Your first SFF build

jmehmn

Chassis Packer
Original poster
Apr 9, 2020
19
8
By the time I had my Shuttle I was used to writing exams. I started off training the CompTIA A+ and Network +, then I got my first MCSE qualification on Windows NT 4.0. After that because I needed to train the courses, I was almost continuously writing exams to update to Windows 2000 MCSE, then 2003, and so on.

I think it gets easier when you're doing it like that, and to be honest, a lot of stuff that I was teaching 20 years ago for the Windows NT4.0 MCSE is still the same today. So, it's not like you're trying to learn everything from scratch each time, just what's new, or what's being deprecated.

Now with this whole Coronavirus thing it looks like I might be getting back into the training scene (which I haven't done full time for over 10 years). There's huge demand for Virtual Online Training now.

Sounds like the perfect excuse to build myself a new massively overspecced SFF PC again to run all the Virtual PCs and Microsoft Teams meetings! ?

Nice!! I ended up falling out of touch with IT work and got more into Web Development and Design.
Although, it is by far the main reason why my passion for pc building is still with me.
I still remember "trying" to help a neighbor out with her Windows ME PC...?
It is also a handy skill when (I worked) in an office.

Also, I think it a perfect time to build hehe ? Time to spend the next few weeks on Pc Part Picker.
 
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akisu

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Jan 15, 2019
111
65
Before Shuttle started to build and sell their bare-bones they released a tiny board called FE22. I saw the board in a article about the Cebit 2001. I bought it directly and built with help of a friend a simple case. I used the computer to watch and record TV.

Specs:
Board: Shuttle FE22 (Socket 370 Flex-ATX)
CPU: Intel Pentium III 733 Mhz
Memory: 512MB PC133
HDD: WD1000JB 100.0GB Ultra/DMA 100
PSU: No-Name ~200 Watt
TV card: TechnoTrend TT Premium C-2300 DVB-S

I found it covered in dust at my dads house and made some photos

When I see these photos now I realize that I made a design mistake in that time. I put some rubber feet below the plate where the PSU is, however it would be way better to have the PSU on the top side as it blows out hot air. At least 20 years heat was not an issue.
 

Tute

Average Stuffer
Sep 16, 2018
83
58
A friend of mine built a system into an Antec microATX case back about fifteen years ago. I liked it so I took it to the next step - rather than go with the overheating crap he built, I got myself a Sugo SG01 and built a microATX system around that. From there I never looked back - went through the SG03, a Lian Li V351, and then finally onto ITX with the Sugo SG05, around 2010.

Since then I moved into the nCase M1 when it was kickstarted, kept that for a good five years and now i'm rocking a Sugo SG13.

I want to go even smaller though, i've started to stockpile parts for a J-Hack Pure XL build in the next couple of months. Just need the case in stock and a half decent 175mm graphics card choice.
 
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Tute

Average Stuffer
Sep 16, 2018
83
58
Gigabyte make the 2060 and 2070 in 170mm variants
Nah, I want moar! Plus I don't know what it's like in the US but in the UK getting hold of *any* 2060 or 2070 is near impossible, stock is close to zero.

It's going to be a case of hedging my bets with a 6700 or 3060 series card.
 

Diamorif

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jun 9, 2020
211
105
Started on PCs at the start of quarantine with a PC built in the back of a 34-inch monitor. Bought way too much hardware (3950x/2080ti) and had no idea what I was doing. In case anyone is curious, a C7G isn't a suitable cooler for a 3950x

 

DrLeroy

Noob Saibot
May 15, 2020
186
117
Started on PCs at the start of quarantine with a PC built in the back of a 34-inch monitor. Bought way too much hardware (3950x/2080ti) and had no idea what I was doing. In case anyone is curious, a C7G isn't a suitable cooler for a 3950x

I disagree, C7G cooled my 3950x in eco mode quite well in a Dan A4. . . not in eco mode is a different story, but if you are using the cpu for its core count and not for the highest clock speeds the c7g was quite adequate, I ran mine for a fair few months with a c7g till my T1 arrived and I put an ek240 AIO on it, even for gaming my fps were not much lower on eco than not as even in evo a single core for gaming was able to boost to 4.2ghz for me with the c7g. maybe the back of the screen was choking the cooler when put back on?

Secondly, that is one hell of an awesome 'all in one' style build though!, were you able to get this VESA mountable? i like a clean desk, and even a minimalistic case like the A4, or my now T1 still add a bit too much clutter than I like to my working desk.
 

