• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

SFF for a hardcore gaming/overclocking system?

B

Bona Fide

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 26, 2005
Messages
2,382
Well I really want to try it out, seeing as it would be nice to not have such a huge tower under my desk. Has anyone done this? If so, I'd like a recommendation for a motherboard that can handle up to 300FSB and a decent case as well. For reference, I'll most likely be moving my current system into the SFF, so I'll need an AMD s939. I've looked at the following two boards:

MSI K8NGM2
MSI RS482

From what I understand the only difference [besides the chipset] is that the RS482 has built-in DVI and the K8N has gigabit LAN and SATA2. Also, the K8N supposedly has a bug that only allows the FSB to be raised to 250MHz.

Are there any good overclocking mATX boards? I've decided on the Aspire X-Qpack for my case, and I'll be holding onto my Truepower II since the Aspire PSU is a piece of crap.
 
The K8N is limited to 250MHz on the bus, is it not? That will be quite a hit to my speed. Unless there's a BIOS update that fixes this, of course.
 
The only board that I've seen around 300HTT is the Biostar TForce
 
the k8n also has no vcore adjustments (unless they recently released a bios that fixed that?). the foxconn 6150/430 looks pretty good tho, if you have a 10x multi it should be enough (it goes up to 275 stable consistently), if you only have a 9x multi tho you might want to look at the biostar and hope you get a good one (they're kinda flakey; some people cant get above 240, some get above 300).

or you might look at what shuttle has to offer. a sn25p would be good if you're willing to stretch the budget, but if you want to keep this low cost its probably out of the picture. you could try waiting till march (im assuming you wouldnt really mind waiting since you're not really upgrading just moving to sff) tho when the sn21g5 should launch (shuttle w/ a c51 mobo) at $300. looks a lot better than $400 for a sn25p :p
 
Soymilk said:
the k8n also has no vcore adjustments (unless they recently released a bios that fixed that?). the foxconn 6150/430 looks pretty good tho, if you have a 10x multi it should be enough (it goes up to 275 stable consistently), if you only have a 9x multi tho you might want to look at the biostar and hope you get a good one (they're kinda flakey; some people cant get above 240, some get above 300).

or you might look at what shuttle has to offer. a sn25p would be good if you're willing to stretch the budget, but if you want to keep this low cost its probably out of the picture. you could try waiting till march (im assuming you wouldnt really mind waiting since you're not really upgrading just moving to sff) tho when the sn21g5 should launch (shuttle w/ a c51 mobo) at $300. looks a lot better than $400 for a sn25p :p
Click to expand...

The SN25P has two problems, one major and one minor. For one, it has less of everything. Less PCI slots, less USB ports, less DIMM slots, etc. The other one is that it's really bland-looking. Not to say that I am a fan of garish cases, but this one really pushes the borders of blandness.

After looking at the Biostar Tforce, it looks to be a great board, sans Firewire. I can get over that, considering the only device I have that uses Firewire is the iPod, which also has USB. Thanks for helping guys! I read through the sticky and picked up a Lite-On DVD burner. I've been hearing troubles about extra-long video cards in SFF cases. Examples would be a 7800GTX or my X1800XT. Can anyone confirm these problems?
 
I don't know specifically about a GTX, but a 7800GT fits in a Qpack without too much trouble from what I read. I'm thinking of picking one up myself :).
 
kirbyrj said:
I don't know specifically about a GTX, but a 7800GT fits in a Qpack without too much trouble from what I read. I'm thinking of picking one up myself :).
Click to expand...

yes it does, i have the evga 7800gt, and it fits easily, and i am thinking of using the evga step-up program to get the 512mb gtx in a couple of months
 
I crammed an X1800XL into my ARIA, which is longer than the already too long video cards out there. With the card reader, it has millimeter to spare! :D

Biostar is still the only choice for 300fsb+
 
7800gtx fits so does 850xtpe which is a double slot in the back. I imagine anything will fit in a SN25P so long as it's stockcoolingand somewhat slim and you take out the plastic vent funnel for the cpu draw which doesn't hurt anything imo.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top