and I used an extra Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro I had laying around for my CPU hsf, which was probably easier to install than that Scythe.
I find it very strange that the i5-661 was chosen over the i5-660 considering the goals of this build. Why do you want an igp dumping more heat if your not going to use it?
I think I have a couple improved suggestions for how to spec this system out on a budget:
1) Instead of a $800 SSD drive, you can just go with a ~$200 64GB SSD drive like the OCZ Agility and pop in a $50-60 500-640GB 72000 RPM drive for storage. You will not lose much general usage performance.
2) Keep the Radeon HD 5850. You can save about $80+ dollars by going with a Core i3 530 instead of the i5 661, and again, you won't lose much performance at all. Maybe 10-20%? You WILL lose about 50% performance in games, I would guess, if you went with the 5770 instead of the 5850, though.
I actually did something very similar to this build for my system a few months back. My goals were a bit different however; i7 920 system, overclock it, and watercool it. I documented a lot of the details here: http://tinyurl.com/ya4pgfq">http://tinyurl.com/ya4pgfq
Would love to chat with the author of the article however and share details on how he got around some more of the challenging details involved with his build (same case just an earlier version)
I don't know why, but I'm always surprised when a "SFF" build turns out to be a MATX board and not MITX. OEMs like Dell and HP have been pumping out nothing but MATX machines for years, and I haven't had to fix a full size ATX at work since... 2007?
MATX isn't SFF in consumer circles, it's standard. I'm glad to see it's finally gaining ground in the enthusiast market.
I don't really see the point of mITX if you are fitting a card the size of the 5850. If this were a small box using the integrated graphics of Clarkdale then it would make much more sense.
Isn't there a price premium for going to mITX? I know mATX tends to be cheaper overall (system-wise) when compared to ATX, but my feeling has been that mITX is generally more expensive, despite being smaller/less capable for expansion.
Of course with the recent increase in mITX over the past few years, my gut could be wrong.
It used to be. Two years ago the only decent MITX boards with x16 slots where $300-$400 monsters from companies that specialized in embeded and industrial computers.
Thanks for all the comments. This article is really about experimentation, so some of the ideas are interesting, and I'll likely revisit this build with some of those ideas. (Dunno who suggested I was a "novice builder," though. That made me smile.)
At any rate, what I didn't want this to be was a traditional "build a system, benchmark it, forget about it" article. I'm going to return in a few weeks and discuss how well it worked in a practical way, and also see what the budget options I mentioned at the end work.
I'm unconvinced that a Core i5 750 + P55 would meet one of the key goals, though, which was very low idle power. But I'll give that a try, and collect more power usage numbers.
1. cheaper - the P55 boards are cheaper than H55 in every case I looked, as long as they are the same manufacturer. (There is an ECS H55 board that is cheaper than the Asus P55 mATX board, but I wouldn't want to try it.)
2. useless connectors - The H55 board you used would have useless DVI and VGA ports. (I didn't even see if it had HDMI.) This is a problem for me in any case. I hate having space taken up for useless ports when I need more USB ports. The MSI P55 mATX board I looked at had 10 USB ports for $99. This leads to reason 3.
3. need more USB ports - H55 boards had 4 or 6 USB ports. Why limit things so much when the chipset supports 14? Because of reason 2.
I never even looked into if the P55 used less power than the H55. I would suppose it would. That would actually make sense. The P55 boards, if designed correctly, shouldn't even power up the graphics core. There wouldn't be any need. That alone should save power, but I suppose that would depend on if Intel put that capability in the chip in the first place.
Of course the other reason to leave USB ports as headers is so you can attach other things over them. I have already used all three USB headers on my HTPC board and haven't even put a card reader in there yet.
I suggested it. I'm not trying to discourage you from writing articles, so maybe I should make my criticism more constructive.
I'm not saying you're not experienced at working on the insides of computers. More so, your component choices over the past few articles and how they aren't economical. I know you had a big budget, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful to build something that will maximize performance.
From previous reviews and test data by anandtech and other websites, I would've cut back on the 500W since it is overkill for any single GPU setup. I would've saved some money on that and the SSD hard drive (you really only need a small SSD for the OS, and a normal one for storage), and bumped the graphics card up to a 5870. That would've squeezed more performance out of your budget.
I'm also not sold on that an P55 motherboard would idle higher than an H55 one. The previous tests seem to suggest otherwise, but there's no direct comparison. Maybe this could be included in your follow-up article?
I didn't mind the last article as much since it brought up some good points that all system buildes need to keep in mind, and it was a nice change of pace from the normal benchmark articles on anandtech.
For this article, it was just a story of your experiences/build, and that isn't what I think most people (including myself) are interested in on this website. We want some methodical, scientific comparisons, whether it's real world usage or the typical synthetic benchmarks isn't important (in fact, I prefer the former), but there should be some point you're trying to convey in an article other than your build experience.
I think this article (at least so far, I know you have a follow-on) suffers from not being well defined for your audience. If it's a build guide for novices, I'd expect more details about potential pitfalls. If it's targeted toward experienced builders, I'd expect more of a methodical comparison with other components you didn't choose for your build.
I'd be interested in building a similar rig for under $1k (eliminating the SSD most likely.) I think the problem we're trying to solve for here is creating an HTPC rig capable of gaming at HD resolutions. To be more specific, a relatively quiet SFF rig capable of 30-60fps 1080p gaming.
The 5770 GPU almost fits the bill for this (would prefer 5850 but load power is too high?)--and if it could be paired with a Mobile Core i7 on a Mini-ITX mobo I'd be giddy.
How about this: since you're not using the integrated graphics, you don't need the H55 board. Save $35 and get a P55 board. Along with the saving recommendations you list at the end, it would still be a decent system for cheap, and some of it would actually make sense.
However, the Core i5 750 for just $25 more would make more sense than anything.
Especially since the stated goal was low power consumption and the 750 consumes ~10W or less than the 661 at idle. He could've saved $10 and gotten a faster, more mature, more power efficient, and cheaper platform.
Seems like you dropped a lot to get a SFF build, but like you said the SSD was almost half the cost. I'm sure the SSD really helps with heat and noise, I love my laptop SSD for that reason.
I've been looking at building a mini-ITX gaming system using the upcoming Sugo SG07, an i3 CPU, and my 4850 for the GPU. Good to read your experiences with the micro ATX build.
I kind of get it. Vacation is fun. I don't mean the Bahamas. I mean being home with family and being able to enjoy the fruits of your labors and good fortune. You might not want to come back in a full time way, so you don't. I think that sounds like a lot of fun, and look forward to the day where I can do the same.
At the same time, hiring a "Loyd" was probably a bad idea. There is no value in his writing or "experiments". I don't want to hurt the guy, it's just that Anandtech has had it's share of mediocre articles. This doesn't meet the standard of mediocre.
