I have the opportunity to pick up one of these inexpensively to get a windows XP system going. I've got two macs right now maxing out and I need more POWER but she's out of dilithium crystals, Scotty!!
I'm looking at the Shuttle X case with a 2+ GHz CPU in it. it's small with a light blue face plate weighs only 10lbs. It seems to have some features I like, like USB and Firewire ports on the front and back, a small footprint, etc.
Does anyone know how the SPDIF is on this (i.e. does it suck ass or is it passable in a pinch)? How is the quality of it? I plan to just slap an RME PCI card in to use a multiface but just wondering about the built in spdif.
Also on the CPU end, keeping in mind that my budget for this is low, what is the lowest acceptable P4 speed you'd recommend, 2 GHz or above?
Thanks for the feedback !
Shuttle X system / case - anyone own one?
Well
You didn't mention which shuttle case you've got...
I have the XPC SN41G2, the built in audio is actually pretty decent in a pinch. The optical has worked fine for me, the version I have you can get an expansion board that will give you optical in and out.
Noise wise, it isn't terribly loud, not like some 'gaming' systems my friends have that this little case outperforms.
They are nice and light, just find a duffle bag and you can go anywhere with it.
I have the XPC SN41G2, the built in audio is actually pretty decent in a pinch. The optical has worked fine for me, the version I have you can get an expansion board that will give you optical in and out.
Noise wise, it isn't terribly loud, not like some 'gaming' systems my friends have that this little case outperforms.
They are nice and light, just find a duffle bag and you can go anywhere with it.
Thanks for the response. I'm not sure of the Model. It's cube-looking with a light blue faceplate, 10 lbs. The motherboard is P4 with the 400/533 motherboard. I'm thinking of a 2.4 Ghz P4 CPU chip with 512K ram, CDRW etc.
Do you think that will be a kickin' Ableton / VSTi box ? Do you see the only one PCI slot being a drawback? I mean it has lots of firewire ports etc for external drives, I like the size...
Do you think that will be a kickin' Ableton / VSTi box ? Do you see the only one PCI slot being a drawback? I mean it has lots of firewire ports etc for external drives, I like the size...
J.Ho
i have a Shuttle SN41G2 with Athlon 2600+, 512 GB RAM, 60 & 80 GB 7200 HD, and an MAudio Audiophile 2496 in the PCI slot. So far its great. From all the research i did before buying (about 3 months ago), the mainboard on the SN41G2 (an Nvida nforce2 mainboard) is the best of all small form-factor PCs. I have no problem running Live with tons of tracks and FX going. The Shuttle is so well designed it makes me feel like i have a Mac 
i haven't used the onboard audio for music, but i can say that a lot of noise comes ouf of the 1/8 audio jack on the front. My main concern with the small form-factor design is that everything is so close together, i wonder if there might me a lot of electrical noise generated. The output from my Maudio card sounds great though...
All in all, i'm very happy with my SN41G2 so far. I think as far as small PCs go, its the way to go. I picked mine up for $800 at Ajump.com.
i haven't used the onboard audio for music, but i can say that a lot of noise comes ouf of the 1/8 audio jack on the front. My main concern with the small form-factor design is that everything is so close together, i wonder if there might me a lot of electrical noise generated. The output from my Maudio card sounds great though...
All in all, i'm very happy with my SN41G2 so far. I think as far as small PCs go, its the way to go. I picked mine up for $800 at Ajump.com.
Hmmmm
Well personally I think it depends from app to app, but definitely the best price to performance is AMD. However, if you are getting a great deal on the P4 based system than that helps a lot.
For my purchasing prefs though, I tend to go for intel based laptops because the AMD's I've played with tend to be a bit hotter from my experience... as for a desktop though, an AMD in a shuttle case has been working perfectly cool, I've got an AGP and a PCI slot, plus tons of peripheral connections... the system is a beast.
I wouldn't worry too much about only one PCI slot. As you said, you've got plenty of USB and Firewire ports, so it is still very modular.
Still... if cost was no factor, I'd probably try to get one of the high end P4's with Hyperthreading and an 800Mhz bus, but otherwise personally I'd stick to the AMD. It is a solid workhorse.
For my purchasing prefs though, I tend to go for intel based laptops because the AMD's I've played with tend to be a bit hotter from my experience... as for a desktop though, an AMD in a shuttle case has been working perfectly cool, I've got an AGP and a PCI slot, plus tons of peripheral connections... the system is a beast.
I wouldn't worry too much about only one PCI slot. As you said, you've got plenty of USB and Firewire ports, so it is still very modular.
Still... if cost was no factor, I'd probably try to get one of the high end P4's with Hyperthreading and an 800Mhz bus, but otherwise personally I'd stick to the AMD. It is a solid workhorse.
Graphics...
The graphics should be more than fine as long as you are not doing any 3d work/games. Mine runs at 1600x1200 with no problem, although I had to turn the mouse acceleration up a tad so that I could get acrossed the entire screen with one mouse movement.
As for a 2.4 - 3.2, any of those processors should be more than enough to feed ableton live with a ton of tracks and fx.
If the motherboard supports dual channel memory don't forget to buy your memory in a pair and to make sure it is either enabled in bios or autodetected.
Finally... do try and get yourself a 7200 RPM drive, this will make all the difference in allowing you to keep a high track count. Personally I have found the buffer size to be less relevant for ableton live.
As for a 2.4 - 3.2, any of those processors should be more than enough to feed ableton live with a ton of tracks and fx.
If the motherboard supports dual channel memory don't forget to buy your memory in a pair and to make sure it is either enabled in bios or autodetected.
Finally... do try and get yourself a 7200 RPM drive, this will make all the difference in allowing you to keep a high track count. Personally I have found the buffer size to be less relevant for ableton live.