Is Intel a safe bet for Apple security?

CNET News.Com ^ | 6/7/2005 | By Joris Evers

[antiRepublicrat]

I'm still going to miss 1.35+ GHz busses. Apple may be going up in clock speed with Intel, but they're going way down with the bus speed.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

are the 5400RPM hard drive and the ATI X300 video chip

Eventually they will get the speeds up and the heat problems fixed.....I run 10K rpm SCSI disks.

[Terpfen]

Heat dissipiation really isn't a problem anymore, at least not on my laptop.

7200RPM is fine with me, since that's all I've ever used. I don't even notice much of a speed decline with this 5400RPM drive. Still, 7200RPM for a laptop will be a good step forward until manufacturers introduce flash-based hard drives.

[Terpfen]

Shuttle is alright, but I worry about their heat dissipation. Some of their newer configurations really look like they need water cooling to function. As for Aspire, their stuff looks pretty generic to me.

I wish video card manufacturers would give serious thought to heat dissipation on desktop video cards, so the industry could move on to offering HTPCs.

[Ed_in_NJ]

ping

[js1138]

Shuttles are water cooled. They have just about the best thermal design of any production PC. There are some issues with high performance video cards and overclocking, but that isn't my bag.

[Terpfen]

From what I've seen of Shuttles, the majority of them use air cooling. There are some models with water cooling, but those cost an arm and a leg.

If you're using water cooling, good on you and your bank account.

[js1138]

All Shuttles are water cooled. They do not have a resovoir, but the cooling system uses heat pipes. CPU temperatures are comparable to full sized water cooled systems. Better than good enough for a system that is not overclocked.

The ventilation also cools the hard drives. The only real shortcoming is cooling the video card. There are inexpensive mods to help this by cutting a vent in the side of the case.

[Terpfen]

So, if I'm getting you straight, Shuttle uses heat pipes for direct cooling, and then they water cool the heat pipes?

[js1138]

At some point a water cooled system has to have a radiator. The do-it-yourself rigs may have a large water reservoir, but the water has to be cooled somewhere.

With heat pipes you have a liquid flowing through the metal part in contact with the CPU. In the Shuttle, the heat pipes lead directly to the radiator, which is at the edge of the case. The fan blows the hot air directly out of the case, and heat from the CPU never heats up the inside of the case.

There are other heat pipe systems, but Shuttle's trick is to keep the heat outside the case from the start.

Unfortunately, video cards are now a major source of heat, and cooling them is still a problem. With the Shuttle, the video card slot is at the outer edge of the system, so you can cut a hole in the case for cooling the video. This is a custom thing, and your results may vary.

[general_re]

Unfortunately, video cards are now a major source of heat, and cooling them is still a problem. With the Shuttle, the video card slot is at the outer edge of the system, so you can cut a hole in the case for cooling the video.

A slot fan works pretty well for cooling video cards, and the system in general. If you can afford to give up a slot, anyway.

[ShadowAce]

Laptops are slow....

Really? I guess I'll have to remove VMware from my 3.2Ghz HT laptop with 1GB RAM, then since emulation taxes resources so much more than running natively. :)

I've also got 120GB of disk space, a CDRW/DVDRW drive, 4 USB ports, ATI 9600 Radeon video/TV card, builtin Ethernet/modem, Firewire, parallel port, DVI port, builtin in 5.1 speakers, 17" screen, serial port, and builtin, detachable MP3 player that I use a jump drive (it uses SD media, so I've basically got a 512MB Jump drive).

[js1138]

Shuttles have only two slots, and the video slot is at the outer edge. I'm sure if they stay in business they will come up with a solution. Right now it's an easy mod, but requires some tools and skill.

Shuttles are really in demand for gamers, because you can put them in a tote bag and take them anywhere. They weigh about as much as a large laptop.

There's a forum here

http://forums.sudhian.com/categories.aspx?catid=43

that discusses all the strong and weak points of Shuttledom. I've never built a gaming rig, but I've built half a dozen Shuttles for business users (and one CAD designer).