Between the fact that there are fewer articles posted than in years past, very few roundups with actual stability and feature testing, Anandtech is getting to be a very boring bookmark to click every day. Someone should be hired who has the time and inclination to get motherboards, memory, video cards, cases, etc., and not just test them and rave about them, but to push back on the vendors to improve them. They should be encouraged to reduce the "inspire a 14 year old" theme that they seem to embrace, and build professional products. Like Tyan used to do. Extended stability testing, checking for bugs regarding QVL memory compatibility (this has been a problem lately) and holding their warranty service to account are all things that Anand has done in the past, and should do again.
Also, Firewire should be implemented at the highest speed available (currently 800) or the motherboard should be thrown in the garbage :) I include this to let others know that I have not forgotten the true cause.
I'm in total agreement with the second half of what you wrote!
As for the first half, the kind of articles you want have to *exist* in order to displace the articles you don't want, and you can opt not to read anything, at any time. Often I know if I want to read a complete article by the end of the first couple paragraphs if the title alone doesn't deter me.
IOW, more articles is better. So long as Loyd gets click-through there's every reason to keep articles that apparently were of interest to some readers. All visitors to AT are not hardware gurus, everyone had to start somewhere too.
As with most novice builders, he buys into a lot of the marketing and doesn't yet have the feel for balancing performance across CPU, GPU, RAM, Mobo, and hard drive so that he's not overspending in any one area.
Well, he's overspent on basically every component just like he said he would in the article. He's basically taken each component and taken it a step (or more) above the sweet spot of performance per dollar.
I'd like to see this system compared with a system along the lines of the "budget" component suggestions he makes at the end of the article. How much more are you getting for your money? I have a feeling the expensive system won't be terribly much faster but it might enable a better experience by allowing gaming at a higher resolution and more eye candy, less slowdown when a mechanical hard drive may choke on random reads/writes, etc.
The i5-661 does seem to be an odd choice to pair with a discrete graphics card since the main benefit of the 661 over the 660 is a higher-clocked integrated GPU which would presumably also increase heat output, power consumption and noise; all things Lloyd is trying to avoid. Is there some ability to switch from the discrete GPU to the integrated CPU that might allow for some power savings when not performing demanding 3D workloads? I know there had been talk of systems along those lines earlier, but I thought those had all been discontinued (or maybe just delayed???).
I look forward to the followup to this article to see how it actually works out. I personally would get a lower performance computer closer to the $/performance optimum and use the money I saved to allow me to upgrade to a new machine (or newer components) sooner.
I think that may be worth an article. A comparison of real world performance differences between his high end system and a mid-range and budget system with the same case.
The article seems well written, but there's no meat to this other than Loyd documenting his experiences. For veteran PC builders/tweakers, this isn't all to interesting, and IMHO belongs more in the forums than as an article.
I'm curious as to why you went with the Silverstone SG04B? As you pointed out space is incredibly tight in that enclosure and airflow really is restricted after you put in everything. And that's not even covering the massive cost of the case itself.
Just glancing at similar cases I see there are better options:
Antec Mini P180 - $70-$80 via newegg
Thermaltake VF1000BWS Lanbox - $110 via newegg
Thermaltake LANBOX Lite VF6000BWS - $80 via newegg
All of these should have not only given you the size of case you wanted but more room and better airflow.
The Silverstone SG04 is easily more transportable than the cases you mention. I really wanted to squeeze this a bit. The gating factor was really the size of the graphics card more than anything else, but I wanted small, quiet and low power.
The problem I have with it is it isn't really low power, it's only low idle power. Except when it comes time to pay the power bill idle power isn't a concern to many of us, even in this day and age where it's convenient to feel green.
One other comment is I'll bet that CPU heatsink's fan will not last the life of the system, perhaps not half the life of the system. Given the cramped quarters to work in the case I hope there is enough clearance and mounting ability for a better replacement fan down the road, as it would be a real pain to have to pull the whole thing apart to get the heatsink off if it can't take a different fan (or else who wants to replace a bad fan with the same/equivalent thing again).
That makes sense so you basically traded off space/flexability and cooling for portability. Not a trade I would have made but when put into that perspective it does make sense.
also, a couple of weeks ago I bought a 256GB Corsair P256 SSD for $625 from Newegg, 220/200 Read/Write with TRIM for my Alienware laptop, you could have saved a few bucks and some space
Reminds me of paper launches of products, but without any performance specs. I appreciate the details noted during the installation process, but not to have any performance numbers to see where this lines up with the rest is sorta saddening. :(
interesting build, I would also like to see benchmarks.
I also wanted to do something similar, but went a different route:
* MSI X58M - mATX, Crossfire support (I don't plan to use it) and has 6 RAM slots (got 12GB of RAM)
* i7 920 - higher power use perhaps, but 4cores, 8threads. I paid almost the same price, about 220
* 5870 instead of 5850 - maybe I should have gone with SSD instead, but I have a 30'' screen
* Antec p180 mini - this case is big, big, big. The biggest case I ever had and it's micro ATX only. The "mini" part is a joke.
the whole cost was about 1500 (CHF, which is about 1:1 with USD). I might still upgrade to a SSD, but not for the prices they ask now (funny, it's actually the same price as the 5870, which I didn't mind that much paying for)
1) Needs benchmarks. ANY benchmarks. This is about as useful as someone bragging on the boards about their new rig with some do's and don'ts about specific hardware. The most interesting thing about this rig was that ~40% of the cost was in the SSD. Was it worth it? How did it perform? What controller does the drive use? Is it on a 6Gb/s interface or are you bottlenecked at the interface? That would be my main concern with the drive.
2) It looks like it was done in word and then exported to HTML ;) Maybe a little cleanup to fit nicely on the site.
3) Did I mention benchmarks? They don't need to be fancy with comparisons to 3290472347845 other similar products. Just give us what it scored.
4) What about overclocking? Temps would be the big question here in the small case.
Anyway the article was lean so I can't come up with anything more than criticism. Sorry :(
I remember reading Loyd Case's articles in CGW when I was in junior high 15 years ago. Maybe then, this would have been acceptable, but IMO Loyd's writing on this site seems like such a joke compared to the amazing technical information we usually get.
Unrelated, but in the article where he flattened and reinstalled Vista to fix a slowness problem really annoyed me. He didn't even try to fix it! Seriously, procexp kernrate procmon windbg driver verifier perfmon autoruns maybe... just do something for science sake. Anyone with half a brain can reinstall Windows and we don't need to read about it, especially on a site like this.
As I noted in the article, I'll be writing a follow-up with benchmarks and usage experiences.
I doubt, however, I'll try much in the way of overclocking. I could maybe get a speed grade out of this system, but the constraints of the case means airflow isn't all that robust, and I'm trying to keep noise levels down.
I liked the article because I have interest in SFF building - the pure bench numbers can be seen well spread in a dozen sites, just google it!
Loyd, you did not put enough pictures of the case itself, googling it I saw some images and would suggest two things to test if it can help in overclocking:
1. add another intake fan at the front
2. reverse the PSU to suck air out of the CPU area, if possible
as the case is so small, you could need to use some plastic to create a path for the cold air to go to the CPU and GPU.
Seriously, this is just a summary of somebody's build. Isn't there a forum for this somewhere?
Articles on the front page should be evaluating something objectively like the case design or benchmarking some components. These articles lack a control/standard (i.e. it's hard to compare the built system / relevant component with a similar or dissimilar build with the same component).
