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Shuttle's SS50 reviewed 140

Posted by Hemos from the looking-at-it-under-the-hood dept.
EconolineCrush writes "What's 200x181x280mm, decked out in brushed aluminum, and supports a Pentium 4 processor with DDR SDRAM? Shuttle's SS50 bare bones system The Tech Report has a review up of the latest aluminum cube from Shuttle, and it's an impressive little beast. Small form factor PCs are becoming more popular, and this is the first platform I've seen with Pentium 4 support, DDR, and decent on board video via SiS' 650 chipset."
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Shuttle's SS50 reviewed More

Shuttle's SS50 reviewed

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  • If this computer... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    was created by Dell, IBM, HP, Compaq, etc.. it would be laughed off of slashdot.
    The form factor is nice, but it is heavily lacking in aesthetics.

    • The aesthetics are perfect. Small rectangular prisms are modular, stackable, and possible to store in odd places. An engineer's aesthetic dream come true!

    • Probably BUT ... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Tensor ( 102132 )
      the price would've been much, much steeper if any of those 4 would've built this.

      This is reatailing at $350 bareboned

      pretty cheap

      • Hmmm. "Bareboned" sounds like a good title for a pr0n film that takes place in a computer store...

        "Oh yes! Gimme access to that CPU slot!"

        "No mister, your multiplier's too big!"

        "Don't worry, baby, I'll tweak your jumper settings before I slide it in..."

        "Don't forget to put on your heatsink! And use a little arctic silver to...make it go in smoother..."

        Bareboned. I like that new word. :-)
    • this [tech-report.com]

      Similar size, but much prettier :)
    • Gadzooks, what an ugly useless little POS.

      A local hack shop is selling units identical to this that are at least slimmer and better looking. I half expected to see two of those monster DB-50 SCSI connectors on the back of these boxes.

  • ... but what i want to see is low power consumption... i know that people will just talk about a laptop but thats kinda what im thinking.. just a laptop without the moniter... maybe you could put on in your car or someting...

  • Upcoming SS40 (AMD based) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gandalf_007 ( 116109 ) on Friday April 26, 2002 @02:50AM (#3414430) Homepage
    Shuttle also has plans for a SS40 model [shuttleonline.com], which is very similar to the SS50, except for supporting AMD processors instead of the Pentium 4. It also uses the SiS chipset (745), which is very similar to the 645 Pentium-4 chipset (same GF2MX-level integrated graphics), and is even better than the surprising 735 chipset.
  • The main problem here would be heat buildup: from the article it says a noisy fan is required just for normal operation; with a DVD drive it would just be worse due to poor case ventilation. Not to mention the extra heat from a TV-out capable video card. When I'm watching a DVD I want absolute silence in the quiet scenes...
    • you be mad to use this as a DVD replacement, DVD players are much cheaper!

      it would be more usefull for something like a DivX player (think 6 channel out ;-) and as a MP3/ogg jukebox ...

      to reduce the noise you can also down clock one the cpu, I've seen some stuff on the web where someone has removed the fan from the PSU (apprently one of the noisest fans), and mounted heat sinks on the bits of PSU that get hot ...

      So you could make it 'very quiet' but not slient.
  • What a cute little box. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if I could cook bacon and eggs on it, though. Does it come with a miniature frying pan, too?
  • I know a lot of people would like it if you could just say, store your comp inside of your desk drawer and forget about it. Couple that with a flatscreen monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse, and you have a pretty elite setup. Bonus points if you could mount your CD-ROM and floppy drives on top of your desk, so that they were the only part of the computer you could really see.

  • SV24 Here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Moridineas ( 213502 ) on Friday April 26, 2002 @03:02AM (#3414459) Journal
    I've got an SV24 (with a celeron 1000) that does an excellent job of sitting on a shelf in my closet (dorm room) serving files and running the occasional quake/half-life/etc game. Nice sexy little box, and GREAT for portability.

