Hi all SFF kaki,
I'm building my SFF by this week hopefully, I'm thinking of following items, please helps to suggest if there's anything better.

1. C2Q6600 (what good heatsink to run, I foresee this proc will be highly utilized at most of the time, a good cooler is must)
2. Asus P5QL-EM or Gigabytes G33M-DS2R or if want to go cheap, any G31 mobo
3. 4GB of RAM
4. 320GB min for HDD (Thinking of Seagate Baraccuda 7200.11)
5. Either Mushkin HP-550 or Cooler Master M520 or cheap Thermaltake RX2 450watts (it must be modular)
6. Graphic card will use built-in
7. MATX Case (XQBOX, Lian-Li, Sugo, which case the best in term of ventilation?)

I at least expect to overclock the Q6600 to 3Ghz with a good cooler, please suggest a good cooler that would fit SFF form. I hope I'll make all the choices right by having comments/suggestions from all sifus around here. Initially I thought of getting a Shuttle XPC so that I would not worry too much about which items as it came as a barebone, but thinking of the upgrade path, guess DIY SFF is a better route to take.

Keep the ideas flow here...!!!...

hi mADmAN,
well, it wouldn't be use a HTPC, it'll be used as a small workstation that run some of my test applications. I'll keep that in mind to get that WD640GB instead. I can't find too many reviews on the Mushkin so I didn't sure how it goes, thanks for sharing the stuffs, how about Cooler Master M520 modular then? Is that good?

do you think its possible to oc the Q6600 (G0 stepping) to 3Ghz just by stock cooler? I'm buying new dunno whether still can find Q6600 G0 stepping or not, see whether I have luck this weekend.

hi kujaboyde/mADmAN
budget wise, I'll try not to spend whenever possible, but if needs to, I'll make sure it's covered.

So the temp list would be as follows:
1. Q6600 (I see that's the best buy among the quad-core, although I'd prefer it to be 45nm)
- at the moment no other candidates yet
2. Asus P5QL-EM (G43 would be good enuf, but just curious, if I slap in a G31 would it be much slower than G43?)
- I'm just wondering if I just want my Q6600 @ 3Ghz, would it be big difference between G31, G33, G43 or even G45?
3. 4GB of RAM (guess I'll just take any branded RAM would do, DDR2 800Mhz)
- Corsair XMS2 6400C4DHX
4. 640GB Western Digital WD6400KS
5. Cooler Master M520 Modular PSU
6. Case still undecide
- still thinking which one is better, heard Sugo01 run hots, Lian-Li from the spec looks quite big, till I see the real case in Lowyat first
7. SATA DVDRW, guess all the drives are same size, so just get one match to the case would do
- A black Pioneer SATA would do

I make a rough estimation, it'll cost me more or less 2.5k and it's still within my limited budget. I'm just wondering whether I should just neglect those expensive mobo, and get 1 Gigabyte/Abit G31 mobo which just came around RM180, but I dunno whether it can achieve a 3Ghz overclock not.

Tough time for me, used to be very active in DIY and Overclocking back in University time, but these days choices are aplenty, dunno which one to go after.

Thanks bro

Hi, since u own 3 of these SFF case, which one seems to be better? V300 is slightly smaller but V350 came with 2x120mm fan in the front.

Hi all SFF kakis,
finally I've set my mind and got myself a SFF, this post is added after the SFF up and running.

I'm fairly happy with the performance...here's what I've got and I built the whole system @ a very good price since I've got some used items from the forumers. Been thinking of getting the Sugo01 but after seeing the actual case, I guess the ventilation would be a problem since the case is jammed pack, and I foresee the CPU would be running with high-utilization most of the times, so ditch the ideas and got myself a Lian-Li instead, but in actual fact, I like the Sugo-01 better.

Q6600 G0 @ 3Ghz
4GB DDRII 800Mhz
Asus P5KPL-CM (G31)
Western Digital 640GB
Pioneer Black DVDRW
Lian-Li V350 Black
Zalman CNPS-8700LED
Gigabytes 550Watts Odin Pro Modular

Just one small issue though, the Lian-Li Power-LED is a 3pin cable while my motherboard only has two pins, how to make the power-led lights up then?

And here's the temperature rating in my room:
Idle 40-42 first 2 cores, 38-39 the subsequent cores
Load 100% 65-67 across all cores

Temperature looks a bit on the high-side, but is that OK for the Quad?

This post has been edited by creed: Sep 28 2008, 11:11 PM

To be honest, I like the Sugo01 better than Lian-Li, I decided on Lian-Li due to the ventilation and one of the reason its cheaper and I can't find Sugo-01 without the transparent windows. Ventilation is important as I foresee my proc would be stressed >50% most of the times.

Hi all SFF kakis,
do you guys know where can I find those good quality small keyboard? These keyboard is the one without the numeric pad and its much shorter and slimmer.

I'm looking for a reasonably good quality one, preferable its wireless keyboard. Now has two PCs on the same table and the two full size keyboard is killing me.

Thanks...