If it was just slightly bigger and the heatpipes wouldn't block the PCI slot it would make a great portable HDD recorder for audio.

swap out the hard drive for a SSD, and you should have a nice little system

My thoughts exactly, would make an ultra silent HTPC or low-end desktop system!

I must admit I really like the look of the case, it looks quite sexy!

Mike, it is 2009 now buddy =)

It's not that low if you also consider that it is to be dissipated at 50C room temperature!

Given that a HDD reaches 50C when the ambient is 21C, what would happen if the room temperature went up another 25+ degrees?

/Olle

It is probably not a good idea to keep your room at 46C (119F). I mean I guess it could be in a server room, or an outside terminal with direct sunlight. But still, I keep my apartment at about 26C in the summer, when it isn't uncommon to be 35C outside.

You're right, the 50C ambient changes everything. It also seems ridiculous, don't you think? No HDD would survive in such an ambient w/o special cooling even if the rest of the computer was ok. I guess if an SSD or flash memory was used for storage, it would still work. This shows the unit's industrial roots.

The heatpipe layout in this case is better designed than that of the mCubed HFX case in which all CPU pipes are routed to 1 of the 4 large side blocks.

I've don't know how much heat an uncooled SSD disk would create though compared to 2.5" HDD in this case.

The power dissipation of SSDs is well known -- it's less than a noterbook drive, which can peak at 2.5W. Most SSDs don't exceed 1W at any time. Even if it does produce more heat than that, there's no need to use the soft grommets because the SSD has no vibration to damp. With hard screw mounting, there would be direct meat-to-metal heat conduction to the chassis, which would help keep the SSD cooler.

It seems like this case is really only intended for OEMs who presumably get it at a lot less than $250.

I was lucky enough to pick up an ITX case/PSU for £20 in Japan last month but generally prices for them are still silly.

The do-it-yourself nature in me went hunting and found this:

http://www.enertron-inc.com/store.asp

The clearance area has better prices but still

Looking at the TDP for the Atom I think you could just run it fanless in a case with some air vents and a large enough heatsink, like the Via EPIA boards do.

Alternatively, just make a case with a single 120mm low speed fan. Simple and cheap.

Not with that NB chip. It gets scorching hot. The fan is on it, not the CPU.


Not sure if you're saying the end user should do this -- but making a case isn't simple for most folks. The only really nice design I've seen for this is the Silverstone something-05 mentioned in the review.

Ah yes, the rather inefficient NB. I'm not sure why Intel feel that a NB which idles at 90C is okay, even on "low power" or sever boards. To be fair all the ones I have tried do seem completely stable at that temperature, it's just that I wanted a computer, not a room heater...

It's a shame no-one makes an ITX AM2 board. A low end Sempron or X2 combined with something like a 780g chipset would be fantastic. Low power, low heat, full HD video decoding and six SATA ports.


Not sure if you're saying the end user should do this -- but making a case isn't simple for most folks. The only really nice design I've seen for this is the Silverstone something-05 mentioned in the review.[/quote]

I was suggesting that a company should manufacture one. It could be very cheap since no special materials or provisions would need to be made. Considering you can get mATX cases sans PSU for under €10...

Like this? (Though you aren't likely to find 6 SATA ports on any mini-ITX, but it's a 780G.) They're out there, but rather expensive, which certainly makes them less attractive, at least to me. Unless you are absolutely locked in on the mini-ITX form factor, it doesn't seem to really make economic sense over going micro-ATX (where you can get something similar for under $80). Hopefully it won't be too terribly long before mini-ITX becomes a little more common in the mainstream channels and we see prices come down.

We did review an AM2 mITX w/4 SATA ports not long ago -- http://www.silentpcreview.com/Zotac-GF8200ITX Newegg sells it for $10 minuws $10 rebate. Also, while you can certainly debate the merits/value of mATX vs mITX, the simple fact of the latter's 6.5" square size against the 10" square of the former is undeniable. It's really where mainstream computing is going. I think a lot of people are willing to pay a bit of a premium for the small size, even $50 is not big in the context of a whole system. And mITX prices will keep declining.