    If it wasn't quite so loud (get a Centaur CPU, no fan! also, some people have modded the power supply fan) it would make a great little computer for acting as a portable DVD/VCD player.

    One thing it could REALLY use is a handle on the top...would be perfect for carrying.

    Scott
    • Like this [impress.co.jp]
      And yes, it looks like a handle and it's designed to be used as one. It's not only decoration. Harald

      • Re:SV24 Here (Score:3, Interesting)

        by spudnic ( 32107 )
        That would get it the way too much. I have an SV24 also. I ordered an OEM replacement Fender amp handle. You know the ones, two chrome caps with a heavy black rubber handle that slide down when not in use. It fits perfectly on top of this little box and makes carrying it around a pleasure.

        I used my SV24 when I was doing a lot of contracting work for several companies. I stuck a PIII 1Ghz, 512Megs of RAM, a Plextor CD-RW, and a 7200RPM 80Gig drive in it. I have plenty of room to keep all of my utilities, applications, etc on it. I get to a site, plug in, and I have my own little server on the client's network up and running without having to lug a big box around. I have ftp, samba, and http access to all my files, so no matter what the situation I can get what I need.

        Much more versatile, powerful, and more storage space than just about any laptop at a fraction of the price. If you're in my situation and you know there will be monitors and keyboards at the site you're going to, it's the best thing since sliced bread.

        I keep a 5" black and white VGA monitor and a small keyboard in my trunk just in case...

        .
      • When I first looked at that link, I wasn't too impressed. Then I noticed that that box has an AGP slot! Awesome! Someone further down below provides this link to what looks like the same box: http://www.american-media.com/ [american-media.com]
  • Is how useful a powerful, upgradable pc's actually are. Toss a decent video capture board in it, and some software and you got a TiVO. Toss a 802.11b wireless pci nic in and you got yourself a small little file server you can hide in your closet. Use it as a Lan Party computer. A car based mp3/gps system, etc. There is a ton of possibilites when you can shrink down the size of a normal computer into a small attractive case that you don't mind have sitting next to a tv or can stash away under something.
    • I'm so sick of hearing this - adding a video capture card and 'some software' will not give you a Tivo.

      First of all, there is no software out there that gives Tivo any real competition. Yes, I've seen ShowShifter and the others, but honestly they don't compare. Their attempts at emulating Tivo's Wishlist and Trick Play functionality are lame at best.

      The CPU power / memory required to do a relatively good quality software MPEG2 encode from analog source is quite high - and a dedicated high quality MPEG2 encoder like the standalone Tivo uses is rather expensive.

      And when we start talking about the DirecTivo combo boxes, with dual tuners (record 2 shows AND watch a 3rd pre-recorded show), and lossless (direct satellite stream) recording, the comparison is even less appropriate.

      Tivo (and ReplayTV, I guess - haven't played with one) are the only devices out there that provide this type of functionality, seamlessly. PC solutions just don't cut it.

  • Page 1 of 8 (Score:2, Informative)

    by CmdrTaco (editor) ( 564483 )
    Quickest slashdotting of tech-report i've seen so far. I was only able to load the first page, so here's the text:

    Shuttle's SS50 mini-barebones system
    Cube power
    by Scott Wasson [mailto] -- April 25, 2002

    SHUTTLE'S FIRST cube computer, the SV24 [tech-report.com], arrived on the scene last fall, and it created a sensation. The SV24's compact form factor, wealth of built-in features, and potential expandability left our minds reeling over the possibilities. Sold as a "mini-barebones system," the SV24 could be outfitted with a processor, storage, and a single PCI card as its owner saw fit. We could build a home DVD player, or a purpose-built PC, a web-surfing terminal, or just a nice computer for grandma. Fully decked out with a 1GHz processor, the SV24 could become a fairly powerful little system.

    Much as we liked the SV24, it wasn't without its faults. The form factor was, if anything, actually a little too small. The inevitable wave of SV24 copycats and competitors, like the Pandora S [tech-report.com], offered more room for expansion and a much-improved vertical PCI slot configuration. And small as it was, the SV24 still sounded like a much bigger computer. The din of the SV24's exhaust fan was enough to lull an overworked tech writer to sleep at the keyboard.