This seems to do very little to help anybody building a SFF other than to make the obvious subjective comment that "it's cramped" and everything is a tight fit. The additional comments about the push pins and motherboard layout seem better suited for motherboard or HSF specific reviews.
My desktop is a small formfactor high performance system in a similar Silverstone case that I build over 2 years ago, I know several people with similar systems. They're not unusual enough for an article like this, certainly not "experimental".
"Why not read the last sentecne of the article again?"
Why not just wait a couple weeks and give us a real review when it's over? AT has built a reputation for being thorough and objective - this preview provides neither. How about compiling benchmarks on the system he built compared to the $900 version he suggests building? As it stands, the article offers no compulsive evidence of any kind, ultimately serving no purpose as an Anandtech review... not even a preview, really.
There is no reason for a large case anymore. I built a micro-atx PC, however, not quite as small as the silverstone. I put a 5870 and some cheaper AMD AthlonII X3 in it and the thing handles games like a champ. Would have loved to put the SSD in it but its not needed. Here is the case I used. I think a 5970 will fit too.
- Same Case. - Antec Quattro 1000w ($139 after rebate at Fry's). - EVGA P55 Micro SLI mobo ($84 after rebate at Newegg). - Core i5-750 OC to 4.0 Ghz using Corsair H50 water cooler (top 120mm fan used for radiator). - 2 GTX 480's in SLI (yes, they fit and run cool enough - barely). - Replaced bottom 120mm fan with a speed-adjustable MFDB one, and attached a Zalman Fan-mate to control speed. - Used card slot at top of case for an exhaust fan (very helpful, given that heat rises and would otw accumulate at the top of the case). - Intel G2 SSD 80gb boot drive. - WD Velociraptor WD6000HLHX 600gb game drive.
If I get more ambitious, I may water-cool the 480's with Danger Den waterblocks and mount a 2-fan rad on the back using a Swiftech radbox-mounted DRIVE heat exchanger/pump/reservoir.
This gives me a complete state-of-the-art system that is actually luggable to LAN parties (or, in my case, to work when I feel like closing my office door and goofing off).
It also happens to blow the doors off the "experimental" system described in the article. Mainly because, in a gaming system, $1000 worth of videocards beats an $850 SSD any day. I spent the money where it really counts.
How can this disk withstand shock up to 1500G? Purchased a 1CLS120G disk 3 months ago. When pulling out the SATA cable, the plastic covering the connector pins broke. Tried to get a new disk on the warranty but did not succeed. Has lost a lot of money on this SSD.
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81 Comments
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viciki123 - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
http://www.weddingdressonlineshop.co.uk/4_alfred-a...">http://www.weddingdressonlineshop.co.uk/4_alfred-a...ctbaars - Monday, February 8, 2010 - link
How's the build coming along?v12v12 - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
Still, at over $2,100, it’s an expensive little systemYa don't say? This is... a frivolous waste of time and money. You're justifying spending over two-thousand dollars on a cramped "gaming" system? Who says "yeah Imma go out and get myself a $2K XYZ-toy," just to *see what it can do?* Sure you can do plenty of other things with it, but it's primary use (to justify the expense) IS "gaming." Complete fail for two-thousand dollars lol. An EIGHT HUNDRED dollar HD, that performs just how much better than similar technology or even "low-tech" mechanical drives (which for the money, would destroy it in over-all performance AND redundancy)?
I don't want to sound as sharp or harsh as some of the other posters, but sheesh for real? That HD purchase alone defines all shopper's logic... You probably should have broken down just how much performance per dollar per SPACE and weight you are "saving," VS the system you could have built (rationally), which would have been larger, a bit heavier (really just how much do you move your case to and from LAN to LAN) but would destroy this tiny-toy in all performance areas. You're telling us that a good 3-5min (or less) of "heavy" moving a regular sized box around, would justify the cost to go small and expensive? Hit the gym guy... b/c if carrying around a ~30lb box is *that* much trouble—your physical health maybe be indeed also?...
Posts like these just feed the gaming-fanboys, who love irrationally justifying any overpriced, and wanton purchase. All of which under the guise of "gaming," so it *must* be worth it? Give us a break... Gaming and gamers are the least respected "group" when it comes to building sensible systems... They wine about a box that costs more than $800, thus justifying going to cheaper AMD parts to some how supplant for lack of funds or a real job... Then in turn they'll focus on 1 performance part (GPU) so much, they over look other performance parts that would gain them a massive percentage of overall system performance (SSD + better CPU for starters) at the cost of 5-15fps.
As I've said before, for the money—give me the better (Intel) CPU+HD combo Vs the better GPU (SLI etc.) and slower CPU (AMD) rig (for now.) *Shaking head...* "Gaming," what a joke and a waste of time "hobby." Yeah I like to play some games, but the sole focus of my build... laughable. Sorta like blowing all your cash on performance parts for your car to zip around a track uber fast, but... when it snows, rains, is foggy or in any other typical driving condition ( you'll be spending majority of your time in) your car is lame and is sliding around all over the place, haha! But man, it sure can run some fast laps on a *perfect* sunny day: ZOOM-ZOOM! Ya Zoom-zoom-zoom-zoom!
strikeback03 - Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - link
Well, your last paragraph can apply to pretty much any hobby. Where I live plenty of people still buy golf equipment even though you can't use it half the year. The lakes I boat on are surrounded by houses, most of which are used only between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Some people enjoy gambling at casinos. There are tons of ways to "waste" money, but if you can afford it and enjoy it then why not?Why this needed to be published here is what I question. Without any comparisons to other possible components or complete builds it doesn't seem any different than if they picked a user at random from the forums and had them write about their build.
v12v12 - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
Well, your last paragraph can apply to pretty much any hobby. Where I live plenty of people still buy golf equipment even though you can't use it half the year. The lakes I boat on are surrounded by houses, most of which are used only between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Some people enjoy gambling at casinos. There are tons of ways to "waste" money, but if you can afford it and enjoy it then why not?Not really... many hobbies that you've listed involve LIVE interaction with people and there's no game in existence that can match this complex and HELPFUL social interaction. I have direct experience with youths and grown adults who are ADDICTED (but in denial) to gaming & thus ruin their social lives by avoiding going out and interacting with their family & friends; they substitute online "friends" for the latter. They blow $1000s & $1000s on a never ending carrot-on-a-stick. Money which could have bettered their lives immensely.
__MOST "gamers" whining about the $2100 are NOT even close to being in the same financial class (or their parents) as someone with a seasonal-home, boat or casino trips (often comp'd by the casino). Gambling (I've been to Vegas +10x) doesn't require blowing all your money; it's YOUR choice to. You also don't have to gamble much at all; there's TONS of attractions (social) you can partake in.
Kids (even many adults) these days are fat as fsck, lazy, bored and socially inept precisely b/c of "gaming." Ive seen BOTH eras where *I* would go out and "play" w/friends b/c THAT was our "gaming." Now kids barely move around at all, unless they are getting up from the TV/Console/PC to get junk food and sugary drinks to fuel more gaming addiction.
