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World's Smallest Desktop Pentium4?
Valour writes "The Jem Report has just published an in-depth review and installation guide for the new Iwill ZPC, a cool little Pentium4 ultra small formfactor PC. There have been similar designs in the past, but nothing with this kind of power."
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Manufacturer Iwill USA
Model ZPC
Chipset Intel 845GV
Formfactor Mini ITX/proprietary
Market Portable workstation/fashionable desktop. This machine is primarily marketed to system integrators who will use it to create systems for targeted niche markets like those mentioned above.
CPU support 400mhz and 533mhz FSB Pentium4 processors up to 2.53ghz.
RAM PC2700 is recommended, but PC2100 and PC1600 will also work. ECC memory is not supported. Maximum RAM capacity is 512MB using one 512MB module.
Iwill ZPC
Graphics capabilities Onboard Intel Extreme Graphics
IDE ATA100 (through a conversion daughter board) supports one notebook 2.5" hard drive and one slimline notebook optical drive
Firewire Yes (2) (VIA chipset)
USB Hi-speed USB 2.0 (4)
LAN Realtek 8100B 10/100
Sound ALC650 stereo
Power External 90W DC19V power supply
Dimensions Height: 54mm (2.13 inches)
Width: 184mm (7.24 inches)
Depth: 263mm (10.35 inches)
Weight 1.95kg (4.3 pounds) net weight
3.75kg (8.27 pounds) with hard drive, RAM, CPU, optical drive and power supply
9-pin serial One
Available colors Silver (aluminum) and black
Warranty One year through Iwill
The Iwill ZPC is the world's smallest Pentium4 desktop computer supporting the 533FSB. The initial material that Iwill sent me months ago made it look really cool -- there were a variety of different colors and the design was quite attractive. Unfortunately Iwill scrapped all of the colors except black and silver, and those two represent two different models of the ZPC. The black model is designed for slot-loading optical drives and the silver model supports tray-loading optical drives, but other than that they are identical as far as technical specifications are concerned. For my testing I was given one of the silver models. Here's what the front looks like when fully assembled, and here is the rear of the unit.
The ZPC can be purchased with or without the CDRW/DVD combo drive but considering the fact that you can't buy a comparable optical drive for the difference in price, I would suggest getting the full package including the combo drive unless you're running totally from the network or otherwise have no need for a CD drive. The only extra software that it comes with is Nero Express (version 5.5.10.13)
Assembly was surprisingly easy -- almost too easy, and in fact I suspected it was a trap. I was expecting something at least as complex and delicate as a notebook computer but it was actually more like a mini-PC. I have compiled a complete installation guide (including photos!) which can be found here.
The ZPC is rather expensive; unless you're buying in quantity or directly from the manufacturer you won't find one of these under $450 (no hard drive, CPU, or RAM included) but considering what you're getting, that's not all that bad. As far as price for performance is concerned there are a few things to consider. First of all the ZPC is not versatile; it can never be a good gaming machine and since there is no TV-out or DVI connector you're limited to a VGA display, so there's no video editing possibilities. That means that the ZPC is not a replacement (or even competition) for a mini-PC like the Iwill XP4-G or for VIA's ultra-cheap and somewhat expandable Epia C3 integrated CPU solutions. If you're looking for a portable gaming machine, a low-cost, low-performance low-profile desktop system or a TiVo device, the ZPC cannot meet your needs.
So what is the ZPC good for? A lot of things: as an Internet device or appliance, as a stackable node for a cluster, as a small formfactor workstation for cramped or limited spaces (dorm rooms, RVs, yachts, or even cars and airplanes). Being as it does not have a screen with it, the ZPC is not exactly a laptop replacement although it is smaller, lighter, and more durable. If you need a portable machine to take on special jobs (engineers and technicians often need good
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AC
Processor
Supports single Intel® Pentium® 4 processor up to 2.53 GHz
Supports single Intel® Celeronâ processor up to 2.4 GHz ZPC
Chipset
Intel® 845GV chipset
â 82845GV Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH)
â 82801DB I/O Controller Hub 4 (ICH4)
Bus Frequency
533/400 MHz system bus
System Memory
1 x DIMM slot
Supports up to 1GB DDR266/200 (PC2100/PC1600) memory
IDE
ATA/100 IDE
Supports one (1) 2.5 in hard disk drive (notebook type)
Supports one (1) "slim-type" optical drive
Audio
Realtek® ALC650
AC'97 Audio CODEC
VGA
Intel® Extreme Graphics
Integrated in Intel® 845GE, 845GV, 845G and 845GL chipsets
LAN
Realtek® RTL8100B 10/100M Fast Ethernet Controller
10/100 Mbps operations
IEEE 1394
VIA® Fire II VT6306 IEEE 1394 Link-Layer/PHY Chipset
2 x IEEE1394 ports (front panel)
400/200/100 Mbps data transfer rate
Supports up to 63 devices
Supports hot-swapping and Plug & Play
Drive Bay(s)
1 x Internal bay for 2.5 in hard disk drive (notebook type
1 x Internal bay for slim-type optical drive (CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, DVD/CD-RW combo drive)
â DVD/CD-RW combo not included with barebone; availabl
Here are some more photos if you can't get to the iwillusa site.