    The SV24's biggest drawback, however, was its outdated Socket 370 platform. See, truth be told, we like the cube-PC-as-second-computer thing, but some of us prefer the option of replacing our massive tower cases altogether. Maxed out, the SV24 could accommodate a 1.13GHz Pentium III processor with a 133MHz front-side bus and PC133 SDRAM. That's a recipe for a brand-new Apple or an outdated PC; we considered it a little pokey. An updated version of the FV24 motherboard added support for faster PIII "Tualatin" processors [tech-report.com]. Yawn.

    We said when the SV24 arrived that Shuttle ought to "sell a bundle of these things." And perhaps they did, because Shuttle is already launching a pair of powerful successors to the SV24. These new cubes address most of our complaints about Shuttle's original cube systems. The system we're reviewing today will support Pentium 4 processors as fast as 2.4GHz, and an Athlon version is reportedly on the way. Depending on your needs, this cube might just--maybe, possibly--be able to replace your desktop system altogether. To that end, we've benchmarked this thing to see what happens. Can a cube fulfill a PC freak's desire for both high style and high performance? We'll find out.

    The new cube
    Shuttle's SS50 is significantly more advanced than the SV24 in a number of ways, but before we get into that, I'm sure you'll want to get a look at the SS50. As you can see below, the new cube is just a little bit larger than its predecessor.


    The Shuttle SV24 is just a shade smaller than the SS50


    The SV24 has only one horizontal PCI slot while the SS50 has two vertical ones

    Obviously, Shuttle hasn't strayed from the original mini-barebones system concept. The SS50 is larger than the SV24, but you'd only notice the extra size when comparing the two systems side by side. The most obvious changes are the number and orientation of the PCI slots: the SS50 packs two vertical PCI slots that rise directly off the motherboard, eliminating the need for a PCI riser card. Shuttle has also equipped the SS50 with an additional IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port up front and a third mini-DIN audio port for six-channel surround sound.

    No, I'm not kidding about the surround sound. It's for real. But I'm just getting started on the specs.

    • Taco violates Tech-Report's copyright, film at 11 (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The editors claim that they can't mirror sites before they get slashdotted because of copyright issues, yet taco can post the full text of the page here? That's baloney. The bottom of the tech report states "All contents copyright © 1999-2002 by The Tech Report, LLC. All rights reserved." yet Taco has just copied the content to make money on his own site (if you think slashdot isn't around to make money then you're a bigger fool than I).

      As usual, the editors treat the readers like mushrooms - keep us in the dark and feed us shit. Way to go, taco.
      • I have no problem with Taco posting the page's contents here. Nobody seriously thinks he was trying to steal our article. I just wish our server hadn't blown up!

        For the record, our server usually handles a Slashdotting pretty well, but this dead-of-night episode caught us off guard. Things when kablooey when our log analyzer cron job kicked off and chewed up all the memory. Doh! And I thought it would be safe to run it in the wee hours of the morning...
      • umm, did you look at the user number/name? that is not the real cmdrTaco, it's an imposter.
      • That wasn't "CommanderTaco" it was "CommanderTaco (editor)" Which is an etirely diffrent person, and in fact, the 564,483rd user to sign up

  • Also... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Binary Tree ( 73189 ) on Friday April 26, 2002 @03:04AM (#3414465)
    More here [viahardware.com].
  • I have an SV24 (the previous model, actually smaller and uses a P3 Coppermine CPU)

    The thing is quite nice looking and incredibly well laid-out. Everything inside it is so tight you have to carefully fold your ribbon cables, but man does it look cool all stuffed in there. No overheating problems BTW, though it is a touch too noisy for an always-on media server. I used the extra PCI slot to throw in another NIC and now it is my very-capable home firewall/DNS/Web server running Gentoo Linux.
    • Just to follow up on what you said about the cables for those who haven't used one of these... This is a very complete package. They ship it with custom IDE and floppy cables made the perfect length for the case. They also throw in extra screws, wire ties, etc. Little things like this just make for a better first impression. More manufacturers should take note.

