SFF developments in the future?

[fminus]

I wanted to open the discussion on where you see SFF in the future. My thoughts:

We have seen all possible layout of a motherboard and GPU.
(Thanks to the S4/S3 + Dan Case)
PSU’s have shrunk down
(Thanks to the Hdplex/Pico/G Unit)
Perhaps in a few years, the HDPlex will be unnecessary.
Video Cards are available in the 170mm length give or take a few mm.
(Minus the 980ti. I also don’t see them shrinking that beast in size anytime soon)


What I hope to see is more availability of cases. There has been a handful of individuals on this forum that have began selling cases in a timely matter. (Awesome!) The only thing I see changing is case aesthetics and availability.

What do y’all think?

 

[Phuncz]

I'm seeing an uptick in my region's interest for SFF for gamers and builders alike. This makes me think we'll see more SFF hardware options if this isn't limited to my country and neighbouring counties.

What I wish to see happening a more enterprise way of dealing with power supply: card-edge connection or atleast higher voltage and motherboard DC-DC conversion. I'd like to have the GPU take power from the motherboard through the PCIe connector or through an additional board connector.

 

[trik777]

I am hoping now that AMD is making their new APU's s that they might consider developing smaller boards that can compete with Intel's STX and NUC.

 

[Stevo_]

I think the power drop once 7nm gets widely adopted especially for video cards will allow further shrinkage. I'm seeing a large difference in the 7nm libraries coming from the 28nm mobile version which was already a low-power variant on TSMC, even leakage current drops dramatically. Of course, core voltage drops significantly as well (low end characterization ~0.5v). Just need yields to recover which they always seem to do though SRAMs need to do some real catching up. Everything is scaling down nicely in size so far and production libraries supposed to be ready well before the end of the year.

 

[Flexon]

I also think smaller form factors will become the norm eventually. I think if more people realized they could have the same performance in a smaller box they'd prefer it.