The Holy Grail - Small, Powerful, Quiet SFF Gaming PC

[ghostboarder]

Looks like things are getting interesting lately. Like alot of us, i have been looking to build a small, (relatively) powerful SFF gaming box. With lower power chips (Penryn) coming soon, and gfx card cooling solutions getting better and better, the 'Holy Grail' of computing is getting closer. Now, since i know alot of you guys have probably done a huge amount of aggregate research, i am looking for opinions on what components to get. Here is what i would like:

Core 2 Duo/Quad CPU
Commell/MSI Mini-ITX mobo w/PCI express
The best graphics card (low-pro geforce 8 series?) i can fit in a decently small Mini-ITX case

All other considerations aside, any ideas on how small i could go with a case? Or am i stuck with a Shuttle barebones? I would like to go Nexus Psile and make a sweet side-vent case mod on it, but am i being realistic?

Opinions please!

[Blue_Sky]

There are some interesting MoDT motherboards out there - have you seen this? I've always wondered how much power you could get out of one of those and an 8800GT. Only one 2 GB stick of RAM would definitely be a limiting factor.

I think that you are best off looking at a mATX motherboard and a custom case. If you plan it out well and duct everything, you can build a rather powerful computer into a very small space. If my scanner wasn't broken, I'd show you what I mean.

If you go the desktop component way, you don't have much choice, as power consumption becomes a much larger problem. An E8400 has the best bang for you watt. For the graphics card, I think either a 3870 or 9600GT, depending on which draws less power, is the way to go. With a good mATX motherboard and 2x2 GB of RAM, you're set.

I think CPU and GPU cooling is going to be interesting - a TRUE with two low flow fans or a Ninja copper with one should do it, also with a Accellero S2 or HR-03 variant should do it. I would love to find out whether a bunch of 500 RPM Scythe Kaze fans could cool the whole deal. Two for the CPU, one for the GPU, one intake and one exhaust sounds like it should do it.

As you may see, this has been an interest of mine for a while. If/when I get the money, I'll be sure to post pictures if I go this route.

[ips]

I will give you direct answers. The best configuration you can buy is:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - it has low idle consumption and it is very powerful for the most of common tasks, quad cores consume much more in idle and are better just in some specific tasks with very intensive calculation (not in games).
ATI 3850 - it has low idle consumption and it is powerful enough - look for some with good quiet cooler, not overclocked. In some cards you can modify its BIOS to get an undervolted 2D operation for better consumption in Idle. I personally like Asus but i didn't succeed in undervolting.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R - It is very energy efficient MB at very good price. See the corresponding review in xbitlabs site.
Memory: 2GB of DDR3 if price is not important - they are not faster than DDR2, they are 2x times more expensive, but they are not slower and consume less energy (3W less). Some say that they can be overclocked better - i don't know.
HDD: Western Digital have new Green models with lower consumption in Idle, but for me Seagate 7200.11 500GB is better choice.
PSU: Seasonic S12II-330W - It is powerful enough for this system, it has very high efficiency and it also has very high efficiency in low wattages which is important for your consumption in Idle and it is rare.

My system is:
CPU: E8400
VGA: Asus EAX3850
MB: P5K3 Deluxe (It consumes more power than i wanted)
Memory: DDR3
HDD: Seagate 320GB old generation
PSU: generic inefficient - the one which comes with the Case because my old Zalman didnt have 24 pin ATX connector.
DVD Burner: LG
My power consumption in Idle with Windows XP is 80W or 109W with ADSL and LCD also measured. It can be much lower with better quality PSU and Gigabyte MB but i didn't know all these things when i made my upgrade. I think that 15-20W less are possible without sacrifying anything.
They will come from higher efficiency of PSU (around 10-15W), higher efficiency of HDD - 5W, higher efficiency of voltage regulators of Gigabyte MB 5-10W.

I hope this helps!
Regards

[Blue_Sky]

It looks like you missed the point there ips, ATX is a little different than miniITX.

I have forgotten the link, but there is a company that carries every miniITX board out there and ships to Canada. I'll post it when I remember. I strongly suggest having a look around - some of these boards are clearly better than others. Here is a UK site with a lot of selection.

Both of the cases you mentioned look ok, but still aren't the most efficient use of space and don't look like they were designed with cooling or noise control in mind. Neither looks great for real CPU cooling or fitting a decent PCIe card (much less finding a way to cool it effectively).
It think there are two important questions you have to answer - is money an issue and is mATX too big?

If money isn't an issue, a slot loading super-slim DVD drive and high capacity (500 GB soon) 2.5 in HDDs are a no-brainer.

If mATX is still in the running, fitting everything in will be significantly easier. If you go with a cube design (interior 25 cm a side?), you should be able to fit an ATX PSU, slim DVD drive and HDD among the CPU heatsink and graphics card.

I'm just throwing ideas at you because it doesn't seem to me that your original plans will turn out the way you want them, or that you have thought of what can be done with mainstream parts and a little bit of planning.

[ips]

Yes, I missed that. Now i see. Your priority is space (and also power efficiency because of worse cooling) and mine is just power efficiency for now.

I try to find the right ballance between power, productivity and power efficiency. Off course also very high reliability. I also want all that combined with silence. And if it is possible money. For me this is not possible because i'm first from my friends, but for them will be cheaper because i will know after some expensive experiments where is the right ballance between money, performance and power efficiency.

For cooling in most of the time with standard coolers the temperatures are 33C for MB and CPU and 36C for VGA card and 39C for HDD. I currently have only cheap standard coolers, they are noisy, but my MB controls them very good and they are mostly inaudible except when temperatures rise - i.e. at maximum power draw of my system - around 200W. E8400 is very power efficient and needs nothing special.

For me this research is a hobby - i will not save money from power savings because quality components are much more expensive than standard ones. I'm just very happy when i achieve lower power consumption and there is some bright future in this area.

I know that Laptops consume less, but i don't like them. I have Lenovo T61 but i don't use it very much. Only in WC

For the superslim DVD and high capacity 2.5" HDD, i will say yes - superslim DVD is very cool but is terribly slow and if it is really slim like in my old IBM Thinkpad T41 - very expensive. 2.5" HDDs consume very little energy, but are also terribly slow seekers. Read, Write speeds are nothing to worry about but they are achieved only when copying something. When i work with my laptop these things among with bad contrast of the display make me sick.

If you use only integrated graphics you can make your PC very slim and power efficient. But be prepared for no 3D usability.

Off course your points are very interesting they introduce one more variable - space, which will make the task more complex and interesting.
The variables will be power rating, power efficiency, silence and space.
Please tell me what you've found when you find right components for your desired system.

P.S. Biostar I94GM-I4 motherboard from your link seems very interesting. I like mobile line of CPU-s of Intel they are very good, but it is also interesting how much different are E8xxx series from T series of Intel Core 2 Duo. I think that desktop processors are now catching mobile CPU-s in performance per watt.

P.S.S. Maybe the best possible solution for you is Lenovo T61 with NVIDIA Quadro 320M with additional keyboard monitor and mice. It will be very slim and powerful enough - and its power efficiency will be outstanding.

Regards,
ips