      .
  • someday slashdot.org will have to stop posting reviews of every new computer like this - i mean, as the article said, small form factor machines ARE becomming more popular!
  • To reduce the harshness of the LEDs, you could probably remove them from the case and use something like a green scouring pad (or the back of most kitchen sponges) to dull out the LED's surfaces and help diffuse the light.

    If the plastic is too hard, or if that's not good enough, put a resistor in the LED circuits. (However, I don't know crap about electronics and could probably get something as trivial as that wrong, so if I am wrong, please correct me.)

  • The point of these boxes is to be small, and unobtrusive as possible, correct? (See Apple G4 Cube) P4 + DDR SDRAM? I guess all of us could use a few more degrees in our computer room saunas. The preceeding comment was brought to you by Captain Morgan. Yes, you and the Captain CAN make it happen!

  • Cube??? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jester998 ( 156179 ) on Friday April 26, 2002 @03:12AM (#3414485) Homepage
    "200x181x280mm" ... "the latest aluminum cube from Shuttle"

    As the object is a cube,
    200 = 181 = 280

    Therefore,
    200 = 181
    19 = 0
    and
    280 = 181
    99 = 0

    Therefore,
    99 = 19
    80 = 0

    Cool... I like these new cubes. Next lesson: Using the circumference of a Pepsi can to disprove the theory of relativity.

    - Jester
    • They should call it cuboid. Neatly solving the maths (math?) as well as being a smart marketing move because it sounds a little like android, humanoid etc.
    • Next lesson: Using the circumference of a Pepsi can to disprove the theory of relativity.

      You know, I'd kinda like to see that one!
    • <snip>
      Therefore,
      99 = 19
      80 = 0

      Cool... I like these new cubes. Next lesson: Using the circumference of a Pepsi can to disprove the theory of relativity.

      Which one?

      --
      TimC

      The path to enlightenment_0.16.5-6 is through apt-get
  • Come one Shuttle! What do we have to do to get an AGP port in one of these things!?
  • with pics too ..
    ViaHardware [viahardware.com]
  • Dude! you're getting a SS50!

  • I would rather get one of these.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by minidoug ( 576237 ) on Friday April 26, 2002 @03:25AM (#3414506)
    http://www.american-media.com/ the gBox P4 comes with an AGP port.. then I can really use it as my lan party box
    • lacks in firewire (not a big deal to me). I wonder if it will take a full size card is all. But, ya, this is a nice box.

      Wierd, it mentioned firewire ports in another seciton of the site. maybe that's the old gbox...

  • Slashdot mafia (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kasmiur ( 464127 ) on Friday April 26, 2002 @03:26AM (#3414508)
    Slashdot :So unless you pay mr Neal the amount we agreed upon bad things may happen.

    Techsite : What ya gonna do tony. You can't do business like this.

    Slashdot Tony: Lets just say your site will pay oh yes they will pay.

    Techsite : You will never get the money from us.

    Mr Neal : Tony unleash the hounds upon the site. Make a example of them.

    Hounds : oo tech review lets check out the website.

    Techsite webserver : AAAAAHHHH!!!!!!*puff of smoke*
  • The more and more I read about these barebones/minicases the more I think that could make a tiny entertainment box in the living room. Especially after a few case mods, like clear casing and/or neon lights.

    You could have MAME and other emulators running on it, and just connect up some Playstation controllers via a USB adaptor. Then it could double as a DVD/video/music system via an infrared remote control, cordless keyboard and/or mouse. It wouldn't be that expensive either as looking at the specs [ocworkbench.com] it looks most above are already taken care of. The only concern would be the noise generated but I don't know enough on that to comment. Maybe you could downclock the machine and use a smaller fan.

