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New Small Form Factor PC Reviewed
Beau Mundt writes "You guys haven't touched on the small form factor PCs in a while, thought you
would be interested in this
review of a Lex System SFF PC. Its arguably the tiniest PC around and could
be used for many cool things like a Linux gateway, a wireless workstation, or
just a silent small foot print system. The other neat thing is the reviewer
stuffs a P3 1.26 and a Radeon 7500 into the system. Perfect for bringing to LANs!"
I like the Shuttle boxes, because you can stuff standard parts in them, standard drives and the likes.
This however, has too many limitations to be of use to me. Sure, you can attach a lot of USB peripherals (Is it USB 2? I didn't see that in the review), but if you want a PC small enough to lug around, then you don't want to lug three other boxes (all possibly with their own PSUs!).
Where is this going? Mobile computing is best served with a laptop, IMHO. The costs for good performance are high, enough so to put off LAN partiers on a budget.
These boxes fill that niche, but I think that this one in particular is crippled too much by the laptop hard drive, slimline CD, less expansion, etc.
If you want an appliance at home, this is no good either. Server? At the moment the max 2.5" HDD is 60 Gigs, I think. and if the machine breaks, you can't just buy another PSU, for example, and slot it in the box - it's all non-standard. Buy a proper server and shove it in a closet, or quieten it down with custom fans and heatsinks.
Other appliances? There are cheaper custom-built mp3 streamers, DVD-recording video recorders, and so on available.
This thing is a no-no, in my opinion.
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
You said arguably the smallest, and I'm gonna argue.
First things first, the Lex system *is* neat because of the socket 370, but it edges out the Via Eden platform in one dimension by 10mm. Doesn't sound like a lot, unless you're making some really cool custom pc's.
In fact, I've built my own router (running Linux of course) in a 1/10th scale Celica using the VIA. 10mm more in either dimension and it wouldn't have fit. In fact, it looks just like the two projects I just now linked.
The via comes in 500 and 866 mhz flavors, and pulls VERY little power resulting in a low heat motherboard/processor solution. There's so little heat, they don't even put a fan on the processor, which is great when you have your 1/10th scale Celica routing your dsl in your living room where you want to hear other people and/or the tv instead of the computer.
So for those needing those extra mhz, the lex looks like a good solution. But for a Linux gateway/router and a couple other applications, the slower C3's do just fine, but pull less power and have the possibility of going completely fan free (if you can find a fan-free powersupply).
With the 533MHz CPU, it needs no CPU fan, and is still plenty zippy for all of your favorite gateway tasks--we use them for web caching, DHCP, DNS caching, masquerading, NATting, routing micro-uber-boxes. Even with all of those services running, these little boxes will push a T1 line chock full of goodness with plenty of power to spare. We'd like it to be even smaller, of course, but I don't think the Lex box in question is the right way for us because we don't want a big hot Intel CPU in there.
We're popping an Intel dual NIC into the PCI slot for the firewall enhanced version (that's three NICs total), giving a nice Internal/DMZ/External separation in a very nice little low-power package.
Anyway, I'm enjoying the relative quiet of these boxes so much, that I'm considering getting an 800MHz one for my desktop machine. All of my real work goes on in the machine closet anyway, so I might as well have some peace, quiet, and an easily moveable machine out here in the civilized part of the office.