James Schell – Page 2 – SFF.Network

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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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ASRock X370 and B350 AM4 Mini-ITX motherboards pictured

ASRock had their hotly anticipated AM4 Ryzen Mini-ITX motherboards in their booth and we were sure to snap some pics of the both of them! The specs are identical for both models and are as follows: AM4 socket Support for DDR4 3200MHz+ (OC) on Ryzen CPU and 2400MHz on AM4 APU 2x HDMI ports 7.1 channel Realtek ALC1220 HD audio 4x SATA ports 1x M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 6x USB 3.0 (1x Type-C and 3x Type-A on rear, 2x via internal header) Intel Gigabit LAN Intel 802.11ac + BT 4.2 Edit: Unbuffered ECC RAM is supported! Here is the X370 …

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Raijintek shows off SFX-L, SFX, and a PCIe extender

Raijintek had a 450W SFX power supply at their booth last Computex, but as far as I can tell it never came to market. But this year they are showing off two SFX-L units. First is the LSFX-series Gold-rated 500W(?) Raijintek PSU-4550 unit. As can bee seen on the sign, it features all-Japanese capacitors and will include a SFX to ATX bracket. It is fully modular. The sign says 500W, but the label advertises 550W as max load. The 12V only does 41A though so I would personally consider this as more of a 500W units since most modern systems are so …

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ASRock Micro-STX updates (GTX 1080 is working!)

When ASRock unveiled the DeskMini GTX back at CES they only supported up to the MXM GTX 1060, and when Drew talked with them power delivery concerns were the main holdup for supporting anything higher. But those crazy guys at ASRock have managed to get not only the GTX 1070, but even all the way to the GTX 1080 MXM cards working in there! Even cooler, it does so while providing all the power through the MXM slot, without relying on some kind of clunky power cable setup. Under load, we were told the GTX 1080 will level off at around the low …

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Innodisk booth at Computex 2017

Innodisk isn’t a big name in memory, at least not outside of industrial uses, but they’ve risen in profile recently due to the fact that they’re one of the only providers of VLP DDR4 RAM. Here are some of the ECC Unbuffered VLP DDR4 but there are also Non-ECC versions available. [mks_separator style=”blank” height=”2″] And here’s a stick of DDR4 SODIMM. [mks_separator style=”blank” height=”2″] This oddity is Mini DIMM, which is just like it days, a miniature DRAM form factor. The Innodisk rep told me that the most common use is embedded devices like high-performance routers. [mks_separator style=”blank” height=”2″] There wasn’t any …