Editorial – Page 2 – SFF.Network

RGB – An Epiphany

This is one of a series of mini-rants by your faithful correspondent, John Morrison. These are part of a series focusing on issues in the SFF niche. All content is entirely opinion of John, not of SmallFormFactor.net, and should not be taken as fact. Everybody likes to be unique. This desire manifests itself everywhere – clothing, cars, and even our computers. People mod their systems, making them more to their own personal tastes. Lighting forms a large part of this. From illuminating your components, to providing a visual representation of system status, to flashing to the beat of your favourite …

Editorial

CES, My View

This is one of a series of mini-rants by your faithful correspondent, John Morrison. These are part of a series focusing on issues in the SFF niche. All content is entirely opinion of John, not of SmallFormFactor.net, and should not be taken as fact. So, CES has passed, and as usual, there was a myriad of new products, new products, new ideas. We have seen the usual; the ATX plague, the RGB disease, and the random stuff that, maybe, just maybe, should have stayed on the drawing board. While everyone has their own opinions, these are mine! [mks_separator style=”blank” height=”2″] …

Editorial

Opinion – M-DTX, The Ultimate SFF Motherboard

Quite a few years ago, AMD launched the DTX (and by extension, the M-DTX) standard, aiming to reduce costs in motherboard manufacturing by more efficiently optimising the use of a standard sheet of PCB material. In doing so, they inadvertently created what I consider the ideal SFF board form factor – M-DTX. This form factor offers the best of the M-ATX and M-ITX formats, in a balanced design. M-DTX offers us the best of the expandable SFF world – not too big, but not too small. Leaving M-ATX in the dust, M-DTX would offer us the world in a little …

Editorial

Low Volume – Episode 20 – Rewind

The three J’s (James, John, and Joshua) discuss the highs and lows of the year as it relates to SFF! Comments? Leave them in the forum here.

Editorial

Low Volume – Episode 19 – Smaller GPUs Please!

Welcome to the second of our new generation of podcasts – Low Volume – Episode 19 – Smaller GPUs Please! We’ve described our new format here. TO THE NEWS!… 1:10 https://smallformfactor.net/news/intel-readies-k-series-core-i3-kaby-lake-processor 13:36 https://smallformfactor.net/news/hps-z2-mini-workstation-announced 24:26 https://smallformfactor.net/news/msi-released-gtx-1050-ti-4gt-lp 32:15 https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/single-slot-rx-460-spotted.1169/unread Main feature 37:08 Card Form Factors Featured Forum Fread 44:45 https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/bottlenext-cylindrical-mitx-case-preorder-update.590/ Join us live next time here: https://www.youtube.com/c/SmallFormFactorNetwork/live Comments? Leave them in the forum.

Editorial

Podcast 18 – A New Beginning

Welcome to the first of our new generation of podcasts – Episode 18, A New Beginning. We’ve described our new format here. TO THE NEWS!… Intel Next Gen Intel’s Next HEDT Platform, Basin Falls, is Being Readied Kaby Lake 300 Series Chipsets to Feature WLAN Controllers and USB 3.1 Intel Core i5-7600K Tested, Negligible IPC Gains for Kaby Lake? Main feature DC-DC power supplies https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/400w-dc-atx-power-supply-from-taobao.1117 https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/hdplex-250w-alternative-what-would-you-like-to-see.603 Fortnightly Favourite Forum Fread https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/show-your-new-toys-topic.86/page-18 Join us live next time here: https://www.youtube.com/c/SmallFormFactorNetwork/live Comments? Leave them in the forum.

Editorial

Featured Worklog – K888D’s LZ7, a Quiet Gaming Cube with Internal SFX PSU

SFF Forum member K888D is aiming for the smallest, quietest SFF PC possible to fit a gaming system, at a budget that’s (hopefully!) under 100 quid (UK Pounds), in no small part due to the lack of risers or custom cabling. To meet that goal, they’ve designed the LZ7: a quiet gaming cube with an internal SFX PSU, and an overall volume that will be at or around just 6.9L. [mks_separator style=”blank” height=”2″] Initially, cardboard prototyping was used to get the basic shape and layout down – always a good idea, in our book. A few of our staff have …

Editorial

John’s Weekly Mini-Rant – SFX, The New Standard

This is one of a series of weekly mini-rants by your faithful correspondent, John Morrison. These is a regular series focusing on issues in the SFF niche. All content is entirely opinion of John, not of SmallFormFactor.net, and should not be taken as fact. Silverstone and Lian-Li have made this rant possible by releasing what I consider the tipping point for SFX – capacities greater or equal to 700w. It’s at this point that the ‘bigger is better’ community (those with CaseLabs cases, etc) will hopefully stand up and take a second look at what they are doing. 700 watts should be enough …

Editorial

John’s Weekly Mini-Rant – M-STX, Do We Really Need Another Form Factor?

This is one of a series of weekly mini-rants by your faithful correspondent, John Morrison. These is a regular series focusing on issues in the SFF niche. All content is entirely opinion of John, not of SmallFormFactor.net, and should not be taken as fact. About a year ago, Intel previewed a new form factor, as a slightly larger brother to the NUC format that they had championed. This new format was called “5×5″ in reference to the 5 inch by 5 inch PCB the board used (we’ll not get into Metric versus antiquated measurement systems here!). We didn’t hear much more about …

Editorial

John’s Weekly Mini-Rant – It’s Time For a GPU Standard for SFF

This is the first of a series of weekly mini-rants by your faithful correspondent, John Morrison. These will be a regular series focusing on issues in the SFF niche. All content is entirely opinion of John, not of SmallFormFactor.net, and should not be taken as fact. Relatively recently, a discussion came about on our forum, regarding ‘ITX’, or ‘M-ITX’ graphics cards. Quite often, new graphics cards today are marketed as ‘ITX’ products, but there’s a major problem with this – this isn’t a real, official, form factor, let alone a standard. As such, it’s a (mostly) meaningless distinction that implies a lot …

Editorial

SFF Network’s EXTREME (!!1!!!one) Thermal Testing System

Note, this is just a quick article so that we can link back to it in the future when testing those more extreme CPU coolers! Recently, a couple of manufacturers have been so kind as to supply us with some large CPU coolers to review. But this has left the team with a bit of a conundrum: do we test these coolers on our usual thermal test system, keeping the units nowhere near their true cooling capacity, or use a secondary test system meant to push temperatures upward and really see how they perform? Somewhat ironically, during the discussions around this with …

Editorial Feature

SFF Network’s Thermal Test Rig

Ever since we started reviewing CPU coolers, we’ve had a dirty (not-so-much-of-a) secret – namely, that our testing has been done on an ATX board. The reason for this was practical enough: the board itself is a part of my main workstation, and I’ve been the one responsible for cooler reviews at SFF Network! However, as we grow into a fully-fledged technology and review site, we decided it was time to build something dedicated, and more fitting to our niche of SFF systems. Thus, in today’s article, we will detail the new system, the build process, and the retesting of all our previously-reviewed coolers. While …