SFF.Network Low Volume Ep. 2 - 14nm

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• Today's hosts: Joshua Ramirez, James Schell, John Morrison, and (for the first time) Jay Mattison.
• Fractal Design's oversized Define Nano S
  • 26.8L
  • Joins other oversized mITX enclosures, including the Prodigy and Colossus M
  • A 'stepping stone' towards SFF for traditional builders
• NZXT's gargantuan flagship mITX case, the Manta
  • Around 44L!
  • Larger than many plain-ol' ATX enclosures
• AMD's Polaris GPU architecture
  • 16/14nm FinFET fabrication process
  • Emphasis on lower power consumption
  • HBM
• AMD's Zen CPU/APU architecture
  • 14nm fabrication process
  • Chipset on-die
  • Unified AM4 socket across all products
  • Mid-year launch of AM4 boards
• Jay's LogicSupply M600 review
  • ~4L mITX enclosure
  • Marketed towards industrial use cases
  • Dual PCI slots
• AMD's FirePro W series - good single-slot GPU candidates for general use or gaming SFF systems?
• From the forums: "What's your favorite PSU form factor?"
  • The lesson learned: Many options to consider, far beyond SFX and SFX-L!
• Introducing paid subscriptions to the forums: Offering premium features in order to pay for running
• Finally, the PSU PC - one of the greatest mods and "SFF-but-not-actually" builds ever conceived by man

This episode was much more polished! Our thanks to all the listeners that provided feedback, both positive and constructive.

 

[iFreilicht]

That's exactly what I was wondering about, thank you!

 

[NFSxperts]

I felt the first 2 topics were stretched out too long. It could easily be combined into a 'large itx' topic instead of repeating all the points..

 

[jeshikat]

In hindsight that probably would have been better. It just came about because the Manta was announced at CES with just vague details and then the Fractal and Manta were released in time for the second episode.

 

[Phuncz]

In all fairness, I would have loved 2-hour-long rants about oversized ITX cases, these need to be shamed into oblivion when mITX is used as a gateway to show off more LED lights and radiators. Some of us hoping Necere procedes with a 30L case project that partially supports ATX boards and here we have well-known brands releasing 44L mITX cases with more radiator surface than my car has.

BTW: I'm not being serious.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

....here we have well-known brands releasing 44L mITX cases with more radiator surface than my car has.

Modable to support E-ATX with AIO cooler and 3x GTX Titans .... what did Bitfenix have in mind when they designed such a waste of space ?

(below is the same rig with different tubing, just wanted to show the PSU and rad on the motherboard back)

 

[jØrd]

In all fairness, I would have loved 2-hour-long rants about oversized ITX cases, these need to be shamed into oblivion when mITX is used as a gateway to show off more LED lights and radiators. Some of us hoping Necere procedes with a 30L case project that partially supports ATX boards and here we have well-known brands releasing 44L mITX cases with more radiator surface than my car has.

Preaching to the choir inst a good way to welcome new people into the fold. SFFn does a brilliant job of being an open & welcoming community. The amount of knowledge amassed in its community members is immense & the quality & depth of discussion & articles top notch. The fractal review was handled very well imo and spoke to the people this case was aimed at with good reasons why they might want to look elsewhere. It was slammed pretty hard but not w/out having first had an actual reasonable look at why it was about to get slammed. 2 hour elitist bullshit ranting portrays the site & its community badly whilst simultaneously turning people new to SFF away. There are far more useful topics that could be covered in that time (such as the aformentioned 30L case from Necre) that would arguably bring substantially more value to the podcast & the site in the mindshare of a mugch larger swathe of people interested in SFF.

TL;DR i can only speak for myself but im bulk opposed to this type of thing and thats why ^
Edits for typos

 

[Phuncz]

That's ofcourse not the right direction the podcast should be going, I thought my lack of seriousness in that post was clear. I didn't mean the podcast should skip everything and just start talking about "SFF Master Race". But I do feel this perversion of SFF needs to be addressed, atleast a tiny little. It's just something I, as a singular person, have issues with as the industry doesn't really want to embrace SFF so much as they want to turn "ITX" into a banality. I'm all for welcoming people into SFF, but the first thing I think they need to learn is that SFF does not mean "mITX board in a case".

The NZXT Manta is like a Ford Focus diesel with huge quad exhausts, massive spoiler and a huge sticker on the side that says "RACING". Well no, that's just a ruined Ford Focus diesel, no hiding that fact. Nothing's wrong with a Ford Focus diesel, nothing's wrong with car styling, but jamming the two together doesn't make it a sportier car. A Ford Focus RS does that, a purpose-built machine.

I know the first time I got into espresso and thought I needed a $ 1,000 espresso machine to make good coffee. People luckily corrected me fast and said: no, your grinder is much more important, with fresh beans and good technique all fighting for the top 3 position.

When I started with photography, I thought a bigger lens and more megapixels were important for quality. Oh how wrong I was, with hundreds of variables and considerations making all the difference in the world instead of some megapixel count or lens size.

Personally I was happy people guided me in the right direction, because I would have otherwise just wasted a lot of money and not realising what I've done wrong. In the same way someone who wants an SFF case would buy an mITX board, an afformentioned mITX case and realise it's just a huge as his ATX PC with less ports, flexibility and costs a lot of money.

 

[iFreilicht]

That's pretty much in line with what James (I think it was him) said in the podcast. A lot of people start building and think they need a big ATX tower because you never know what you might want in the future, in the end they never upgrade it.

I mean really, we're all agreeing by saying something different. We just need to be educating and welcoming, helping people to understand what type of rig they actually need and that bigger isn't always better.

 

[PlayfulPhoenix]

We just need to be educating and welcoming, helping people to understand what type of rig they actually need and that bigger isn't always better.