Yeah, I remember seeing that. Just wanted to mention the 780G in reference to the wish for a 780G in mini-ITX form. Seems prices are currently only much lower if you either go with an Atom board (CPU+MB for less than a board -- though the performance won't be anything near a "normal" AM2/775 CPU) or a GF7000-series board.


I'd personally love to convert my Linux server over to something smaller. I've currently got a P182 housing the micro-ATX system, optical drive, and single hard drive, which is overkill (but the price/performance was right and I love the P180 I've got housing the main system), especially since we have it "hidden" in an open-backed cabinet and the P182 is a bit tall and deep to truly "fit". (Many thanks, by the way, for the work you did with Antec on the P180. Though I'm not as sensitive as many here to noise level, I much prefer whooshing to whining and being able to run as cool and quietly, with as little "extra effort", as possible.)

Since I've got a very small server in a very large case, a mini-ITX setup would be great (case just large enough to hold the MB and drives and use a PicoPSU), it's just a little much currently to be worth it to me. But then again, my system's out of the way and running fine, so it can wait until the prices trend downwards a bit more (though that hasn't stopped me from looking at options). For someone else, though, it may be more than worth the premium, especially if they're bringing up a new system or moving an existing system to a new location where it doesn't fit as well. With a small mini-ITX case, there's not many places you can't fit a computer anymore, which is pretty cool. I like the examples I've seen where a small case is mounted on the back of a monitor; all-in-one convenience, but with greater flexibility in changing individual parts.

At least the situation's better than the last time I was looking at converting my server over to mini-ITX form, when it was pretty well impossible to find much of anything in the mainstream channels. They're out there now, prices aren't horrible, and hopefully over the next year or so we'll see a much larger selection at even better prices, especially since there's at least the Eee Box out in the wild (and netbooks really seemed to explode after the Eee PC came out, so maybe Asus will be helping the nettop market move, too).

That's an interesting board. It doesn't specifically say (even on the Jetway web site) but it seems the two external SATA ports are probably shared with two of the on-board ones, but it's still pretty impressive.

The cost is a little high, but not that much more than most mATX 780g boards. I think you could build a really nice HTPC with one of those.

I think the real problem here is that ITX is in a catch 22 situation. People would like very small form factor PCs, but the price premium is far too much to justify them, and the only way it will come down is if the format becomes more mainstream. I don't know where you got the $50 figure Mike, but I'd be surprised if you could build a quiet mini-ITX system for only $50 more than a similar spec mATX one.

Once you include the case and power supply the cost is usually more than double. The power savings from a DC-DC PSU just arn't worth it as it would take you decades of 24/7 use to make up the extra initial outlay. Even in a large company with hundreds of PCs it's very hard to justify economically.

I think it will be a few years yet until it really takes off. The key will be OEMs releasing PCs like the Eee Box.

While the fancy fanless "heatsink" mini-ITX cases are expensive (what cases like that aren't, though), there's certainly reasonably-priced options, such as over at Mini-Box (their branded enclosures start at $40, which while is much more expensive per unit of volume, certainly seems reasonable).

For PSUs, if you're starting from scratch, you can go the route of PicoPSU for at most $70 for a kit, which isn't much higher than the apparent price floor for reasonable PSUs (around $50).

If you want really low-cost, you can grab a Wind nettop, though I can't tell from the pictures on Newegg if the NB is fanless (extremely doubtful), so there'd probably be extra work required to get that thing running cool and quiet as opposed to hot and loud, especially once you get drives in it.

