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Small Form Factor Dual Opteron

Posted by michael on from the toasty dept.

Psionicist writes "IWILL has announced a new barebone, the IWILL ZMAXdp. Based on the nVIDIA nForce3 Pro 250Gb chipset, the computer offers dual Opteron support in a SFF format. "Volume production is planned in September, with a suggested price of $499. IWILL plans to get attention in workstation market. ZMAXdp will include proprietary form factor motherboard, 300W power supply, up to 2x3.5" HDD bay, and 1xAGP; PCI and SI can offer various configurations for workstation market demand." according to IWILL's homepage. I will take one, please."

16 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Heat management? by Radi-0-head · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm extremely curious how they figured out how to manage the heat generated by TWO processors while leaving room in that tiny box for anything else.

    Regardless, my boxers are wet. Must have one.

    1. Re:Heat management? by Sivar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ah, yes, that sucker is expensive, but it's a lot of CPU per watt, too (unless you consider Transmeta).
      If only they were available for laptops. :/

      --
      Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
    2. Re:Heat management? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Today. IWILL's new box isn't slated for full production until September, and it'll probably be November before it really takes off. The low-power Opterons should be much cheaper by then.

    3. Re:Heat management? by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Rack mount servers are loud and require special cooling considerations.

      The 5 1/4" drive bay, the USB ports and Firewire ports are prety good guesses at the scale.

    4. Re:Heat management? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If they leave everthing clear, and have adiquate heat sinks, I would think it would be easier to keep cool. Basically if you look at the modern ATX setup, it's a large case with cables and crap in the way, where people try to compensate by stuffing fans everywhere and expect that it should cool itself just by the sheer number of things blowing air around. Now if you made a small form factor, with say 1-2 large fans, moved those cables out of the way (SATA no floppy), you should be able to get good airflow and keep the case much coolerr than a standard ATX case. 1U rack mounted units are a good example of how to channel ariflow.

  2. Re:I don't get it. by ruiner5000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, why would anyone want anything smaller? I miss my 1982 VCR that doubled for a coffee table.

    --
    ignorance is bliss. googlefiberatx.com
  3. Re:1xAGP - workstation?! by MalleusEBHC · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Sure, if that spec is true, they screwed themselves out of the market for a graphics workstation. However, most developers don't need anything more than AGP 1x. I know many who would love a powerful small form factor box like that.

  4. Re:A Computer that will fit Longhorn MIN. Standard by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Remember, Longhorn isn't going to come out for another couple of years, so most of those standards were intended to staunch shortsightedness.

    "Why would someone want to do X? It requires hundreds of gigabytes of disk space, and runs poorly on anything less than gigabit ethernet."

    By 2007, most any new system will exceed those requirements-- so if a new user wants to perform task X, they will be able to.

  5. Re:open-source freindly != Nvidia... by klevin · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Bummer about IWill using Nvidia. I was really looking forward to the the Nvidia chipsets, "back in the day." Unfortunately, the whole "no specs for you lot" bit put a damper on that.


    Since this sort of purchase would be of the "my money, my choice" category, I think I'll go w/ one of the inevitable competitors who comes out w/ a similar design. This might work well for that home-brewed PVR I've been planning for the last two years. Now, if I could only come up with a source of income that would let me pay for it.

  6. Re:Does price include processors? by ruiner5000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, the cheapest Opterons are the 240s, and those alone would almost equal $499. I believe Iwill would prefer making a profit to losing a few hundred dollars a box. :)

    --
    ignorance is bliss. googlefiberatx.com
  7. Re:A Computer that will fit Longhorn MIN. Standard by timmi · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "Actually, a computer that is truely drool-worthy will always cost $5000"-- Machrone's Law

    Bill Machrone wrote in a recent article in PC Magazine that the computer you Really want will always cost $5000

    the forst 286, 386, and 486 systems all cost $5000 when they were forst released.

    And today, the really drool worthy computers cost $5000. just look at any of the Botique(sp?) gaming box makers. Heck, an Apple Dual G5 2.0 and a 23" studio display is $4998 Plus tax!

  8. Re:I have a Idea! RTFA for a change! by vanillacoke · · Score: 1, Insightful

    THANKS for being a karma whore, Frys displays all thier SFF cases and mobos....

    --
    The secret to getting modded up is to allways say i've got karma to burn in your sig..
  9. SMP Gaming, quit it already! by Anubis333 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why do all the OCer's and Gamers always drool over Dual proc boards? There are *very few* SMP capable games at all. This is one huge old myth I would like to dispell for these people. To my old gamer knowledge, only ID and maybe a few other people have made SMP capable game engines, and then, they weren't fully SMP capable, and it only mattered if you used software rendering. There have been one or two SMP game servers.. Adding another processor is virtually useless for a 'gaming machine' unless you want to be running Seti@Home one the other processor while you're 'fragging' or whatever you kids are calling it these days.

    I can only think of a few uses for a dual processor machine for '1337' gamers and OCers and it's things like restricting apps to individual processors, if you *must* encode the latest DVD you rented from blockbuster while teaming up in a death match -and most people don't know this is possible. There are though more than a few SMP capable DVD ripping/encoding apps, but it hardly justifies two opterons.

    These things do look great for rendering though.

  10. Re:open-source freindly != Nvidia... by Omnifarious · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Those don't count. Where are the drivers I can trust?

    --
    Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
  11. PearPC + Mac OS X = Unusable. by Xenex · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you're referring to PearPC, you're not going to run Mac OS X on that thing "as fast as a G3 imac". Running Mac OS X on PearPC is unuseably slow.

    No, if you want the to "enjoy the awesome features of the OS X user experience", you'll still need a Mac. You'll be able to run Doom III just fine natively on Mac OS X as well...

  12. Re:open-source freindly != Nvidia... by Omnifarious · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A wonderful philosophy. If we all had that philosophy, we'd all just take whatever peice of garbage someone chose to sell us and nothing would get any better because nobody could say how anything might be fixed or improved.

    Apathy it's what's for dinner.

    --
    Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop