Shuttle ST20G5 or SN95G5V3 Help ASAP please

Hey I am trying to decide if the Shuttle ST20G5 is a good buy. I can get it here on ebay for $139. I have 2GB or Ram I want to use it to play the Sims 2 and I plan on using it for a portable music studio running Propellarhead's Reasons 3.0. Will this system work for my needs or should I look for a matx board and case. If matx is the way to go I will need a slimline case. I had the antec aria (hated it) I had the qpack from aspire (too big) Please help. I need to purchase soon. here is where I seen the shuttle. Shuttle ST20G5 for Sale

Please note in my signature that is my current rig. As I stated its too big. I am willing to go with just one of my 250GB hard drives as I need portabiltity. Also I have seen another shuttle model SN95G5V3 SN95G5V3

Can anyone help me decide let me know the pros and cons.

From reviews I've read the ST20G5 is okay at best. Hardocp gave it a failing grade but supposidly they had an older bios version.

The SN95G5V3 has NF3 250gb chipset which can do FSB 1600mt/s and the SN95G5V2 has the NF3 Ultra chipset which can do FSB 2000mt/s. However I think the V3 has more offical support for different processors, X2, FX, etc.

I haven't tried the Shuttle ST20G5, that ati chipset wasn't too appealing due to the bios in that current version.

But i have built many of the SN95G5V3, just last week i bought 3 more off shuttle ebay store, since they are refurbished units, they were tested and work awesome (have't had a bad one yet, come with all standard retail accessories.

So the only question is are, Are you going to use a video card or on board video?

The SN95G5V3 doesn't have onboard video, so you have to use a AGP video card.
But the ST20G5 does have onboard, but i do not have experience with this particular model, so i couldn't say if it was good or not. So use the onboard or get a PCI-E card.

The SN95G5V3 does support every s939 proc up to the FX-60, and doesn't have any apparent problems that were in the V1 and V2 models. (I've built 14 so far, 10 of them from ebay shuttle store.

So my recommendation is go with the SN95G5V3 if you got a agp laying around or go with
ST20G5 if you plan on upgrading to a PCI-E card.

Here's a Tip if you never bought anything off the ebay shuttle store:
Make sure you use a "CONFIRMED" paypal shipping address (No P.O. BOX). I didn't use one and they couldn't process my order, i just had to call them directly and talk to them and they processed my order again.

Thanks so much. other than the onboard being bad on te st20g5 are there any major issues with it. I have both a pci express grapics card and an agp adn frankly i dont see any differnce when i use either in either of my current systems. I like the st20g5 becuase it says u can do quad monitors. My main concern is heat buildup. \\

I would love to get the other model that uses the AGP but I was under the impression that AGP was going away and that windows vista would not run properly on an AGP card. Please clarifiy

I'm not sure how well that mobo in the ST20G5 works with vista, there are beta catalyst drivers for it, but i never tried them.

But as far as the SN95G5V3 with vista, i am running it with a nvidia 6600gt agp card in it running vista rc2, no problems, i have 2 machines running vista on it and its runs ok. The driver support for vista for the nvidia chipset, gigalan, and nvidia videocard is good.

Agp will be around for a while and is not going anywhere anytime soon, while it is slowing being phased out by PCI-E, a large and i mean a LARGE percentage of computers are still using agp, hell even a few new agp cards have been released by both ati and nvidia.

I do too like that fact that you can link the onboard video and another ati card to use quad display, but you have to use another pci-e ati card and have 4 monitors on hand. so that feature is more of a novelty.

Both options are good, with only $10 between them and since you got both agp and pci-e cards, i would still go with the SN95G5V3 due to better driver support all around.

I didn't see anyone say onboard on the ST20G5 was *bad*?

I use it pretty regularly, myself, when I'm "between video cards". That the onboard on the ST20G5 has DVI output is rather a nice touch. On top of that, if you *do* happen to put an ATI PCI-E card in it, you can enable the onboard along with it for "SurroundView" - 3 monitor outputs.

That's quite nice. Only downside is that "Cool'n'Quiet" doesn't work right when using the onboard video. Otherwise, you are A-OK.

I'm running an AMD Athlon64 FX-60 in an ST20G5 right now - works great.

I have a ST20G5, I have been pretty happy with it. I used the onboard for several weeks with no problems. It wasn't spectacular, but did manage to play some older games. the inclusion of the DVI port onboard is nice.


To be honest the only problem I have had is trying to get windows vista to load on the ULI southbridge.