Again gaming leaves you with almost NOTHING to take away from it: A few people will posture that they've learned things (I have) they can take away IRL, but that's an exception to the general behavioral practices of "gamers." Builds like this represent what's wrong with the minds of gamers in general; they are too caught up in the FPS/newest/max-settings race Vs practicality of their build.
Going with AMD b/c it offers "comparable" FPS, but severely lags Vs Intel in EVERY other (practical) category is lunacy. Again once it's time for new games and this and that... Where will your AMD box be then; BEHIND, lagging, and thus the cycle of self-delusion and chasing FPS continues. If I spent a paltry amount more on Intel; I'm assured that this problem is much less severe---AND I can still use the machine longer b/c it's FASTER overall, thus still meeting min-sys requirements Vs your AMD rig which is now unable to even compete.
__Think about it this way: while 15fps isn't a huge deal at the top of performance graphs, BUT fast-forward 4-5yrs and now the diffs of 40FPS Vs 25FPS determines "playable" Vs NOT at all.
Intel is "better," for the moment, but using gaming as a crutch for AMD's failures is invalid.
Hey STAFF... FIX THE DANG B/U/I & misc buttons PLEASE!
xeopherith - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
I think you mean defies not defines.v12v12 - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - link
Yeah... you got it... it's hard to catch all the little mistakes, esp w/no *edit* function. Plus, I wasn't going to go through opening word for a complete grammar and spell check underline appraisal ;-) Thanks...Hey Tom's staff, hows about a readily available EDIT FEATURE and or B/I/U buttons that actually WORK more than 1/2 the time?
Thanks guy(s).
sabrewulf - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
There's nothing particularly special about the idle power of this build. I've got i860 + P55 + 5850 + X-25M + 1TB/7200 at home and it idles @ ~75 W. If I unplug the TB, guess what it idles at? "Just under 70W"Stuff is just more efficient these days. The 32nm dual-cores really don't bring anything to the table in that respect.
GullLars - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
A great idea for a setup, but i have a couple of suggestions to bump the value a bit.#1. Use 2x Intel x25-M G2 80GB or 3x x25-V 40GB in RAID-0 off ICH10R instead of the colossus. This will give 400-600MB/s read bandwidth and more IOPS than you know what to do with. These can be mounted ANYWHERE in the case with duct-tape (or something simelar) and will be securely mounted that way too.
#2. If you need a bit more storage for LAN and need to have the computer portable and don't midt a slight bump in price, use a 320-640GB 5400RPM (for noise) 2,5" harddrive, or 2 in RAID-0 if you need more bandwidth (requires 1Gbit lan to utililize for filetransfers).
#3. Use a custom cooling sollution for 5850 and not the reference design. Will reduce the noise at load by a great ammount.
#4. Put in a noctua (or simelar) 80mm-120mm low-noise fan for intake/exhaust air to ventilate. Fresh cooler air in the case during load means other fans have to work less, wich gives lower noise.
xenor - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
The amount of time folks spend researching the smallest minute details about each component cracks me up. If they paid themselves a conservative $20/hr for all the time they wasted reading 10 sites reviews on each little itty bitty detail...they would spent their entire budget on the research.Until somebody actually builds a cross-referencing database of comprehensive reviews and compatibility that allows a potential buyer to "test" the interaction of several components at once, most everything people lay out is either speculation or anecdotal personal experience. I'm not saying that the input isn't valid, its just that folks get worked up about a technical "truth" that may get blown out of the water tomorrow.
Maybe some of these FoldingTeams can back off proteins for a bit and help contribute to such a database? You know, bring some of the actual capitalism style free market that this country really needs (Thanks for screwing that up NYSE, marketing & sales people)
Imagine building a machine in a hybrid-cart with each component you add giving instant feedback on compatibility (i.e. several hundred other folks who have the exact same combination successfully running either at stock or overclock). With each component you add you also get X (user-selected) number of suggestions for either %cost +/- or %performance (benchmark relative). When the system is finally built, you get the virtual benchmarking scores (+/- 1 standard deviation) and then quick options for changes you want to make or trade-offs you can take. (Give me 10% better graphic scores..or..I want 10MB/s faster random read/write rates, etc.) When all is send and done, the cart automatically calculates which single retailer has the best price or lets you know if a combination of a few will save you significant money. I'd gladly pay $50 each time I wanted to build a system to have access to such a purchasing app.
However, until Utopia arrives (where, BTW, mail-in rebates will be a crime and any company offering them will have the board of directors executed), I guess the best we can hope for is a revamped NewEgg review system or for testing sites to throw together whatever equipment the vendors throw at them.....
pakotlar - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
Right, because being informed is such clearly a waste of time. Glad I just bout $120 Monster Cables, and spent $2100 on a dual core PC in 2010. Thank Loyd, and thank you dear poster for re-enforcing my favorite slogan (I tattooed it on my face): Ignorance is bliss (at 20 an hour).xenor - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - link
Being OVER informed is what leads to baldness, strokes, heart attacks and early death.Shhhh..if we didn't have people spending way too much money on kit, then innovation and experimentation would signifcantly decrease.
A lot of research time on a car I'm going to drop $25k on(and another $10k maintaining) and own for 10 years makes sense. Stressing out about $500 I may or may not have spent in the best manner over a system which will lose my interest within 6 months.....yeah not so much.
One might question getting a slogan tattooed on your face though. Unless, of course, you're getting paid to market something...
pakotlar - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - link
I was going to market to GOP representatives :)xeopherith - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I understand that this is the 6th page of comments and my opinions have already been stated in the previous.I do at least want to +bump these opinions though.
Did any intelligent thought go into picking these components?
Why is this article posted?
It isn't pushing some micro PC boundary or some other extreme...
I work as a system admin and when people ask me what I think about x product or how they would like to build a computer I point them to this site. I certainly wouldn't if it was full of these articles.
This is certainly blog quality and doesn't really deserve to be put anywhere on the front page.
notty22 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
This is one , I don't get either. A third of the article telling us, yes these are crazy choices, but I chose them. Then a 1/3 telling us in depth what a bitch it was putting it together, yawn!So you had to put the hsf on before m/b installation, NO WAY. Then we held our breath with anticipation as you slipped in the video card, power connectors already in place, NICE, lol. I enjoy the ride of spending the money with you, but if there were 10 builds with various combination s, users would vote this rig last without even seeing the other selections.
Deosneos - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I understand not having benched this build yet, but what I don't understand is just starting off a build with goals, a list of components and just start building.Why these components? Why this case, why not a cheaper, smaller SSD, why not another brand of graphics card with a quieter cooler?
Right now it just feels like buying the most expensive components and sticking them on a small mb in a small case et voila, money spent, job done.
AstroGuardian - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
What the hell are you asking that for? Why why why? Why not?The choice of hardware was only a sample and a suggestion. The purpose was a gaming rig! Why i7 when it can be i5?
And why the hell do you need benchmarks? Would the score be any different if it wasn't for the small form factor, the short cooler etc? No they wouldn't. So why are you asking for benchmarks? Don't you all seen the i5, 5850, SSD benchmarked?