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
For those who just want to see it, check out this pic among many others at the actual review, instead of the IWILL site. Also check out the installation guide
True believers seek redemption from the sin of death.
1 2 3
Many Mini-ITX boxes, like those from Shuttle, will support a regular-sized hard drive.
:)
google for 'mini itx'
My journal has hot
this thing is super-sweet. in case of slashdotting, here are the two coolest pics. anyone know what these things cost? I didn't see it mentioned in the review and iwillusa.com is also down.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The A64 is going to kick everyone's buttocks, because much like there is no spoon, there is no FSB on the A64.
AMD really didnt think that through. Intel tried a server chip about 5 years ago with an integrated memory controller, and they finally ditched it. Why? Because the upgrade path for memory technologies changed too damn much.
So AMD is going to release the A64 with integrated DDR333 (maybe DDR400). So next year when we are looking at DDR533, etc, what are they going to do? Imagine the confusion after a few new A64 updates- there will be 3 or 4 different versions of each chip, and each one will support different memory. Thats going to be a marketing nightmare for them. And for what? Multi-processor systems still need to maintain cache coherency, so any performance gained by each chip having its own memory controller are pretty much wiped out while you are waiting for the chips to sync up.
No thanks- I'll stick with a northbridge. Move to a high speed packetized serial FSB with QoS and a PCIExpress backbone. Thats the future. Lower pin count, lower power usage, higher performance.
AMD is just repeating the mistakes that others made years ago, but they are too dumb to see it.
Valour writes "The Jem Report has just published an in-depth review....
Valour/Jem, I don't understand why you are hiding the fact that YOU ARE Valour, and YOU ARE the OWNER and writer of TheJemReport.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that valour@herotale.com is the same person as valour@thejemreport.com - it's on the front page of your site.
If it's karma-whoring, go ahead, because that's not uncommon on Slashdot, but why pretend that you aren't submitting your own review by writing the submission in the third person?
Now let's re-write that first line:
Valour [THAT'S ME!!!!!!] writes "The Jem Report [THAT'S MY SITE!!!!!!] has just published an in-depth review and installation guide for the new Iwill ZPC, a cool little Pentium4 ultra small formfactor PC. There have been similar designs in the past, but nothing with this kind of power."
:)
The system comes with a power brick, just like most printers and laptops. Thus, most of the heat will be generated outside of the case. All they have to cool is the CPU, and in something that small, all that requires in a nice grill overtop of the CPU to vent the hot air directly to the outside world.
how about a usb -> ethernet dongle?
Dimensions are about the same -- the Mocha's slightly taller, but shorter in depth and width, 2.4 lb. Max RAM is 1GB, and current CPUs run to 2.4 GHz. It's loud unless placed behind other HW. Tons of ports (serial, parallel, 4x USB, firewire, audio in & out, S/video, 2xPS2, PCMCIA).
And it runs Debian GNU/Linux. Well.
Why, you ask? Portable desktop, fewer parts to break than a laptop. Fits in my book bag. $1300 as configured (1.7GHz, 512MB, 20 GB).
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Obviously this guy doesn't know much about video editing. The firewire on this makes it very video-editing capable. Disk space is more likely to hamper serious video work, but an external firewire drive could be used to gain space.
They also have small form factor AMD systems
And, you don't need that many versions of the same chip since memory _technologies_ don't change that often (EDO, sdram, rdram, ddr and ddr2 cover about 10 years). So one chip for DDR200-DDR400, one for DDRII. Though if higher speed memory of the same type is introduced, the chip might need revalidation and a new stepping might be needed - but new steppings are done anyway (the P4 Northwood already has 3 steppings). And guess what? DDRII533 won't magically work on your existing P4 board either. And how much people upgrade the board so they can use the fastest ram but don't upgrade the cpu?
You could call AMD's I/O links (hypertransport) exactly that, except that they are not used for ram access.
You mean like these Ice Station enclosures? They are nice if you have the money...
-antim
I'd rather say, taht we're in the stone age regarding effective energy consumption. There are Mobile CPUs that take less than a half of normal energy. From the technical point it's possible to build a very fast PC that uses less than half of what a normal computer needs. There are mobile CPU, high efficiency PSU, etc.
Look at Silent PC Review to get an idea.
Bye egghat
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel