This is a direct follow on to the Nostromo posting I made a while ago. Sadly Nostromo didn't work out - initially it was thought heat was making it unstable. Eventually it turned out to be faulty ram ... but by that stage I was well on the way to re-using the hardware in a different project 
This box started life as another server replacement for Nostromo, but ended up as a gaming rig to which is seems well suited. I've re-used my old gaming system graphics card in this unit with the assistance of a PCIx extension cable.
The system consists of the following basic components:
The entire system is cooled by a 120mm fan mounted in the front of of the box. There are no other moving parts other than a fan on the GFX card.
Enough talk, onto the pictures:
Size comparison between the old gaming rig and the new:
Front View:
Rear:
Side (rear facing):
You can clearly see the Copper CPU cooler in this picture.
Windows 7 showing specs:
I'm currently running Windows 7 through its paces, so far I'm very impressed. It happily picked up all the drivers for this box, the only driver I upgraded was the latest NVIDIA 64 bit.
Proving it can run games:
Wow running at around 20fps (1920x1200) with 70% CPU usage (GPU limited)
Summary:
I've only played with this system for a few hours but so far I'm very impressed. Its extremely quiet (almost silent) and feels very nippy. Power usage is around 60 Watts on the Desktop and up to 90 during gaming.
As a low power and very smart/small gaming system I think its great and having in-built wireless also removes another cable and makes it a nice system to stick in a corner and not have to worry about connectivity.
The more I look into micro and mini systems the more I think they are the future. As USB replaces PCI and the number of slots required for additional peripherals becomes manageable for micro/mini systems. Low power is also a concern given the hours I spend in-front of computers. Finally performance is equivalent to their larger counterparts given similar levels of components. It appears there are few prices to pay for smaller systems. Here hoping someone makes a micro Nehalem board sometime soon.
Finally, its not often you play games on a passively cooled CPU
This box started life as another server replacement for Nostromo, but ended up as a gaming rig to which is seems well suited. I've re-used my old gaming system graphics card in this unit with the assistance of a PCIx extension cable.
The system consists of the following basic components:
- Intel 8300 CPU (dual core 2.40GHz mobile Socket P)
- 4GB (2x2GB Crucial DDR2) RAM
- 1x 1TB Western Digital (Green) drive
- Silverstone SUGO SG05B Mini-ITX Chassis
- MSI GM965 FUZZY Mini-ITX motherboard
- NVIDIA 7900 GTX (256MB) SLi Gfx card
The entire system is cooled by a 120mm fan mounted in the front of of the box. There are no other moving parts other than a fan on the GFX card.
Enough talk, onto the pictures:
Size comparison between the old gaming rig and the new:
Front View:
Rear:
Side (rear facing):
You can clearly see the Copper CPU cooler in this picture.
Windows 7 showing specs:
I'm currently running Windows 7 through its paces, so far I'm very impressed. It happily picked up all the drivers for this box, the only driver I upgraded was the latest NVIDIA 64 bit.
Proving it can run games:
Wow running at around 20fps (1920x1200) with 70% CPU usage (GPU limited)
Summary:
I've only played with this system for a few hours but so far I'm very impressed. Its extremely quiet (almost silent) and feels very nippy. Power usage is around 60 Watts on the Desktop and up to 90 during gaming.
As a low power and very smart/small gaming system I think its great and having in-built wireless also removes another cable and makes it a nice system to stick in a corner and not have to worry about connectivity.
The more I look into micro and mini systems the more I think they are the future. As USB replaces PCI and the number of slots required for additional peripherals becomes manageable for micro/mini systems. Low power is also a concern given the hours I spend in-front of computers. Finally performance is equivalent to their larger counterparts given similar levels of components. It appears there are few prices to pay for smaller systems. Here hoping someone makes a micro Nehalem board sometime soon.
Finally, its not often you play games on a passively cooled CPU
