I'm in a bit of a quandary at the moment. I'm going to build a HTPC and use one of the Shuttle barebones (..it's the only on that will fit in the cabinet.) There are two models on the market : SD39P2 : 419 SP35P2 Pro : 391 Putting aside the fancy gadgets (Finger print recognition etc.) the only difference I can se between the SD35 and SD39 is the Intel P35 Express board on the SD35 and the Intel 975X on the SD39. So what would be your recommendation ?
The Intel P35 is the slightly newer chipset and supports more of the newer cpu's that are being released. It's also cheaper!! - personally go with the P35 chipset one. Not much in it really and in all likelyhood will make little/no difference for a media centre other than support more of the higher end cpu's\ram.
Go for the P35, new chipset with (slightly) increased performance and improved featureset. No point buying old tech .
I agree, go for the P35 then you'll also be able to upgrade to the upcoming Penryn CPU's later on down the line.
P35 it is then, thanks for the advice. I was just confused as to how the newer model with more features could be cheaper
Just when I thought it was clear they now announce a new model the SX38P2 Pro, based on the X38 Motherboard. So how does that compare to the P35 ?
They will feature support for PCI-E 2.0 for extra bandwidth and also support dual x16 PCI-E. These, like the P35, will support Intel's upcoming Penryn CPUs. The prices though look like they will be quite expensive when they make an appearance at the end of the month.
The 35 is basically the replacement for the 965 mainstream Intel chipset. the 38 is mroe of a replacement for the 975. In the real world most users will not notice any difference between any of these chipsets with the current Core2Duo lineup.