SFF PC

[jollyandy]

I'm planning on buying a new SFF PC. I really like the MSI MEGA 180's feature set. I want to use it as a secondary PC with my older hardware (Athlon 2200+, PC2100 RAM), so the older chipset doesn't bother me. I like the display and the form. But the price kills me! I was hoping somebody could point me in the direction of a comparable SFF case with Socket A and standard DDR RAM. I've been looking all over for a case with an AGP slot that will fit the rest of my needs, and nothing comes up for under $200. I've seen shuttle's offerings, but they don't seem to be as much of a HTPC as I would want. I like the MEGA's large display.

Can anybody help?

 

[Crashman]

I suggest you get a cheap Micro ATX board and case. You can get Micro ATX cases that are around 30% narrower than an SFF case but 2x as tall, or 30% shorter and 2x as wide. In other words, even though the cases are "bigger", some of them take up less space.

What this does for you is open up your choices to a wide variety of inexpensive components. Not to mention better cooling, better standardization of parts, more expansion room, etc.

You can get a Micro ATX tower for example that's around the size of a briefcase (a bit wider), and a decent motherboard, for less than $100 combined.

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