Close Encounters of the Small Kind

Living with a Small Form Factor

Once everything is assembled, the internal differences between computer systems tend to disappear. This is not intended as a formal review of either of these systems, so we'll dispense with the benchmarks. For typical use, any modern system is going to be plenty fast. Only stressful applications like games, video editing, or 3D rendering/modeling will really benefit from a change in components. On a regular basis, I use everything from a 1.13 GHz P3 up through an Athlon XP 2500+, Pentium 4 2.8C to 3.4E, and Athlon 64 3000+ to 3800+. Benchmarks will usually tell a story of one being faster than another in a variety of tests, but other than the old P3 system, all of them feel pretty much the same in day-to-day use. (Even the P3 is sufficient for surfing the web and office work, of course, provided that you have a little patience.)

So what do I notice now that I've changed from a decent quality ATX case to a SFF case? For one, the SFF units are both quieter than my ATX case - not by a large margin, particularly when I use my fanbus to turn the RPMs down, but enough that you will notice the lack of noise. My old system actually had a Western Digital WD800JB drive in it, and I had never thought much about the noise that it was making. Moving it to the Shuttle eliminated a lot of the fan noise, and suddenly, the high-pitched whine of the hard drive could be heard clearly in my living room. It was annoying enough that I ended up ghosting the drive over to a Seagate model to eliminate the noise. How I managed to cope with the noise level of my old setup amazes me.

We have several recordings for those who want to compare the noise levels. These recordings were done with a Creative MuVo NX, so they don't have amazing fidelity, but they should give you a decent idea of the noise levels of various setups. First, we have the Antec 3700-BQE with all the fans at minimum RPM, and then, here they are at maximum RPM. I use the maximum RPM setting when overclocking the CPU and graphics card while running 3D games; at stock clock speeds, it is definitely not required. Also worth mentioning is that the CPU has the Zalman CNPS7000A cooler on it, which is regarded as one of the quietest CPU coolers. In contrast, we have the Shuttle and ASUS SFF units, measured at the same distance of 12 inches from the case. Both recordings are of the units powering on, and the process is the same on each. First, the fan spins up to full speed right after booting, and then it slows down to a more typical speed. During all of our testing, the fan RPMs noise never seemed to rise above the default level, so the initial two seconds is the only time that we really hear the fans. For those who are interested, here is the recording of the Shuttle case with my "loud" Western Digital drive - the difference is not as noticeable in the recordings as in person due to the low quality microphone, unfortunately.

Click to enlarge.

Beyond the noise factor, about the only thing noticeable is that my large case is no longer sitting on top of my desk. Instead, there is a smaller, sleeker-looking case sitting in its place. My cases, incidentally, are all sitting on top of desks. Anyone who has experienced the joys of a toddler can guess why - no sooner did my daughter start crawling and walking when the power buttons on my computers started calling her name. Many of you probably don't have that concern, but if you have to put a case up on top of a desk for whatever reason, SFFs are very nice to have. It has been a while since I lived in a cramped college dorm room, but if memory serves me correctly, that would also be an ideal situation to have a smaller case - especially when paired with a 17" LCD.

One last problem that I encountered after a few days bears mention. I needed to use my printer, and I hadn't bothered reconnecting it after the box swap for whatever reason. I have an older Laser printer that still works fine, but while it can use a USB connection, it has some problems. The printer is one of the first models to support a USB connection; if it isn't powered on when the system is booted, Windows won't see the USB device and you have to unplug the USB cable, power on the printer, and then plug it into a different USB port. It also tends to "disappear" and require the same steps to be repeated once every couple of days if I leave my computer running. However, the printer also supports an LPT connection that eliminates these problems, making that the preferred connection. I discovered to my dismay that the Shuttle box lacks an LPT port - it just hadn't occurred to me to look for one. After I configured these two units, I was very glad that the ASUS box included an LPT port. If you still use an older printer, you should probably pay attention to that detail; about half of the SFF units that I've seen opt not to include a parallel port.