What would be a better build? Shuttle, Q-pack,

M

Mustanguy

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 2, 2007
Messages
120
Just like the title says,dont want to spend anymore then $1000 give or take $100.

What would be the better SFF system to consider between these 2 options? Used for gaming and also burning / editing movies :)

thanks!
 
Shuttle barebones are smaller, but the QPack/Microflies are cheaper since they are just cases and take standard microATX, but it may be the same once you replace the PSU and add a mobo.

With a little modding you can fit some of the more popular cooling solutions inside the QPack, in case you go quad core.
 
If you're looking for a good gaming system with upgradabilty it's going to have to be QPack (or similar µATX system), hands down. This will allow greater flexibility with the PSU choice, as well as motherboard, CPU, video card, cooling solutions, etc.

The Shuttle's are sexy but have very limited upgradability.

If you like the style of the Shuttle you should look into the Silverstone Sugo...
 
For the motherboards for the Q-pack I have the following 2 options:

MOTHERBOARD: (Socket AM2)Asus M2A-VM AMD 690G Chipset DDR2/800 SATA RAID PCI-Express MBoard w/Radeon X1250 Graphic, GbLAN, IEEE1394, USB2.0, & 7.1Audio

or

MOTHERBOARD: (Socket AM2) GigaByte GA-MA69VM-S2 AMD 690V Chipset SATA PCIE 16X w/Video, GbLAN, USB2.0, &7.1Audio

The better mothboard would be the Asus,in my opinion ;) Unless GigaByte is got somethin I didnt' see.

I'm upgrading from a single core 1.8 AMD sempron btw :D
 
Mustanguy said:
For the motherboards for the Q-pack I have the following 2 options:

MOTHERBOARD: (Socket AM2)Asus M2A-VM AMD 690G Chipset DDR2/800 SATA RAID PCI-Express MBoard w/Radeon X1250 Graphic, GbLAN, IEEE1394, USB2.0, & 7.1Audio

or

MOTHERBOARD: (Socket AM2) GigaByte GA-MA69VM-S2 AMD 690V Chipset SATA PCIE 16X w/Video, GbLAN, USB2.0, &7.1Audio

The better mothboard would be the Asus,in my opinion ;) Unless GigaByte is got somethin I didnt' see.

I'm upgrading from a single core 1.8 AMD sempron btw :D
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If you are building around $1,000 new system, why go AMD?????:confused:
 
HaxEJxuK said:
If you are building around $1,000 new system, why go AMD?????:confused:
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I'm going to have to agree. If your budget is $500 +/- then AMD would be a perfect choice. But at about a $1000 intel would be your best bet...especially for video editing and encoding. If you just said gaming then the video card would have been the key ingredient and you could go either way with the cpu choice.
 
Danny Bui said:
Holy shit, good thing you posted that.

Don't go with Cyberpower. They cut corners on a lot of items when building a PC. Basically, they make shitty PCs. Their support also sucks as well.

So let me get this straight, you buy a gaming PC prebuilt or build a PC yourself?
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I've never built one,so I'd rather go with one I could pre-build online. For what it's worth,I had an cyberpower computer that lasted 7-years,only problem I had was,the hard-drive crashed once.
 
Building a system isn't too hard. I did it no probs my first time by following a basic guide. Something like this would fit your needs just fine:

http://www.techspot.com/article/34-core2duo-gaming-under-1000/

although since it was written in January most of the parts will be considerably cheaper, meaning you could probably build the exact same pc for $800 or you could upgrade/ change some of the parts.

Of course if you don't feel comfortable building a rig yourself then there is no reason you shouldn't order one up to suit.
 
Pre-built stuff makes me nervous. Building one isn't hard, in fact it's good to learn that stuff, and it's kind of fun. Just like being able to do routine maintenance on your car.

And please get a Sugo. If you're the type of guy that keeps a computer for 7 years, at least get something that doesn't look flimsy and plasticy. This is going on your desk and you'll see it every day.
 
I used to swear by shuttles back when the SB75G2 was king of the hill.

But nothing can beat a decent matx setup.

consider one of the second gen ultra microflys with the 600W modular PSU. I have that PSU in a microfly its powering my wife's rig and it works fine.

Abit FI90HD
E4300 @ 2700 Silverstone NT03.
8600GT
 
PClark99 said:
Abit FI90HD
E4300 @ 2700 Silverstone NT03.
8600GT
Click to expand...

Umm the FI90HD did have that problem of dying so I wouldn't recommend it.


Anyway with a budget of $1000, here's what I'd build:
Ultra Microfly mATX Case - $60
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 CPU - $189
Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R mATX Motherboard - $135
G.SKILL F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ 2 x 1GB DDR2 800 RAM - $66
XFX PVT88PYDF4 Geforce 8800 GT 512MB PCI-E Video Card - $280
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $85
Samsung SH-203B 20X DVD±R SATA DVD Burner - $32
Corsair HX520 520W PSU - $104
---
Total: $951 Plus tax and shipping
 
Danny Bui said:
Umm the FI90HD did have that problem of dying so I wouldn't recommend it.