Of course you have all seen it.
So stop ****** around and thank the man for showing the idea of great gaming machine in a small case.
Great post Loyd
AstroGuardian - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
What the hell are you asking that for? Why why why? Why not?The choice of hardware was only a sample and a suggestion. The purpose was a gaming rig! Why i7 when it can be i5?
And why the hell do you need benchmarks? Would the score be any different if it wasn't for the small form factor, the short cooler etc? No they wouldn't. So why are you asking for benchmarks? Don't you all seen the i5, 5850, SSD benchmarked?
Of course you have all seen it.
So stop ****** around and thank the man for showing the idea of great gaming machine in a small case.
Great post Loyd
Deosneos - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
No thank you. I'm asking for information that in my eyes would make this article, you know, informative.No need to take this tone, I clearly don't stand alone in this opinion.
A smaller case does make a huge difference for overclocking, cooling etc, so yes, some info on those would have helped. Or, as the case is meant to be a quiet gaming rig, how about some noise figures?
Anandtech is hardly a showcase for rigs is it?
Teefs - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I've been thinking about trying to do something similar. A few things I would do different:1. Use Antec p180 mini case (since it can fit a more powerful radeon 5870)
2. Use a Sapphire Radeon 5870 Vapor-X (it should have same idle power usage as a 5850 and the Vapor-x cooler should be quieter.)
3. Use an 80 plus gold rated power supply
4. Use a Corsair p256 SSD instead (it is cheaper, smaller and has slightly lower idle power usage)
pyrrhus819 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I liked this article. I've been considering building a compact, and efficient but powerful system. This article gives me some good leads.One thing that concerns me, how can you determine if a particular component will fit, especially video cards? Do you just cross you fingers and hope for the best? I'm aware of the fact that many video cards are quite long. What is the "normal" length for a video card?
austin133788 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
This is similar to I system I just recently built for myself at around the same price.-Shuttle SX58H7
-Core i7 920 C0 stepping overclocked to 3.2
-6 gigs 1600 Cas 6 memory
-2 Intel SSDs in RAID 0 (Boot Drive)
-WD Caviar Black 1TB (Storage)
-Samsung IDE DVD drive
-Radeon 5870 XXX Edition
This rig is screaming fast and came in right at $2000.00 from NewEgg.
I installed a 2 bay hot swap carriage for the SSDs to make it easier to upgrade in the future. Heck I love it so much I am contemplating building and selling these systems. I can even clock it at 3.4 and run the memory at 1700 CAS 7, but it's already plenty fast.
I chose the Shuttle because in an article I read it scored within a couple percentage points as the top of the line board at the time.
strikeback03 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Why the IDE drive?austin133788 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
There are only 3 internal SATA connectors and 1 ESATA. I had already used the SATA connectors for the 2 SSDs and 1 HD.nubie - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Try a neater case for the same money, the GT3http://sportcompactpc.com/index.php?Itemid=17">http://sportcompactpc.com/index.php?Itemid=17
It comes with a power supply as well, although I think you have to use a laptop-style optical drive.
Bring on some more.
In fact, I thought this might be a mini-itx build, but I can keep hoping. I want to see a straight gaming cube as small as possible, with intelligent design.
You could cram a Core i5 and an ATI 5xxx in a Shuttle K45 (and yes there are power supplies that will power it safely, and the K45 comes with a place for a laptop optical drive) Just waiting on the motherboard I suppose, I hope they show up soon.
coachingjoy - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Have been using SFF boxes for awhile now, Shuttles mostly. Let us know how it turns out for OC'ing and everyday usage. SFF's are habit forming, be careful.LBID - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
In my experience with video cards, "quiet" and "XFX" are not two words that belong on the same page, let alone the same sentence. I'd suggest looking at the Sapphire Vapor-X line if you want really quiet Radeon cards.fishbits - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
This is honestly amazing. You spent $2100 on a PC with a 64-bit OS and only walked away with 4GB RAM? And only a dual-core processor?The real kick in the pants is its being billed as a "gaming rig." Why? Because this invalidates a lot of the assumptions going into the project. The tower is billed as small enough to take to a LAN party. I've owned some big towers, but not one too big to put in a car and carry, barring physical disability. It has low idle power--- for a gaming rig with a top-notch GPU. Like a Ferrari with a low-power glove compartment light. And whisper quiet--- for a gaming rig. If you're not allowed to operate a computer in your house that is louder than a whisper, buy headphones. Otherwise use speakers. In either case, a gaming rig is, by definition, going to make plenty of noise. From the games.
You could have gotten a better gaming rig for $1000 less, and hot-glued $100 bills to the case. You could have gotten better gaming rig AND a great laptop for the same price, if low sound levels and power consumption when not gaming were the priorities. It's almost as if the rationale was to bring a horribly bad build idea to life, or just to show that the builder can spend a lot of money. Heaven help Alienware for the thrashing they'd receive for offering up this level of performance at that price.
erple2 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Wow. I'd say chill out, but ... wow.The choices made made perfect sense once you accepted the premise of the build:
1. Small and easily portable
2. Efficient at idle
3. Quiet
4. Gaming centric
None of your suggestions even qualify number 1, which was the most important qualification for this build. It's easily portable (not just "portable", as your suggestion is - though to be fair, even a Refrigerator is portable if you have a dolly). Your Ferrari analogy doesn't make any sense to me. This computer is supposed to be a small computer that is gaming focused. How does that compare to the efficiency of one minor component of that Ferrari?
Low Noise is a good thing in any build, with or without speakers. I appreciate a quiet case when I'm gaming, or just plain listening to music with that computer. And no, the rig itself is not supposed to make noise. That adds to background that I don't want to hear.
The choice of SSD was, as Loyd pointed out, a bit of an extravagance. In fact, he even suggested where you could reasonably trim down the cost a bit with some substitutions. However, each of those reduces the performance of the overall system, and sacrifices one of the key component of this build. I think Loyd made reasonable (other than the drive) choices for a very good gaming rig.
Finally - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
AnandTech will rather spend $2100 on a ridiculous Intel machine than on an equal-performing AMD one, because this is what AnandTech does...ctbaars - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I agree with Morphologia. Don't stop writing a wide variaty of articles. I love your ssd pick. Big lol. and I'm dying to know how it turns out ...morphologia - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
This is a hobby-build article by an author who tends to write such things...seriously, if so many of you don't like this type of article why did any of you read it????I found it interesting, maybe because I didn't go in thinking it was a hard-hitting blood-and-guts in-depth review/critique. It's just a by-the-way fascinating autobiographical thing and that's all it needs to be. And the response from the peanut gallery? Mostly a bunch of Simpson's Comic-Book Guy types whining "Worst...build...ever."
Not to mention all the "you are clueless because what I would've done instead is..." garbage sprinkled in there. So? Start your own blog.
