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World's Smallest Desktop Pentium4?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the and-they-say-size-doesn't-matter dept.

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."

10 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Heh heh. And heat. And power. by ToadMan8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    First of all, heh heh, we broke the Access database web engine. Already

    Next order of business, since I can't see the damned article, since we broke it, how are they handling cooling? That's been the big limitation with full (read: AMD or INTEL) scale desktop platforms in a ultra small form factor. Also how will the power supply be rigged? Is this a no PCI low voltage your USB gear better have batteries type thing, or what?

    And does anybody know of a mirror ;)

    --
    I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
  2. Still, a serial port, and PS/2! by Thinkit3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't get it with these PC makers. All this legacy baggage. At least no parallel port. I'm building a box with the abit-K7-MAX2, no serial/parallel and 6 USB on the back!

    --
    -Libertarian secular transhumanist
    1. Re:Still, a serial port, and PS/2! by toddestan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The reason they carry it on is that people want it and need it. Serial is hardly useless, it is needed for older (but not that old) devices like Palms and HP Calculators. Also, the best modems generally are external that use serial ports.

      Older printers (and some new ones) still use parallel ports.

      PS/2 is hardly dead either. PS/2 keyboards just work. They have ironed out most of the bugs with USB keyboards, but you still have minor issues with Linux, old dos stuff, etc. Besides, all the good keyboards are either PS/2 or even the old AT style plug. USB keyboards are crap. Bottom line is, I better be able to hook up my Model M's to any computer I buy.

  3. Re:Depressing by vasqzr · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Tom's Hardware has the latest and greatest Pentium 4 3.2GHz running Quake III at 450 FPS. So this computer is almost 5 times slower than the top of the line, at least as for as OpenGL/Quake/games go.

  4. why a P4? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If you're going to make a small PC, wouldn't using a low-power chip instead of the 845gv chipset (note a lack of details about heat dissipation) make more sense? I realize its not a laptop, so there's no worry, but inefficient power-drain == hot-plate for a small device.

    Why not a Centrino or TransMeta? It would be making the smallest desktop using intelligent engineering decisions. How about a cycles/in^2 or sufmin'.

  5. Sorry to be negative, but ... by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ... I really do not understand what the niche for this might be. Notebook class performance, notebook level pricing, less portable than a notebook (when you consider the need for a monitor also) and no more configurable.

    I own a Shuttle. It is more expensive than the cheapest desktops and less portable than a notebook, but it has real desktop performance in a reasonably portable form factor. That makes sense to me.

    1. Re:Sorry to be negative, but ... by heli0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ". I really do not understand what the niche for this might be."

      How about people who regard aesthetics in as high a regard as engineering specs?

      --
      Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
  6. Pentium M? by bedizened · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I'm surprised at what appears to be a complete lack of small/quiet desktop systems using the new Pentium M, or even the entire Centrino chipset.

    It seems like the Pentium M, even on a laptop motherboard, would be the ideal way to make an extremely small, fanless (at least for the 7W version of the chip) pc.

    Has anyone seen something like this? Would it be difficult to make one?

  7. Re:Chilling by TheViffer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is marked as funny, but is it?

    Look at today, we air blast our cases for cooling. Some of the daring will use water, even others liquid nitrogen.

    But think about it, we are clearly in the stone ages when it comes to effective computer cooling. This not only is in how we cool the equipment, but in how that equipment is designed.

    Don't laugh when in five years, some company like "Coleman" is making the worlds most advanced "desktop and workstation" cases employing refrigeration and insulation.

    --
    -- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
  8. Intel's already doing this... by aksansai · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Since the Pentium 4's ratio is locked, Intel has to support three different CPUs for different FSB speeds (400MHz, 533MHz, and 800MHz). This is not uncommon nor does it appear to be drastically hurting sales (in fact, it really is not that much of a nightmare at all). I imagine Intel will be adding more frequencies as technologies allow.

    AMD is just following suit, but eliminating one more path the CPU must take to access the memory. If it works for Intel, it'll work for AMD.

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    Ayup