Guides

How Small Can You Go? Part 1

Small Form Factor is a challenge to a large part of the community – how small can you build? I set out to find out (with the help of Sketchup) how small can you really build with M-ATX? M-ITX? Let’s go… Throughout this article I will be using standard component sizes and measuring internally. When taking into account materials, component tolerances, manufacturing tolerances and design elements, the size can grow markedly from the internal volume. I haven’t covered all possible layouts, but it should give you an idea what to consider. I’m ignoring drives for this, as this is only a …
News

GIGABYTE Announces Full Support of the New Intel Xeon Processor E3-1200 V4 Product Family

Gigabyte has release BIOS updated to support the latest line of Intel Xeon processors – a boon for those of us who demand workstation or server reliability and accuracy. Read Gigabyte’s Press Release below: “Taipei, Taiwan, June 2nd – GIGABYTE Technology, a leading creator of high performance server hardware, is happy to announce today, in coordination with Intel’s official launch, that its entire line-up of C220 / H87 server and workstation motherboards now supports the new Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 V4 product family. Click here for GIGABYTE’s line-up of motherboards supporting the Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 V4 product family Click here for GIGABYTE’s line-up of …
SFFReview Archives

DeepCool Launches a New SFF Cooler

Deepcool has launched a new CPU cooler under their Gamer Storm branding, aimed at SFF builds! Here’s a preview:   Low-Profile Design Based on the concept of designing a SFF cooler for Mini ITX boards, the overall dimension of GABRIEL is 120X118X60mm with a 20mm thick fan included. The low-profile design ensures the widest compatibility.   Four Heatpipes & Nickel Plating GABRIEL consists of a copper base with four copper heatpipes soldered and aluminum fins. The full set of heatsink is nickel plated in order to keep away from oxidization to ensure a long lifespan.   ‘Silent’ PWM Fan GABRIEL …
SFFReview Archives

AuckLAN5 ‘Live’ Blog!

Hey folks, and welcome to my ‘as close to live as possible’ blog from AuckLAN5, where SFFr is sponsoring a Minecraft Creative Tournament, and confusis (John Morrison) is participating in many tournaments! After some power issues caused by the building being a little old, and not designed for tens of high powered gaming rigs, the Admin team has us up and running again. To follow will be notes as to the happenings at this packed house LAN event here in Auckland, New Zealand.   A packed house here at AuckLAN5.   A quick size comparison – my ITX rig and …
SFFReview Archives

Featured Mod – C4B12’s CURV3D

C4B12 is a relative newcomer to our forum, but he has already impressed us with his scratchbuild CURV3D. Here’s how he built his HTPC scratchbuild!   The Beginning I got the idea for this build when I was looking at some of the acrylic I had left from Cold Winter. Saw some nice shape coming. So I started cutting, and got these two acrylic pieces.   Standing on it’s own feet I got some nice hifi-looking feet and some hinges to put the two pieces together.   Front panel Then I made a front and backplate and powdercoated them white. …
SFFReview Archives

Bitspower Teases Full Cover Block for Maximus VI

Bitspower, one of the bigger players in the watercooling market has been teasing us with pictures of a new product, a full cover waterblock for the M-ITX ASUS Maximus VI.   Black Nickel The block, like it’s previously released sibling, is what Bitspower calls a U.S.C design (Unibody Style Construction Design)   Black Copper This is a concept Bitspower uses to define a single solid block that covers all the major heat generating parts on a motherboard.   Clear Nickel Bitspower uses C1100 Copper for the block’s base and hi-quality acrylic for the top cover. The base comes in two …
SFFReview Archives

ASRock M8 Preview

Ever the fans of smaller systems that we are, we couldn’t help but notice this new system from ASRock – the M8.   M8 The M8 is a barebones M-ITX system based on the Z87 chipset   Design It has been designed to stand out, and stand out it does!   Control The knob on the front panel doubles as a system monitoring device as well as a control system   Functional The control system has quite a few handy features, taking it well past a typical fan controller.   Upgradeable The system features a 450w SFX PSU and can …
SFFReview Archives

Welcome to the new SFFReview.com

Well hello there!. Welcome to the new SFFReview.com! Built from the ground up by our magnificent coders, we present the new home of everything small form factor. Now, for a little bit of history. Back in 2007 Craig Brugger began a site known as LOSIAS.net, as a home for his projects, beginning with Project, you guessed it, LOSIAS. LOSIAS stood for Lots Of Stuff In A System, and that’s a statement we still stand by today. Small Form Factor is a high density computing system. Lots of power, performance and potential in a small box that takes up very little …