DrLeroy

Noob Saibot
May 15, 2020
186
117
Like the OP, my first 'Real' SFF pc was a shuttle X, I drooled over them for years before saving enough pennies to upgrade my custom cut down micro ATX Duron build to one.
I went with the SN95G5 at the time:
http://global.shuttle.com/products/productsDetail?productId=489

the thing was a little beast. the motherboard let go after 4 years though, I think it might be back at my parent's place in their back shed still though ha!
before that, I only had micro ATX builds, as that was about as small as you could go, I did mod some cases to be smaller but moving the PSU over the PCI (not PCI-e lol) slots and lowering the top of the cases down. and post the shuttle X build I went back to micro ATX for a few years with a DFI board, for crossfire dual 4870's then to the Asus rampage gene for crossfire dual 5870's before going ITX when it was more available.
 

Diamorif

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jun 9, 2020
211
105
I disagree, C7G cooled my 3950x in eco mode quite well in a Dan A4. . . not in eco mode is a different story, but if you are using the cpu for its core count and not for the highest clock speeds the c7g was quite adequate, I ran mine for a fair few months with a c7g till my T1 arrived and I put an ek240 AIO on it, even for gaming my fps were not much lower on eco than not as even in evo a single core for gaming was able to boost to 4.2ghz for me with the c7g. maybe the back of the screen was choking the cooler when put back on?

Secondly, that is one hell of an awesome 'all in one' style build though!, were you able to get this VESA mountable? i like a clean desk, and even a minimalistic case like the A4, or my now T1 still add a bit too much clutter than I like to my working desk.
it set my cpu afuego, I ended up just grabbing an axp 100 and that worked perfectly. I had to dremel the back anyway, so it wasn't that big of a deal. airflow was a big issue and in hindsight I could have just done a 3700X with a l9a or something a bit more constrained, but it seemed cool at the time so oops.

The chassis was a Eluktronics barebone kit that they appear to have since discontinued and the refresh rate was pretty bad so I ended up selling it. They appear to have released a 32" inch 144hz version (https://www.eluktronics.com/32-AIO-Barebone). Both chassis come with a VESA mount and I was able to run it as part of a 3 monitor setup without any desktop case.
 
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D

Deleted member 23607

Guest
Started on PCs at the start of quarantine with a PC built in the back of a 34-inch monitor. Bought way too much hardware (3950x/2080ti) and had no idea what I was doing. In case anyone is curious, a C7G isn't a suitable cooler for a 3950x

I swear I've seen that before on PCPP
 

Stevo_

Master of Cramming
Jul 2, 2015
449
304
First one waz a Node 302 that just squeaked under the magic 20L mark. When I got done was disappointed that not only did the case look like a motel mini fridge but it was half empty to boot. That started my progression to under 4L.
 
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Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
1,733
2,806
I have always been interested in SFF PCs. There’s just something awesome about them. Probably because my first computer was a Mac LC which was about as SFF as Macs got in the early 90s. I had hoped in the early 2000s to build a Shuttle unit, but never went through with it because I also became a big fan of SPCR (Silent PC Review). I went from a Lian Li PC-65 to a Antec P180, and then to the monstrous Silverstone FT-02. All in the name of silence. I did eventually build a living room PC in the FT03, but it’s hardly SFF.

Then I saw an ad for this:

AFBA8587-D840-4F91-965A-31CC95BD9C3F.jpeg

I saw it and was just amazed. Here was a tiny PC with a Geforce 460 and Haswell CPU. And it looked awesome. After researching it a bit I figured out it was the SG05. Well, I needed a basic PC for my bedroom so I went ahead and got one. Money was really tight back then, so I built it around a Sandy Bridge Celeron Dual core, and a GeForce 260 I had. It played FF14 well enough at 720P, and I later upgraded it to a quad Core i5 and a Geforce 960. It’s still in use today at my fathers house as a secondary media PC.

It was my first mini-PC, but it was far from my last. I eventually discovered the Ncase M1 at Hard OCP. I missed out on the first run, but managed to get in on the second Kickstarter (or whatever it was). That case sat for 2 years before I finally built it with a 6700K/980ti.

From there I ended up getting a Dan A4-SFX, two Custom Mod 3.23L, CCD MI-6, Node 202, and more. I’ve built rigs for friends in them, and followed the development on this forum. My latest is the Ghost S1 which I plan to use when I upgrade my main rig in a year or so. Ampere and the 8086K drove me back to an ATX case, but it’s only temporary.
 
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lozza_c

Average Stuffer
Aug 26, 2020
59
54
I got tired of the bulk of ATXs many years ago, it was a form factor underutilised for my particular use case. I started using laptops instead - I was at uni, didn't really play games anymore and was moving around a lot. I had no space for a desk at home, and my room in halls had nowhere to route cables so a laptop was the only viable option.