Sorry...just sick of all the hubris and bravo-sierra from people who could better express their disdain by simply reading something else next time.
strikeback03 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
If the author had given a coherent explanation of some of the component decisions, I would agree with you more, but some of the choices seem to directly contradict the explanations given. Why the i5-661 instead of the i5-660, which would seem to better meet his goal of low-power/little heat while not losing anything since he isn't using the IGP anyway? Why use a Colossus when a 2.5" drive would likely provide more storage for less money and also take up less space, helping with the problems regarding breaking a connector he mentioned. In some ways this build seems to be less about a well-thought-out combination of components and more about just buying the most expensive item available in each category.yacoub - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Core i5-750: $149 at MicroCenter (up until about three weeks ago)EVGA P55 Micro E652: $130 (on sale at Amazon.com three weeks ago)
Antec MiniP180: $79 (on sale at Amazon.com three weeks ago)
Radeon HD5770: $169
HardDrives: 40GB Intel V-series G2 SSD: $120; WD 1TB Caviar Green: $89
RAM: 4GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz DDR3: $93
PSU: Whatever you want for $130 or less. I'd get a Corsair HX650.
Optical drive: I just go with DVD/CD, don't care about BluRay, so we'll just keep your BluRay drive ($110).
OS: I run Win7x64 Pro, which was $99 pre-ordered. We can keep your $105 lesser edition though, whatever.
Total: $1174.
In my build, I got 8GB of RAM, but my OS was a little cheaper, and my optical drive was a LOT cheaper. I spent $994 (including tax) and I have a $10 rebate on my Corsair PSU that I mailed out, so should get $10 back on that eventually.
And this thing is ridiculously power efficient compared to the Core2Duo/8800GT rig I was running previously.
Between the Core i5 & P55 C-state/speedstep/whatever power saving technology and the HD5770's power saving technology, this system is amazingly more efficient.
And working with the MiniP180 was probably a lot less of a hassle when it comes to the build and installation. Oh and I used an extra Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro I had laying around for my CPU hsf, which was probably easier to install than that Scythe.
spunlex - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I find it very strange that the i5-661 was chosen over the i5-660 considering the goals of this build. Why do you want an igp dumping more heat if your not going to use it?Paulman - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I think I have a couple improved suggestions for how to spec this system out on a budget:1) Instead of a $800 SSD drive, you can just go with a ~$200 64GB SSD drive like the OCZ Agility and pop in a $50-60 500-640GB 72000 RPM drive for storage. You will not lose much general usage performance.
2) Keep the Radeon HD 5850. You can save about $80+ dollars by going with a Core i3 530 instead of the i5 661, and again, you won't lose much performance at all. Maybe 10-20%? You WILL lose about 50% performance in games, I would guess, if you went with the 5770 instead of the 5850, though.
juliusdavies - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
+1 to Alphacheez's comment.The Core i5-660 is rated at 73W TDP compared to the i5-661's 87W.
I would really like to see the following comparisons:
Discrete Graphics: i5-660 vs. i5-661
Integrated Graphics: i5-660 vs. i5-661
Otherwise keep everything else the same!
I think such a series of comparisons would be fascinating.
jtroutma - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I actually did something very similar to this build for my system a few months back. My goals were a bit different however; i7 920 system, overclock it, and watercool it. I documented a lot of the details here: http://tinyurl.com/ya4pgfq">http://tinyurl.com/ya4pgfqWould love to chat with the author of the article however and share details on how he got around some more of the challenging details involved with his build (same case just an earlier version)
Cheers!
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I don't know why, but I'm always surprised when a "SFF" build turns out to be a MATX board and not MITX. OEMs like Dell and HP have been pumping out nothing but MATX machines for years, and I haven't had to fix a full size ATX at work since... 2007?MATX isn't SFF in consumer circles, it's standard. I'm glad to see it's finally gaining ground in the enthusiast market.
strikeback03 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I don't really see the point of mITX if you are fitting a card the size of the 5850. If this were a small box using the integrated graphics of Clarkdale then it would make much more sense.stromgald30 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Isn't there a price premium for going to mITX? I know mATX tends to be cheaper overall (system-wise) when compared to ATX, but my feeling has been that mITX is generally more expensive, despite being smaller/less capable for expansion.Of course with the recent increase in mITX over the past few years, my gut could be wrong.
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
It used to be. Two years ago the only decent MITX boards with x16 slots where $300-$400 monsters from companies that specialized in embeded and industrial computers.Recently, Zotac had a very popular LGA775 board(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8..., and MSI has released a LGA1156 board(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8.... Both for about $140.
ComputerGuy2006 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I think this would of been a perfect opportunity to have: 500GB HDD vs 80GB intel SDD vs this 800$ SDD benchmarks.loydcase - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Thanks for all the comments. This article is really about experimentation, so some of the ideas are interesting, and I'll likely revisit this build with some of those ideas. (Dunno who suggested I was a "novice builder," though. That made me smile.)At any rate, what I didn't want this to be was a traditional "build a system, benchmark it, forget about it" article. I'm going to return in a few weeks and discuss how well it worked in a practical way, and also see what the budget options I mentioned at the end work.
I'm unconvinced that a Core i5 750 + P55 would meet one of the key goals, though, which was very low idle power. But I'll give that a try, and collect more power usage numbers.
dgingeri - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I suggested the P55 board for 3 reasons:1. cheaper - the P55 boards are cheaper than H55 in every case I looked, as long as they are the same manufacturer. (There is an ECS H55 board that is cheaper than the Asus P55 mATX board, but I wouldn't want to try it.)
2. useless connectors - The H55 board you used would have useless DVI and VGA ports. (I didn't even see if it had HDMI.) This is a problem for me in any case. I hate having space taken up for useless ports when I need more USB ports. The MSI P55 mATX board I looked at had 10 USB ports for $99. This leads to reason 3.
3. need more USB ports - H55 boards had 4 or 6 USB ports. Why limit things so much when the chipset supports 14? Because of reason 2.
I never even looked into if the P55 used less power than the H55. I would suppose it would. That would actually make sense. The P55 boards, if designed correctly, shouldn't even power up the graphics core. There wouldn't be any need. That alone should save power, but I suppose that would depend on if Intel put that capability in the chip in the first place.
strikeback03 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Of course the other reason to leave USB ports as headers is so you can attach other things over them. I have already used all three USB headers on my HTPC board and haven't even put a card reader in there yet.GeorgeH - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
An i5 750 having lower power consumption didn't make much sense to me either but that's what Anand found when using the ASUS H57 board:http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
Maybe their H55 board is better, though - looking forward to the update.
stromgald30 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I suggested it. I'm not trying to discourage you from writing articles, so maybe I should make my criticism more constructive.I'm not saying you're not experienced at working on the insides of computers. More so, your component choices over the past few articles and how they aren't economical. I know you had a big budget, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful to build something that will maximize performance.
From previous reviews and test data by anandtech and other websites, I would've cut back on the 500W since it is overkill for any single GPU setup. I would've saved some money on that and the SSD hard drive (you really only need a small SSD for the OS, and a normal one for storage), and bumped the graphics card up to a 5870. That would've squeezed more performance out of your budget.
I'm also not sold on that an P55 motherboard would idle higher than an H55 one. The previous tests seem to suggest otherwise, but there's no direct comparison. Maybe this could be included in your follow-up article?
