James Schell – SFF.Network

Low Volume – Episode 27 – Happy Birthday to Us!

It’s almost the second anniversary of the formation of SFF Network! Join James and John (but not Joshua because he slept in :p) as we discuss the past year, muse on Intel vs AMD’s CPU developments, and ramble on about a few other topics. Show notes and comments in the forum here.

News

EK releases M.2 SSD heatsinks

PRESS RELEASE: A press release, when marked as such, is posted direct from the manufacturer and is unedited. Thus, they may not reflect the view of SmallFormFactor.net or its authors. SmallFormFactor.net is in no way responsible for any part of this promotion, but we thought our readers might be interested! EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia-based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is releasing a passive heatsink for M.2 NVMe Next Generation Form Factor SSDs. Although it’s not a water cooling part, it is a much needed aesthetical and functional heatsink for many PC owners. It is not a secret that M.2 NVMe SSDs can overheat …

News

Lenovo shows off the tiny ThinkStation P320 Tiny

PRESS RELEASE: A press release, when marked as such, is posted direct from the manufacturer and is unedited. Thus, they may not reflect the view of SmallFormFactor.net or its authors. SmallFormFactor.net is in no way responsible for any part of this promotion, but we thought our readers might be interested! NEW YORK, June 20, 2017 – Today at its Tech World Transform commercial summit, Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) announced agile and reliable PC offerings for business customers that address the evolution of the workforce and workplace. The ThinkStation P320 Tiny offers Independent Software Vendor (ISV) certification to ensure customers’ most critical applications run …

News

G.SKILL shows off 3466MHz 16GBx2 DDR4 SODIMM kit

Outside of industrial specialists VLP, and even just normal height LP, RAM seems to have disappeared with the advent of DDR4. Things didn’t change at Computex, with ever bigger and flashier heatsinks being the norm, often in order to fit even more RGBs. As such we didn’t make time to stop by G.SKILL’s booth while at the show, which is unfortunate in hindsight because they were showing off a 32GB kit (16GB x 2) of DDR4 SODIMM at a new high speed of 3466MHz! Timings aren’t spectacular at CL 16-18-18-43, but they are respectable considering it’s SODIMM. High-end SODIMM isn’t …

Editorial

Low Volume – Episode 26 – Computex 2017 recap!

We had some technical difficulties so the end of the stream got cut off, but luckily we captured most of our Computex rundown about what we each saw and found interesting. Enjoy! Show notes and comments in the forum here.

News

Lian Li PC-Q38 ITX case, new PCIe extenders, and more

Taiwan is home to Lian Li, the well-known makers of all-aluminum cases, and as expected Lian Li had many of their products on display at Computex this year. PC-Q38 Lian Li’s booth had quite a few full-tower aluminum behemoths, but I was immediately drawn to this new Mini-ITX case they had in the back corner. This is the PC-Q38 Mini-ITX case. At 20.2L it’s not tiny for ITX, but it does fit a 240mm radiator in such as way as to keep the side panel window clear to show off the build. Here we can see where the PSU is …

News

ASRock X299E-ITX/ac “The Little Monster” detailed

Now that Computex is over and I’ve had time to do some checking and clarify some questions, here is a more detailed rundown of the ASRock X299E-ITX/ac Mini-ITX motherboard. And the pictures are mostly in focus this time! ASRock has been strongly pushing SFF in recent years and at Computex they showed off a GTX 1080 MXM card working on Micro-STX (another ASRock innovation), two AMD AM4 Mini-ITX motherboards, and today’s subject: the X299E-ITX/ac. Backstory Feel free to skip this section if you either already know all this or don’t care. For years SFF enthusiasts have been clamoring for someone, anyone, to bring …

News

SFX Computex 2017 roundup

As promised, here is the SFX power supply Computex 2017 roundup. While not as extensive as the SFX-L roundup and they’re mostly budget units, more competition and options in this space is always very welcome. Akasa As covered in the Akasa booth article, they have two upcoming SFX units of 350W and 450W capacity. They are non-modular, feature a 92mm fan, and are of Bronze-equivalent efficiency. I say equivalent because the display units at least did not feature a 80 PLUS rating but a “85% efficient” label instead. The OEM is Sirfa/High Power. Cooler Master When we checked in with Cooler Master …

News

SFX-L Computex 2017 roundup

There sure were SFX-L units all over the exhibit hall at Computex this year! I love this because I truly believe that SFX and SFX-L have the potential to supplant ATX as the standard form factors for PC power supplies (reducing the space the PSU takes up inside the case in the process), and we’re starting to reach an inflection point of SFX and SFX-L PSU availability from multiple companies. The reason I say that is because having more SFF power supply options encourages case manufacturers to design around the form factor, which in turn creates a bigger market for these PSUs, which encourages …

News

Akasa Venom RG prototype ITX case, SFX/SFX-L PSUs, and more

While wandering the floors of Computex this sharp-looking Mini-ITX case immediately caught my eye, especially when I saw whose booth it was in. This is the prototype Venom RG case from Akasa. While Akasa has the Venom line of gaming products, most of their cases though are aimed at the industrial market so I was quite surprised to see this premium-looking Mini-ITX case from them. The exterior design is very clean, with thick silver aluminum panels and a steel frame. In fact, the front is so clean that there isn’t even any front IO present, including the power button! According to …

News

SilverStone’s new Argon AR11 49mm LP cooler

Rounding out our coverage of SilverStone’s booth from Computex 2017 is a new addition to the Argon series of CPU coolers, the Argon AR11 low-profile heatsink. The heatsink is about 94mm x 97.5mm (including the tips of the heatpipes) in width, but the height measures in at exactly 49mm excluding the tops of the fan mounting screws. The air pusher that will come with the AR11 is a 92mm x 20mm PWM fan that attaches to the heatsink with four screws. So swapping the fan with a shorter one to reduce the overall height is just a matter of using appropriately shorter …

News

An actual SFF eGPU dock appears from GIGABYTE!

Edit: The product page is now live on the GIGABYTE website here. While waiting in GIGABYTE’s VIP suite on the 36th floor of the Taipei 101 to take a look at their new B350 AM4 Mini-ITX motherboard, we had a chance to take a look at this very unexpected product from GIGABYTE. This is the AORUS GTX 1070 Gaming Box, a truly SFF eGPU dock! After being plagued by horrendously big docks that outsized some entire ITX gaming cases for the past year, we finally have what looks to be a worthy SFF solution for adding graphics horsepower to your …