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Small Form Factor Comparison Matrix
Giggles Of Doom writes "With small form factor PCs, such as the Shuttle XPC line, becoming all the rage these days for office and gamer use, it can be a daunting task to find the model that is right for you. With more and more manufacturers getting on the SFF bandwagon, the selection is growing rapidly. How do you compare each one? You could spend hours combing manufacturer sites and reviews, or you could be thankful that someone has done all the work for you already! The Small Form Factor Comparison Matrix is just that, a chart listing over 30 of the most popular SFF boxes, their features, and price. Sort by any field, and limit your search to things like "Pentium 4 Only" or "Under $200 Only." If you're looking into getting a SFF box, this is the place to start." (Sudhian Media and mini-itx.com are also good sources for information on small PCs.)
Cache is here: http://tinyurl.com/z74a
The IDEQ has nicely situation USB ports (2 in the front, and 2 or more in the rear - I don't even remember, more than I need). SP/DIF optical audio out, firewire out, again ports in front and rear. Everything you need is integrated, ethernet, pretty decent audio, even dual head-capable GeForce 4MX (I have an AGP GeForce4 Ti4200 card in here myself, since I do some real 3D work, and some gaming).
It's worth giving a thought to. Will you really miss all that other stuff? If you live in a city apartment where your floor space costs hundreds of dollars a square foot like I do, and your desk size is limited by your small apartment, going SFF is definitely worth consideration. If you have a big house, lotsa room, or need to swap in and out hard drives and are the kinda person who leaves your case open for easy access, then it's probably the wrong move, since it's quite crowded in a little SFF case.
Here are other sites offering Small Form Factor listings:
SSF at HardwareCentral.
Shuttle PCs at PCs For Everyone.
And just in case you don't know, here this guy explains what a Small Form Factor PC is.
you mat want to check future c3 development from Via
here is a picture of a nice mini-itx dual motherboard: http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_imag
Would two full-size P4/AMD heat sinks even fit on an flex-ATX board?
The owls are not what they seem
Seems someone has not been doing their homework properly. Can't be an accurate matrix with products missing :(
For those who are curious curious.
OpenBrick Website
Rooster - A friend. "Anyone's friend in particular or just generally well disposed to people?"
Say what?
All of our servers in our rack are quad P4's, all 1U, no problem whatsoever.
(Thanks to the engineers at IBM, but the point still stands)
No Comment.
This sounds like a good idea until you think about how much heat a dual cpu system puts out. Other posters have commented on the WHOOSH sound that comes out of single cpu SFF systems. In these small cases there is not the large reserve of circulating air to dissapate heat like you have in a full dual CPU tower. Hence, air must be moved through the system very quickly. You would probably be getting into the decible range of a large shop vac for dual cpu. But, if you made the outside a heat sink like car amp and then filled the inside with a huge block of metal... hmm, project for winter break! :)
Computer Science is all about trying to find the right wrench to bang in the right screw. -T.Cumbo?
Check out http://www.fic.com.tw/product/sff/.
try yellow dog briqs.. PPC boxes size of a CD-ROM drive..
http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/products/
The reason there is no column for noise is due to the fact that there is very, very little info on it. Sure, many review sites will say "this one is quiet" and the like, but very few, and even fewer manufacturers, list actuall db measurements. And even if they did, they wouldn't measure it the same way anyway.
"A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
One I forgot to mention too:
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/briQ/
The Terrasoft Solutions BriQ. a G3 or G4 in a box that fits in a 5.25" drive bay
http://us.shuttle.com/specs2.asp?pro_id=264
i have one.
The hard drive (Maxtor 4G160J8) is louder than the PC. And you can barely hear the hard drive.
The heatpipe, massive heatsink, and temperature controlled fan help a lot.
It WHOOOOOSHes for about 3 seconds when you power it on, as the hardware is initialized. Then it goes totally and completely silent as linux boots, and stays silent during heavy use.
Shrug.
Many of the units have pictures of the back panel, that would show all the rear ports. Many of them also have pictures showing the motherboard layout, where you could see if the AGP is on the inside or outside. Yes, I know it requires a few more clicks, but it is a lot better then pouring around the web for hours looking for that info, isn't it?
"A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
What about the DigiMatrix from ASUS?
the older sv24 was indeed like a 747 on approach.
i have an SB51G that is very quiet, and i recently
got an SB65G2 that is also very quiet, altho i haven't had it fired up much, yet.
the heat-pipe tech thing uses a single fan for the
case and CPU, and seems to work rather well, at
least for me.
i have been very happy with them and would recommend
them.
I have plenty of common sense, I just choose to ignore it. -- Calvin
There are ways to cut down noise without relying solely on passive or liquid cooling. Lots of low noise PSs and fans are available (and not that expensive). Even replacing a worn/cheap cpu fan can make a lot of difference. Unfortunately, case and system vendors mostly don't pay much attention to these details, so you pretty much have to retrofit.
No, of course not.
You buy a case and mobo _designed_ for dual or quad use.
Not difficult at all.
Now trying to stuff a dual or quad board into a case designed for a single proc, well, you get what you deserve I guess.
No Comment.
I'll be working on adding legacy port info this week.
"A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
"Silent" would mean no noise. A PC can be silent when the hard disk is spun down and all of its fans are stopped and nothing else in it is making any noise. You probably just meant "quiet."
I remember being in a terminal room at usenix many years ago which was full of Network Computing Devices X terminals, which were silent (diskless, fanless, no other parts moving or otherwise making sound). It was like being in a library. By far, the loudest remaining sound was the keystrokes from everyone typing.
I like silent (as opposed to quiet), PC's, although I've only used them in practice as thin clients.
When I see a vendor using the term "silent" to refer to a PC that is merely quiet, I consider that vendor to be a liar, and I generally can't trust them enough to be willing to do buy from them.
I also buy a lot of quiet hardware, like big slow fans, aluminum cases so I can disconnect more fans and so on, but I try never to buy from vendors that call these things "silent."
/.ed. Google Cache here.
-- Every time you kill a kitten, God masturbates.
CPUs commonly generate heat, especially running at high frequencies. A SFF would not be able to dissipate the heat.
There's also the issue of the motherboard getting too hot.
As far as i knew, the smallest Quad Xeon box IBM makes is 3U
2004 PCI express will start appearing in a motherboard near you in limited quantities. As AGP is phased out (Intel and ATI will lead this initiative) PCI express will be phased in as the major video card interface on PC's.
I have friends that come over with their shiny AGP radeon 9xxx begging me to go out and blow my money on the card. I keep repeating to them...
No new video card till these minimum requirements are met.
1. 64bit CPU
2. PCI express
3. Doom 3
1 is here, 2 will be in 2004, and 3 according to JC will be here "when it's done".
Are there any 64bit SFF boards?
http://www.lex.com.tw
The 860 will boot via pxe as an x terminal
$250 total
gene at viewtouch.com
There is one way to get the density up to 4CPU per 1U of rack space. With one of these, and 14 of these, you can get 28 Xeon CPUs in 7U of space. That works out to 4CPUs per 1U.
However, there is no quad CPU 1U server made by IBM.
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