    Anyone know the availability of these in Australia? I couldn't find anywhere via google that sold them locally.

  • what? can't hear you over the roar of my ss50 :P (Score:4, Informative)

    by pangloss ( 25315 ) on Friday April 26, 2002 @03:42AM (#3414535) Journal
    One person measured the SS50 at 56dba:
    Viahardware Small Form Factor & Quiet PCs Forum [pcstats.com]

    And a number of ppl on that forum have complained about the noise--the SV24 was loud, but the SS50 is even louder :P

    Apparently the excessive noise is die in large part to the crappy PSU fan, but

    And incidentally, for the crowd that thinks undervolting the fan or using a low rpm fan is the solution, note that at 26'c ambient, the CPU already measures >50'c (more figures on page three of the above link).
  • anything with a SiS chipset again after the bloody time I had getting my last one to play nice with Linux :-(

  • Great little routers (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    These make great little routers... We are rolling them out to approx. 10 stores at the company I work for... yes, they're WAY more than we need for a router, but the "IT" person in corporate that I had to fight tooth and nail with to go with a Linux solution was only won over by way of the "that's neato" factor than by factual and financial information (I was competing against the vomit-inducingly overpriced watchguard fireboxes... nice product and all, but pay a per-user fee and negate the possibility of running other services or protocols, ever? fuck that.)

  • Dear /. ... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Chuqmystr ( 126045 )
    Hey guys, I don't intend this as flame-fodder and I know it's been said many times in many ways and I still must ask. When will you see fit to have the common courtesy to start temporarily caching these stories from obviously underpowered sites? The ol' /. effect is becomming, IMHO, more of an annoyance than a phenominon. Please don't get me wrong, what you do is a great service but I think you have a responsibility to attend to this matter. What about the non-Slashdot readers who are just trying to get to these artices by other means and have no idea of ferreting out google caches and such? That's my Dollars American .02 worth. Thanks much for the freebee place on the web to spew my opinion

    -DrMPF

    <Leslie Neilsen mode=on >
    Sit on my lap Timmy! Oh, it's ok, I'm not a priest!
    </leslie Neilsen>

    • would it be legal? sounds like an unauthorised copy to me where the banner owner don't get any hits. I imagine that caching pages would cause more problems than it solves

      dave
    • Major copyright issues.

      It might be legal for Slashdot to set up a caching proxy server, (like ISPs do), but can you really see that?

      Hmm, that might just be a subscriber feature. . .
    • /. has posted the content of a site, when it was just text. The owner of the content bitched and /. had to take it down from the article. I'm too lazy to look it up but I know it happened this year. Any way as others have said it causes more trouble than it solves.
    • The gumballs at /. either need to sign up with Akamai or hack something up to cache links. The /. effect is not going to go away, it is going to get worse as more and more geeks use and abuse this source of gooberupment disinformation.
  • off that box. It crashed and burned under the mighty slashdot.
  • I bought one of the Shuttle SV24s this winter after reading several reviews of the machine. I've never had a machine that was so unstable running Linux. Played with win98 on it just for kicks and it ran fine. Tried several different flavors of Linux on it and each one had problems with X randomly crashing, sound was hit and miss and the overall performance was disappointing. It may make a good little file server but it was lousey as a desktop. Unless they've done something radically different with these newer boards I wouldn't touch it with Linux.

    Calling the fans loud would be a gross understatement. Replace them all with some ADDA fans and at least that problem goes away.

    • Re:Not with Linux (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Peyna ( 14792 ) on Friday April 26, 2002 @08:00AM (#3414951) Homepage
      I've got the latest Skipjack beta running on my SS50 just fine. Only problem initially was with the video, but I found a helpful person on the XFree86 mailing lists that makes drivers for the SiS chipsets and now for the most part, everything works great. (If I had more time to test the drivers, it would probably work even better, but I hardly get the chance to install his daily releases of them as it is). If you have one of these and want to know where to get the video drivers for X, send me an e-mail. I don't dare post a link to his website for fear of killing it.