I remember at the time my friends suggesting I look into ITX but I was happy enough with my laptop so didn't really think that more about it. Fast forward to many years later at a new job I had one of the tiniest desktops I'd ever seen, a mini PC mounted on the back of the monitor to save desk space. What a revelation! And not Citrix either, an actual local machine with half decent enough power for officey work.

I was impressed (probably more amazed by the size to power ratio) I decided to get one myself for my home office, and mount it to the back of a monitor. I've had it 4/5 years now and its been great, takes up no footprint on my desk and minimal cabling. As great as it's been, the form factor (I beleive its Nano-ITX?) is a little restrictive, and with this barebones box the only things I could add were RAM and an M.2 drive. Integrated graphics has been fine so far, but I'd like the option to dip into some newer games, and what with COVID I've been thinking (along with many others it seems!) it might be time to upgrade to a do-it-all machine that can handle gaming, working from home, and some more resource-intensive programs for my partner's work.

I haven't built from scratch since I was in school, and while the fundamentals have stayed the same so much has changed as well. Back then AMD was an also-ran, Gigabyte were your last resort and Corsair only made RAM!

I'm excited to get back into this hobby again though, it's been a lot of fun reading up, researching and planning my build. I don't think SFF is as daunting as some make out. Sure there are some compromises, but most people out there likely won't fully utilise everything on the modern ATX platform. One PCI for a GPU and 2 RAM slots are fine for me, and I'll be cannibalising the M.2 drive from my current machine. By the time I need bigger storage, larger M.2 drives will likely have come down in price.

Another point of note, just from lurking for a while, is the spirit of ingenuity in this community. I see passionate creators here who visualise an idea, listen to feedback, create and refine products, then take the risk in bringing them to market. I respect that a lot.
 
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Mangapc

Minimal Tinkerer
New User
Feb 2, 2021
4
0
My first SFF build was a Cooler Master Elite 130, Asus H81I-Plus, Intel 4790K, 16 GB DDR3 Ram, EVGA Nvidia GTX 1070 FTW 3, Samsung 240 GB SSD, and an EVGA 850 power supply.

 
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PixelatedScraps

Caliper Novice
Jan 26, 2021
26
44
I definitely don’t have pics of this cos it was so long ago but my first SFF build - like many others I suspect - was a Shuttle XPC. Ingenious at the time and only really superseded by the Mac Mini in terms of form factor and design, some of the Shuttle machines were groundbreaking.

I built / configured an SN95G5 for a family member some time around 2005 I believe. It was based around the following specs and I absolutely loved the ingenuity of the innards, coming myself from full ATX cases like the Antec Sonata (quiet for the time!) and Lian Li PC-V1000 (a Mac Pro cheese grater clone).

Overall, some great memories with the Shuttle but I’m glad SFF has progressed!

  • Nvidia nForce3 250 Ultra chipset
  • AMD Athlon64 3000+ (I had just upgraded to an FX-55 so this 3000+ was a hand me down)
  • GeForce 66
  • SilentX 240W power supply
 

PixelatedScraps

Caliper Novice
Jan 26, 2021
26
44
I definitely don’t have pics of this cos it was so long ago but my first SFF build - like many others I suspect - was a Shuttle XPC. Ingenious at the time and only really superseded by the Mac Mini in terms of form factor and design, some of the Shuttle machines were groundbreaking.

I built / configured an SN95G5 for a family member some time around 2005 I believe. It was based around the following specs and I absolutely loved the ingenuity of the innards, coming myself from full ATX cases like the Antec Sonata (quiet for the time!) and Lian Li PC-V1000 (a Mac Pro cheese grater clone).

Overall, some great memories with the Shuttle but I’m glad SFF has progressed!

  • Nvidia nForce3 250 Ultra chipset
  • AMD Athlon64 3000+ (I had just upgraded to an FX-55 so this 3000+ was a hand me down)
  • GeForce 66
  • SilentX 240W power supply
I definitely don’t have pics of this cos it was so long ago but my first SFF build - like many others I suspect - was a Shuttle XPC. Ingenious at the time and only really superseded by the Mac Mini in terms of form factor and design, some of the Shuttle machines were groundbreaking.

I built / configured an SN95G5 for a family member some time around 2005 I believe. It was based around the following specs and I absolutely loved the ingenuity of the innards, coming myself from full ATX cases like the Antec Sonata (quiet for the time!) and Lian Li PC-V1000 (a Mac Pro cheese grater clone).

Overall, some great memories with the Shuttle but I’m glad SFF has progressed!

  • Nvidia nForce3 250 Ultra chipset
  • AMD Athlon64 3000+ (I had just upgraded to an FX-55 so this 3000+ was a hand me down)
  • GeForce 66
  • SilentX 240W power supply
Correction: GeForce 6600GT (believe it was a Galaxy card)!