But in any case, while you could certainly end up paying double over bargain-bin components, it doesn't seem horrific compared to the prices of components that I'd probably be looking at personally in a micro-ATX form ($100 case, $50 PSU, $80 MB). For business, though, yes it's still probably going to be way too much, especially due to the scale of purchase involved. But for home use (or small offices), I could see it being "worth it" in various situations. Maybe not to you or to me at this point, but it's getting there, it seems like.

Major PC system brands such as HP, Lenovo and Dell already use mini-ITX boards in some of their systems, and the avg size of their offering continues to shrink. I mentioned $50 in mobo cost. Perhaps the whole system difference is higher... but then look at the Apex mitx case reviewed by Larry earlier -- http://www.silentpcreview.com/apex-mi008 $45 w/ PSU, and a cheap 120mm fan mod got him well under 20 dBA/1m.

I was quite impressed by the Apex case. It is nice to see western manufacturers moving to SFF designs now, after looking enviously at Japanese PCs for over a decade.

It seems like you guys are right, but only for people living in the US. For me in the UK it's a different story.

Still no Hello Kitty PCs at Dell that I can find, though.


Ah, very true. Despite the whole "global economy" thing (which I guess tends to be more of a euphemism for "your job's going to China" at times), there's so much variation in supply and pricing. But since the US (and Canada) is such a large market, hopefully we can help act as a catalyst for Europe and beyond as the mini-ITX format becomes more mainstream, especially with those manufacturers who have presence in Europe. Though even when products go over there, I do keep seeing stuff about pricing being all out of whack (even on simple things like software). But it'll get there, just may take a little longer to get across the Pond at favorable price points.

Well, I think the UK is an exception, even in Europe. We have always been subject to rip-off pricing and technologically are a bit of a backwater. It still takes us three months to re-surface a short section of road and even then it doesn't turn out anywhere near flat.

Not having the Euro has also hit us badly recently, as the Pound's value has plummeted. Last year I got 225 yen to the pound and everything was really cheap in Japan. This year I got 125 yen, so everything doubled in price and was extremely expensive.

Ouch, that is bad. Definitely a far cry from what it used to be, and of course not having as much supply going to the UK from the mainland just makes things worse, even without any sort of currency fluctuation. But still, it should trickle down, just a matter of how long, and how much. Hopefully enough to get you guys into the 21st century, though.

Once mini-ITX is a bit more common globally, it may be that it'll be a good thing for the UK market once you can get a decent small computer for less than a larger computer, where you get solid basic connections rather than forty different features that not everyone needs or wants (that you still pay for). Maybe it'll help to start shifting the technological landscape a little. (Or more likely not, but we can dream, right?)

You don't think it's already shifting significantly? Atom was the primary trigger for the development of netbooks and net tops (probably helped by the global economic downturn). The former is firmly here to stay, the latter continues to expand, tho more slowly because desktop systems are outsold by portables everywhere.

Well, I was referring more specifically to MoJo's comment on the landscape in the UK (that being what he'd probably refer to as "barren"), more than just an overall move to smaller form factors (especially here). We're definitely taking the turn to net-*, but I was trying to express the hope that the proliferation of smaller, cheaper devices at the global level would improve the technological situation over there such that it wouldn't need to be referred to as "backwater" or anything. If prices and supply are more out of line compared to the rest of Europe (Europe's stereotypical Alabama?) then maybe the small, cheap computer option will be able to make some changes in the availability and pricing in the region (as more demand is created because the smaller devices are more affordable, beefing up supply channels, rather than one guy rowing across the Channel or whatever is the current state alluded to).

The Cube looks awesome! http://ecd.coolermaster.com/english/pro ... chassis_03

If this works with a Zotac 9300 and E5200 I'm buying one. Does anyone have any more information? Can't find much on coolermaster's site, or google.

very very nice case, but it cost a little to much and I can't find any place in Europe that have them in the store?


I know it is offtopics but I can't help it.
In the article at the last page I can see a clip from Rush hour 3 in 1080p.
But the case have a Intel D945GCLF and it can't play 1080p what I have read?