Anyway with a budget of $1000, here's what I'd build:
Ultra Microfly mATX Case - $60
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 CPU - $189
Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R mATX Motherboard - $135
G.SKILL F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ 2 x 1GB DDR2 800 RAM - $66
XFX PVT88PYDF4 Geforce 8800 GT 512MB PCI-E Video Card - $280
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $85
Samsung SH-203B 20X DVD±R SATA DVD Burner - $32
Corsair HX520 520W PSU - $104
---
Total: $951 Plus tax and shipping
Click to expand...
That is an outstanding put together! And look at that price, thats a high end pc for under 1000 bucks!
 
Yeah it is. But damn, the 8800GT is sold out now at ZZF. Though tomorrow, other retailers should be selling the 8800GT.
 
There will be better prices tomorrow on newegg for them, 280 was a little high, especially because it was a non oced version, but would still be worth every penny.
 
Danny Bui said:
Umm the FI90HD did have that problem of dying so I wouldn't recommend it.


Anyway with a budget of $1000, here's what I'd build:
Ultra Microfly mATX Case - $60
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 CPU - $189
Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R mATX Motherboard - $135
G.SKILL F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ 2 x 1GB DDR2 800 RAM - $66
XFX PVT88PYDF4 Geforce 8800 GT 512MB PCI-E Video Card - $280
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $85
Samsung SH-203B 20X DVD±R SATA DVD Burner - $32
Corsair HX520 520W PSU - $104
---
Total: $951 Plus tax and shipping
Click to expand...

Sounds and looks like an awsome deal,but I've never built a computer before :)
 
Its really easy, just do what the manuals say if you have no expericence, or have a friend help you. Good luck. dont forget windows.
 
Danny Bui said:
Umm the FI90HD did have that problem of dying so I wouldn't recommend it.


Weird, I have been running 1 since it first came out. And sold an original first week of release board to a friend that is still going strong.

I think alot of people were pushing the board too hard and killing it. Whether they want to admit to it or not. I don't do anything to crazy with it and knock on wood its been solid for me.
Click to expand...
 
I'm not a Shuttle fan because I find them too proprietary in design but they arent a bad unit if it fits your needs. I prefer something more upgradeable like a Sugo, Microfly, Qpack, Tt Lanbox, etc., etc., There are places online that do build these types of SFF units for you.

I was just over at NE and the 8800GT is currently listing for $270 and higher depending on which model/manufacturer you choose. NE has a nasty habit of price gouging on new hot items so shop around. You may find a better deal.

When the F-I90HD works it works very nicely but they have had a higher than normal death rate and this is also true for those that didnt try overclocking them. There are plenty of people that had one die used in just stock form so its not limited to those that were OCing them. Therefore I dont reccomend it. A real shame too because it had many features people desired.

If you want to OC I would suggest the P5K-VM or the DS2R mobos. There are plenty of low cost budget mobos you can choose if you dont want to OC that'll work fine.
 
Skott said:
I'm not a Shuttle fan because I find them too proprietary in design but they arent a bad unit if it fits your needs. I prefer something more upgradeable like a Sugo, Microfly, Qpack, Tt Lanbox, etc., etc., There are places online that do build these types of SFF units for you.

I was just over at NE and the 8800GT is currently listing for $270 and higher depending on which model/manufacturer you choose. NE has a nasty habit of price gouging on new hot items so shop around. You may find a better deal.

When the F-I90HD works it works very nicely but they have had a higher than normal death rate and this is also true for those that didnt try overclocking them. There are plenty of people that had one die used in just stock form so its not limited to those that were OCing them. Therefore I dont reccomend it. A real shame too because it had many features people desired.

If you want to OC I would suggest the P5K-VM or the DS2R mobos. There are plenty of low cost budget mobos you can choose if you dont want to OC that'll work fine.
Click to expand...

You have any links of these places that will build a SFF system? :)
 
Mustanguy said:
You have any links of these places that will build a SFF system? :)
Click to expand...

www.maingear.com
www.avadirect.com

Though I strongly suggest building it yourself. You'll get better parts, learn more about your PC and it's cheaper too. Here are a few articles that show how to build a PC:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/pc_building_guide_faq_part_1
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/pc_building_guide_faq_part_2
http://www.tigerdirect.com/static/html/pcbuildingtips.html
http://www.mechbgon.com/build/index.html
http://corsair.com/systembuild/report.aspx?report_id=12472
 
This would be my recommendation:

Shuttle SP35 P2 Barebone - $426
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 CPU - $189
G.SKILL F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ 2 x 1GB DDR2 800 RAM - $66
XFX PVT88PYDF4 Geforce 8800 GT 512MB PCI-E Video Card - $280
Samsung SH-203B 20X DVD±R SATA DVD Burner - $32
Samsung 320GB SATA 16mb HD - $88
Creative X-Fi Extreme Music - $69

Total $1150

I decided I like small and sexy and my Shuttle's have served me well over the years! My current Shuttle SD32G2 has been my main rig for a long time now and it runs 100% stable and very quiet with an overclocked E4400 @3.0ghz with 4GB ram.
I have been playing the Crysis demo on it lately and it never ceases to amaze me - the amount of power in the smallest possible SFF running an 8800GTX :D
 
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