Need a bit of help off you PC experts, havent built a pc for some time and have decided to give the kids mine so want something small for the kitchen so have been looking at the shuttle range with the Athlon models being favourite based on price and interchangability woth my other pc.

cannot work out which out of these two is the better set up, confused by the specs and cant make out why one is better than the other as I have been out of it so long.


http://www.shuttle.com/hq/product/barebone/specification.asp?B_id=17



http://www.shuttle.com/hq/product/barebone/specification.asp?B_id=11

 

Both models have lots of USB and Firewire (IEEE1394) ports, as well as an RJ45 network port. They also both have 6-channel sound and ATA133 hard disk controllers (the fastest speed at the moment apart from the new Serial ATA150 controllers, which have mixed reviews).

The SN41G2 model has on-board graphics based on the GeForce 4 chip, which is a good one. Because of the built-in graphics adapter, it has a monitor and S-video port at the back. The graphics can use up to 128Mb RAM, which is taken from the main system memory.

Gamers or purists would go for the other model. It can support faster processors (running at 400MHz front side bus instead of 333MHz) and it does not have on-board graphics. This has the disadvantage that you have to fit your own graphics card but this then gives you the benefit of having system RAM dedicated to the system rather than being shared with the graphics card. And separate graphics cards are normally better for graphics-intensive stuff.

Bundling computer components together (e.g. on-board graphics chips, on-board sound chips, etc) is just like doing the same thing in a stereo. Tiny little micro hi-fi systems are good at their job - they play music and don't take up much space. But you'd never set up a home cinema system in your lounge with a crappy little micro hi-fi. You'd want the full size separated components to give you more power and quality. If I was buying a stereo for my kitchen though, I'd go for the crappy little micro hi-fi that had everything bundled together in a neat little package

Hope that helps

 

Pretty much as above. The 45G is newer and supports the 400Mhz Athlons, so maybe a little more life span in it.

Onboard graphics aren't good for games. The GeForce2 core in the 41G2 is better than Intel onboard video but a Radeon 9600 will beat it everytime. If games are one use, than an AGP card is the way to go IMO.

 

Totally disagree with the statement about comparing it to an all in one hifi and seperates.

The shuttles have amazingly good quality cases, the motherbaords are also top quality. The power supplies are amazing, how many so called 200watt suppleis do you know that can run a full setup (3 gig processor, gig of ram, Radeon 9800xt, SB Audigy and more) with no bother. A lot of poor quality 400w supplies struggle, but the quality of the shuttle ones is immense, and they are bringin out a 250w one soon

If you really need more than 1 pci slot then yes a bigger system will do, same for overclocking.

But if you want a fast stock system then there is pretty much no differnce than having any other system.

Check out the benchmarks form some sites that have tested them against normal tower systems, they are the same if not better, and personally they look a hell of a lot better than most cases out there

 

Cheers for that, did eventually twig to the graphics thing, I assumed that N force 2 included graphics whatever and it doesnt. Will go for the integrated one as its only for web browsing in the kitchen, the other one can do the games as well as the X box and PS2.

Many thanks for the info !

 

Yeah, sorry about the comparison to a hi-fi - was a bit out of place. I've never had anything to do with these little micro PC things and I'm sure they are very good. All I was trying to say was that, if you want to go down the high-power graphics route, then the model without the on-board graphics will give you more flexibility to build your system with exactly what you want to fit.

I always got marked down in English lessons for not writing enough but get me on a message board and I start rambling .... and, eventually, talking nonsense.