      The fans on the SS50 are not very loud at all. Even when they speed up they are fairly quiet, not much worse than my other PC. I suppose if it wasn't sitting next to my monitor and under my desk, I'd probably hear it even less =]
    • I've been running Linux on my SV24 for quite awhile now with absolutely no problems. I'd monitor the temperature of the box as well as make sure that the RAM you are using is perfect. Linux uses RAM much more aggresively than Windows. This is a fairly common problem I hear from people with less than perfect memory.

      Just an idea...

      .
    • Linux works GREAT on the SV24 for me... I've got one with a Celeron 850 running Mandrake 8.2, serving as a web server, Squid proxy, etc. I also use it as my Linux desktop via VNC.

      It also has a Crystalfontz LCD and LCDProc running, so it's a lot like those web "cubes" that Cobalt used (?) to make:
      http://karlo.org/archives/000247.php

      Right now it's been up for 9 days, but it hasn't crashed once. Installed fine from the CDs on the first try, no weird settings or anything, no extra drivers.

      There is a lot of traffic about the SV24/25 and SS50/40 on the Viahardware.com Small Form Factor Forum... so far, nobody's had problems using them with Linux.

      And yes, they /are/ loud... even my SV24 is loud after switching the case fan and down-volting the PSU fan. The 1U CPU heatsink that comes with the SV24 is very whiny, and I need to replace it... of course if quiet is important, you can always put in a Via C3 CPU and not have a CPU fan at all!

      Also, everyone wants AGP, bigger CPUs, etc but then complains about the noise... smaller boxes with the same heat-generating components are going to be LOUDER... if you want quiet and small, expect to use a smaller, cooler CPU and vidcard -- and think about a more efficent OS than Windows!
  • Half my kingdom for a mini PC (available in .au) which takes a AMD processor, has built int ethernet, a PCI slot and an AGP slot.
    • If it was a little quieter and had an AGP slot, I'd be all over it. Otherwise, your stuck with a GeForce 2 MX400 PCI version if you want anything like gaming video.
  • People are complaining hard about the noise
    from the power supply fans in some of these
    small form factor PCs. The problem is you are
    stuck with a hard-to-replace small power supply which may be noisy, built into the case.

    Here's an idea, how about remove the power supply from the PC case entirely. Just put a connector on the PC to accept 5V and maybe +/- 12V.
    You don't need 110 VAC
    flowing into the machine, it just needs 5V internally. The +/- 12V don't need much power, and could probably be run from a small DC/DC converter in the case. But the high current 5V supply should come from an external box. It could be a
    big quiet power supply tucked under a desk or something. It seems stupid to keep buying expensive high-end quiet power supplies for a PC.
  • Well, an ss25, actually - for one of my employees who uses mostly word processing and other various office suite things. With a flat screen, a 1 Ghz CPU, and 256 megs of ram, the whole thing came out to less than a grand. Runs great, but the graphics don't quite cut it for 3D tasks.

    More importantly - my employee loves it, mostly for the size. My daughter wants one, too. For most tasks, it's a pretty cool machine.
  • If you want to sell tons of these....

    MAKE ONE WITH AN AGP SLOT AND NO ONBOARD VIDEO.

    Dammit, I want a nice tiny lan-party box... I want a Geforce3 in it. I dont care about any pci slots or the super-crappy integrated video. (integrate audio if you wish, integrate 10/100,firewire,USB,DSP,TCPIP,MSETP,GPs,DVD,MEEP.. whatever... Just please please make one that has an AGP slot and no onboard video....

    and if you want to make one with 1 AGP and 1 Pci so I can install a real soundcard and make it double duty as a lan-party box / portable digital record/mastering system.

    they could do it... I know it..... I want my AGP slot.
    • I agree wholeheartedly. I would buy one in a second if it had a agp slot and 1 or 2 pci
    • If you want to sell tons of these....