I didn't mind the last article as much since it brought up some good points that all system buildes need to keep in mind, and it was a nice change of pace from the normal benchmark articles on anandtech.
For this article, it was just a story of your experiences/build, and that isn't what I think most people (including myself) are interested in on this website. We want some methodical, scientific comparisons, whether it's real world usage or the typical synthetic benchmarks isn't important (in fact, I prefer the former), but there should be some point you're trying to convey in an article other than your build experience.
I think this article (at least so far, I know you have a follow-on) suffers from not being well defined for your audience. If it's a build guide for novices, I'd expect more details about potential pitfalls. If it's targeted toward experienced builders, I'd expect more of a methodical comparison with other components you didn't choose for your build.
UNCjigga - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I'd be interested in building a similar rig for under $1k (eliminating the SSD most likely.) I think the problem we're trying to solve for here is creating an HTPC rig capable of gaming at HD resolutions. To be more specific, a relatively quiet SFF rig capable of 30-60fps 1080p gaming.The 5770 GPU almost fits the bill for this (would prefer 5850 but load power is too high?)--and if it could be paired with a Mobile Core i7 on a Mini-ITX mobo I'd be giddy.
dgingeri - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
How about this: since you're not using the integrated graphics, you don't need the H55 board. Save $35 and get a P55 board. Along with the saving recommendations you list at the end, it would still be a decent system for cheap, and some of it would actually make sense.However, the Core i5 750 for just $25 more would make more sense than anything.
GeorgeH - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Especially since the stated goal was low power consumption and the 750 consumes ~10W or less than the 661 at idle. He could've saved $10 and gotten a faster, more mature, more power efficient, and cheaper platform.jnmfox - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Seems like you dropped a lot to get a SFF build, but like you said the SSD was almost half the cost. I'm sure the SSD really helps with heat and noise, I love my laptop SSD for that reason.I've been looking at building a mini-ITX gaming system using the upcoming Sugo SG07, an i3 CPU, and my 4850 for the GPU. Good to read your experiences with the micro ATX build.
takumsawsherman - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I kind of get it. Vacation is fun. I don't mean the Bahamas. I mean being home with family and being able to enjoy the fruits of your labors and good fortune. You might not want to come back in a full time way, so you don't. I think that sounds like a lot of fun, and look forward to the day where I can do the same.At the same time, hiring a "Loyd" was probably a bad idea. There is no value in his writing or "experiments". I don't want to hurt the guy, it's just that Anandtech has had it's share of mediocre articles. This doesn't meet the standard of mediocre.
Between the fact that there are fewer articles posted than in years past, very few roundups with actual stability and feature testing, Anandtech is getting to be a very boring bookmark to click every day. Someone should be hired who has the time and inclination to get motherboards, memory, video cards, cases, etc., and not just test them and rave about them, but to push back on the vendors to improve them. They should be encouraged to reduce the "inspire a 14 year old" theme that they seem to embrace, and build professional products. Like Tyan used to do. Extended stability testing, checking for bugs regarding QVL memory compatibility (this has been a problem lately) and holding their warranty service to account are all things that Anand has done in the past, and should do again.
Also, Firewire should be implemented at the highest speed available (currently 800) or the motherboard should be thrown in the garbage :) I include this to let others know that I have not forgotten the true cause.
mindless1 - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - link
I'm in total agreement with the second half of what you wrote!As for the first half, the kind of articles you want have to *exist* in order to displace the articles you don't want, and you can opt not to read anything, at any time. Often I know if I want to read a complete article by the end of the first couple paragraphs if the title alone doesn't deter me.
IOW, more articles is better. So long as Loyd gets click-through there's every reason to keep articles that apparently were of interest to some readers. All visitors to AT are not hardware gurus, everyone had to start somewhere too.
blowfish - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Lloyd's component choices seem as extravagant as the recent ones he made for his teenage daughter's pc! Could it be there's a pattern developing?Without overclocking, there would seem to be no point in the 661 - so I hope there is some follow-up meat to go on the bones of this article.
stromgald30 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
As with most novice builders, he buys into a lot of the marketing and doesn't yet have the feel for balancing performance across CPU, GPU, RAM, Mobo, and hard drive so that he's not overspending in any one area.alphacheez - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Well, he's overspent on basically every component just like he said he would in the article. He's basically taken each component and taken it a step (or more) above the sweet spot of performance per dollar.I'd like to see this system compared with a system along the lines of the "budget" component suggestions he makes at the end of the article. How much more are you getting for your money? I have a feeling the expensive system won't be terribly much faster but it might enable a better experience by allowing gaming at a higher resolution and more eye candy, less slowdown when a mechanical hard drive may choke on random reads/writes, etc.
The i5-661 does seem to be an odd choice to pair with a discrete graphics card since the main benefit of the 661 over the 660 is a higher-clocked integrated GPU which would presumably also increase heat output, power consumption and noise; all things Lloyd is trying to avoid. Is there some ability to switch from the discrete GPU to the integrated CPU that might allow for some power savings when not performing demanding 3D workloads? I know there had been talk of systems along those lines earlier, but I thought those had all been discontinued (or maybe just delayed???).
I look forward to the followup to this article to see how it actually works out. I personally would get a lower performance computer closer to the $/performance optimum and use the money I saved to allow me to upgrade to a new machine (or newer components) sooner.
stromgald30 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I think that may be worth an article. A comparison of real world performance differences between his high end system and a mid-range and budget system with the same case.The article seems well written, but there's no meat to this other than Loyd documenting his experiences. For veteran PC builders/tweakers, this isn't all to interesting, and IMHO belongs more in the forums than as an article.
pjladyfox - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I'm curious as to why you went with the Silverstone SG04B? As you pointed out space is incredibly tight in that enclosure and airflow really is restricted after you put in everything. And that's not even covering the massive cost of the case itself.Just glancing at similar cases I see there are better options:
Antec Mini P180 - $70-$80 via newegg
Thermaltake VF1000BWS Lanbox - $110 via newegg
Thermaltake LANBOX Lite VF6000BWS - $80 via newegg
All of these should have not only given you the size of case you wanted but more room and better airflow.
loydcase - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
The Silverstone SG04 is easily more transportable than the cases you mention. I really wanted to squeeze this a bit. The gating factor was really the size of the graphics card more than anything else, but I wanted small, quiet and low power.mindless1 - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - link
The problem I have with it is it isn't really low power, it's only low idle power. Except when it comes time to pay the power bill idle power isn't a concern to many of us, even in this day and age where it's convenient to feel green.One other comment is I'll bet that CPU heatsink's fan will not last the life of the system, perhaps not half the life of the system. Given the cramped quarters to work in the case I hope there is enough clearance and mounting ability for a better replacement fan down the road, as it would be a real pain to have to pull the whole thing apart to get the heatsink off if it can't take a different fan (or else who wants to replace a bad fan with the same/equivalent thing again).
