Limitations of this SFF rig?

Hey OC'ers,

I had posted a little bit about this computer I have acquired in other posts but I figured I would ask about its actual potential/limitation. This is a link to the barebones. It does list the specifics but I'll list them here as well:

Model: CF-EG65
Intel 82865G + ICH65 chipset
800 MHz Front Side Bus support (FSB)
Supports Hyper-Threading technology
Supports Socket 478 Intel Pentium 4 and Celeron processors up to 3.0/3.06 GHz
Supports DDR400/333 DIMMs up to 4 GB
Two (2) UDMA/100 IDE controllers supporting up to four devices
One (1) floppy disk controller
One (1) Intel ICH5 Serial ATA controller
Intel 865G GMCH 2D/3D integrated graphics
Realtek ALC650 6-channel AC'97 integrated audio
Realtek RTL8100BL 10/100 integrated Ethernet controller
TI TSB43AB23 IEEE 1394 integrated FireWire

It currently has:
Pentium 4 2.4ghz
Visiontek x1300 256mb AGP graphics card
1gb (512mb x 2) dual channel pc 32000 200mhz memory
80gb WD Caviar 7200 sata drive


Mostly I'm curious to know where I can take this rig up to as far as these parts. Also if anyone could tell me if this motherboard is a standard size format or if its custom that would be appreciated so I can see if its a possibility to replace it if need be to something more up to date.


*Edit*

I am not looking to do anything higher than 720p. Also IF something was in 1080p, would a computer that couldn't support it downgrade the video quality or just not play it?

Cooling.

I'll wait for an Intel guy to let you know about performance but that layout looks custom to me. Don't know if you could get a replacement board for that unless it came from a similar system. What are the board dimensions and hole placement? The IO panel looks normal so you might get a Mini ITX to fit in but you'd want to do a lot of checking. Is there a model name/# on the board itself?

I can break down the machine a little bit later but searching around the internet, it seems like people have found it to be a proprietary board design sadly.


Also do you think if I upgraded the 80mm to a 120mm and mounted another 120mm to sit next to the GPU, that it would create enough airflow going across the board and cpu?

You'd benefit from a bigger fan for you intake, I don't think you'd have much luck getting another one in by the GFX card and the exhaust looks like it's a max size already. The video question, yes the computer will only out put at 720p if that's all the card is capable of. But if it will do a higher res then some applications will change your resolution to suit it. I just checked your card specs and it supports up to 2560 so you'd have to keep an eye on it. I assume it's the TV that only goes to 720P?

Yeah that is true plus the way that the side panels are designed, i would have to cut out a section for that fan to intake/exhaust. Well my personal tv is 720p but the larger tv in the family room is 1080p. To be honest I'm not one for splitting hairs with quality nor do i usually notice much of a difference. I would be willing to upgrade the components given that the upgrades would prove beneficial. Looking around at agp cards but its been so long that i'm really not sure where to start. I found p4 3.06 ghz chips for $12 shipped and 2gb ram around the $13 mark shipped. I may actually have a 9800 pro laying around somewhere but I will have to look.

For what you're doing that set-up should work fine unless you plan on gaming. HTPC doesn't really need a whole lot of oomph

Alright well thats good to hear, I guess worst case scenario I can test the system out with some real world usage and see if i run into issues anywhere. Thanks for all the input Johan and I will update this thread as I find more out.


*edit*


One thing lastly I would like to get some input on is software to run this machine. Is there a operating system solution thats more in line with a console? I haven't really used XBMC too much but I was wondering if I could boot directly into that software instead of using an OS, booting into that, then running XBMC or something similar. Also if I were to add mame/low end emulator capability to this machine, how much would that change the solution. Thanks in advance!

I know there's XBMCbuntu, essentially Ubuntu running XBMC. I believe it can at least be configured to boot straight into XBMC without having that boot to OS then load XBMC snag.

And I guess it depends on what you consider "low end emulation". Like it should handle SNES/Genesis and maybe even PS1/N64 games fine.

freakdiablo said:

I know there's XBMCbuntu, essentially Ubuntu running XBMC. I believe it can at least be configured to boot straight into XBMC without having that boot to OS then load XBMC snag.

And I guess it depends on what you consider "low end emulation". Like it should handle SNES/Genesis and maybe even PS1/N64 games fine.

Click to expand...

Honestly thats all i'd really need is the nes/gnes/gen era games, mostly because thats where most good games can be found and would be a nice convenience to have that capability as well as movies/shows. Also thanks for the info about that, I will have to check it out

now that is a cute as kittens!!!

SFF is getting more and more difficult to run from