      MAKE ONE WITH AN AGP SLOT AND NO ONBOARD VIDEO.
      Hmm. That's a hard sell for a box like this. Most people aren't going to want to shell out for an AGP video card, when it can be effectively included for a lot less money. Plus, you get an extra monitor output if you do go AGP. Triple monitors! :)
  • I just got mine last week with a P4 and 1GB RAM. It runs great. I have the 1.80A P4 OC'd to 2.2 GHz and it's rock stable.

    A couple of observations:
    * With the fan guardian on, the fan is not noisy at all, and only speeds up to the point of being audible during very long compiles, even with it overclocked.
    * I tried a small form factor AMD XP 1700+ (*NOT* the SS40), and it generated much more heat than this does. I am just guessing, but I imagine the SS40 is going to have much worse heat problems than the SS50.

    I hightly recommend the SS50 to anyone looking for a luggable box.
  • I find it strange that neither the /. blurb or the tech-report review had a link to the Shuttle site.

    Here it is:

    http://www.shuttleonline.com/ [shuttleonline.com]

  • If you threw in a 40 gig hdd, a video card with composite out (or use the svid if your tv supports it), 256 megs of memory, and the slowest cpu that works (as long as its over 1 ghz, it should be fine, since we want coolness instead of power), and you'd have a cheap but effective emulation gaming box set to hook up to the tv. Throw Windows 98 on it, install MAME, neoRageX, Nesticle, zSNES, Massage, no$GMB, and whatever else you want, add a few USB joysticks (AxisPad Pro works for all of the above examples, and is very similiar to the playstation controllers with analog sticks), and you have yourself the perfect retro emulation box for less then half a grand. There should be enough room left over for about 30 gigs of music or video too, which, if you sacrifice range of playable games and go with linux (which one day, might actually have the mapper support that nesticle or fwnes includes), you could make yourself a homebuilt tivo with the addition of a TV tuner.

    I'm drooling now.

  • Via Eden for fanless system (Score:3, Informative)

    by uzhappali ( 558505 ) on Friday April 26, 2002 @12:26PM (#3416524)
    Came across this CPU/mobo combo from Via
    Via EdenManufacturer's page [viavpsd.com]

    Good features:
    Fanless operation
    Eq to Pentium 533 (&lt 10db?)
    integrated decent graphics with iDCT compensation for DVD
    ATA-33/66/100 support
    10/100 Mbps Ethernet
    MC 97 Fax/Modem
    TV-Out (S-video)
    1394
    USB 2.0
    AC 97 codec
    Compact package

    Quiet HDTV home entertainment with following add-ons:
    Ultra-quiet DVD drive
    160G HD
    HDTV Card [telemann.com]
    Decent 5.1 sound card
    Roll your own software
    Estimated cost $900

    Connected to a 5.1 receiver w/speakers, this gives you a good sytem which plays all music formats, DVD player, acts as a DVR (for both NTSC and HDTV formats, &gt 40 hrs.), file server, reasonable gaming.

    Gerry
    my $0.02

    Manufacturer's page [viavpsd.com]
    Review1 [viahardware.com]
    Review2 [overclockers.com]
    Review3 [pcpowerzone.co.uk]

  • Anyone running a nVidia nForce Micro ATX mobo yet? I'm thinking of getting an Abit NV7M... just looking for a little aluminum cube like this one that will hold that mobo - and have a big enough power supply to drive an Athlon.

    That way you'd actually have somthing you can game on... I'm currently gaming on a Dell inspiron 8000 w/ geforce 2 go.

    p.s. Way to re-post this ss50 story. You already reviewed it about a week ago. Yay, /. rox0rs.

    -dc
    • These boards are far smaller than MicroATX boards, or even flexATX boards.

      uATX pretty much an ATX board with 3 PCI slots instead of 5. It's only a few inches smaller. With the SS40 units you're talking about something about half that size in are.

      If you want better gaming performance you can use one of the new GF4MX that have a PCI connection.. you'll probably get equivalent performance from a SS50/40 in a box half the size.

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