pjladyfox - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
That makes sense so you basically traded off space/flexability and cooling for portability. Not a trade I would have made but when put into that perspective it does make sense.aguilpa1 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
..., cause we still don't know if it was really worth it or not??aguilpa1 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
also, a couple of weeks ago I bought a 256GB Corsair P256 SSD for $625 from Newegg, 220/200 Read/Write with TRIM for my Alienware laptop, you could have saved a few bucks and some spaceLunyone - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Reminds me of paper launches of products, but without any performance specs. I appreciate the details noted during the installation process, but not to have any performance numbers to see where this lines up with the rest is sorta saddening. :(muro - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
interesting build, I would also like to see benchmarks.I also wanted to do something similar, but went a different route:
* MSI X58M - mATX, Crossfire support (I don't plan to use it) and has 6 RAM slots (got 12GB of RAM)
* i7 920 - higher power use perhaps, but 4cores, 8threads. I paid almost the same price, about 220
* 5870 instead of 5850 - maybe I should have gone with SSD instead, but I have a 30'' screen
* Antec p180 mini - this case is big, big, big. The biggest case I ever had and it's micro ATX only. The "mini" part is a joke.
the whole cost was about 1500 (CHF, which is about 1:1 with USD). I might still upgrade to a SSD, but not for the prices they ask now (funny, it's actually the same price as the 5870, which I didn't mind that much paying for)
Robear - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
A few suggestions if I may....1) Needs benchmarks. ANY benchmarks. This is about as useful as someone bragging on the boards about their new rig with some do's and don'ts about specific hardware. The most interesting thing about this rig was that ~40% of the cost was in the SSD. Was it worth it? How did it perform? What controller does the drive use? Is it on a 6Gb/s interface or are you bottlenecked at the interface? That would be my main concern with the drive.
2) It looks like it was done in word and then exported to HTML ;) Maybe a little cleanup to fit nicely on the site.
3) Did I mention benchmarks? They don't need to be fancy with comparisons to 3290472347845 other similar products. Just give us what it scored.
4) What about overclocking? Temps would be the big question here in the small case.
Anyway the article was lean so I can't come up with anything more than criticism. Sorry :(
teejaded - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I remember reading Loyd Case's articles in CGW when I was in junior high 15 years ago. Maybe then, this would have been acceptable, but IMO Loyd's writing on this site seems like such a joke compared to the amazing technical information we usually get.Unrelated, but in the article where he flattened and reinstalled Vista to fix a slowness problem really annoyed me. He didn't even try to fix it! Seriously, procexp kernrate procmon windbg driver verifier perfmon autoruns maybe... just do something for science sake. Anyone with half a brain can reinstall Windows and we don't need to read about it, especially on a site like this.
loydcase - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
As I noted in the article, I'll be writing a follow-up with benchmarks and usage experiences.I doubt, however, I'll try much in the way of overclocking. I could maybe get a speed grade out of this system, but the constraints of the case means airflow isn't all that robust, and I'm trying to keep noise levels down.
marc1000 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I liked the article because I have interest in SFF building - the pure bench numbers can be seen well spread in a dozen sites, just google it!Loyd, you did not put enough pictures of the case itself, googling it I saw some images and would suggest two things to test if it can help in overclocking:
1. add another intake fan at the front
2. reverse the PSU to suck air out of the CPU area, if possible
as the case is so small, you could need to use some plastic to create a path for the cold air to go to the CPU and GPU.
BTW, nice build!!
Nfarce - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
+1Yeah, no kidding. WTF *is* the point of this?
"Loyd builds a small form factor, high performance, low power gaming system. Is it worth the effort..."
Dunno, you tell me AT - there is nothing to see here currently.
stromgald30 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
+1Seriously, this is just a summary of somebody's build. Isn't there a forum for this somewhere?
Articles on the front page should be evaluating something objectively like the case design or benchmarking some components. These articles lack a control/standard (i.e. it's hard to compare the built system / relevant component with a similar or dissimilar build with the same component).
This seems to do very little to help anybody building a SFF other than to make the obvious subjective comment that "it's cramped" and everything is a tight fit. The additional comments about the push pins and motherboard layout seem better suited for motherboard or HSF specific reviews.
tjaisv - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Agreed.What was the point of this article again? lol
And if somebody had $2000 to spend on a new system i highly doubt they'd be using a core i5 in it anyway.
Griswold - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
For people, such as you, who either buy pre-built machines or ask for a shopping list on the forums, there is nothing (yet) to see there.Why not read the last sentecne of the article again?
Flunk - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
My desktop is a small formfactor high performance system in a similar Silverstone case that I build over 2 years ago, I know several people with similar systems. They're not unusual enough for an article like this, certainly not "experimental".Penti - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
This should be posted as a blog post.therealnickdanger - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
"Why not read the last sentecne of the article again?"Why not just wait a couple weeks and give us a real review when it's over? AT has built a reputation for being thorough and objective - this preview provides neither. How about compiling benchmarks on the system he built compared to the $900 version he suggests building? As it stands, the article offers no compulsive evidence of any kind, ultimately serving no purpose as an Anandtech review... not even a preview, really.
jamesadames12 - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - link
http://www.asdpoolsupply.com/pages.php?pageid=11">http://www.asdpoolsupply.com/pages.php?pageid=11mcbowler - Friday, April 2, 2010 - link
There is no reason for a large case anymore. I built a micro-atx PC, however, not quite as small as the silverstone. I put a 5870 and some cheaper AMD AthlonII X3 in it and the thing handles games like a champ. Would have loved to put the SSD in it but its not needed. Here is the case I used. I think a 5970 will fit too.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Can't wait to see AMD's vision of its Black Fusion PC come to life.
kondor999 - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
I built a similar system, but much more powerful:- Same Case.
- Antec Quattro 1000w ($139 after rebate at Fry's).
- EVGA P55 Micro SLI mobo ($84 after rebate at Newegg).
- Core i5-750 OC to 4.0 Ghz using Corsair H50 water cooler (top 120mm fan used for radiator).
- 2 GTX 480's in SLI (yes, they fit and run cool enough - barely).
- Replaced bottom 120mm fan with a speed-adjustable MFDB one, and attached a Zalman Fan-mate to control speed.
- Used card slot at top of case for an exhaust fan (very helpful, given that heat rises and would otw accumulate at the top of the case).
- Intel G2 SSD 80gb boot drive.
- WD Velociraptor WD6000HLHX 600gb game drive.
If I get more ambitious, I may water-cool the 480's with Danger Den waterblocks and mount a 2-fan rad on the back using a Swiftech radbox-mounted DRIVE heat exchanger/pump/reservoir.
This gives me a complete state-of-the-art system that is actually luggable to LAN parties (or, in my case, to work when I feel like closing my office door and goofing off).
It also happens to blow the doors off the "experimental" system described in the article. Mainly because, in a gaming system, $1000 worth of videocards beats an $850 SSD any day. I spent the money where it really counts.
Yay ;-)
jada59 - Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - link
How can this disk withstand shock up to 1500G? Purchased a 1CLS120G disk 3 months ago. When pulling out the SATA cable, the plastic covering the connector pins broke. Tried to get a new disk on the warranty but did not succeed. Has lost a lot of money on this SSD.