SFF.Network SFFn at techXpo New Zealand!

New Zealand is a tiny little country at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, so it comes as no surprise that we don't get big tech shows like CES, Computex, PAX and the like. We do get a small show called techXpo though, sponsored by local mega retailer PBTech. I wandered around taking numerous photos, and chatting with the likes of AMD, ASUS, Coolermaster, Ubiquiti and Canon.

Read more here.
 

confusis

John Morrison. Founder and Team Leader of SFF.N
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No timeframe. Only hint was that it would be ready around the next wave of board releases from ASUS.
 
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TheHig

King of Cable Management
Oct 13, 2016
951
1,171
I'm m hoping for a tanky board with great power delivery and heat sinks for days.

Please and thanks in advance Asus.

Put out one in mATX too!
 

VegetableStu

Shrink Ray Wielder
Aug 18, 2016
1,949
2,619
I imagine 4 x16 (=64) would require a lesser PLX chip. so far there's no indication of running without the PCH. (also if there's no PCH you'd be losing all the SATA and USB IO and whatnot)
 

10410039

Trash Compacter
Jul 23, 2017
39
32
I imagine 4 x16 (=64) would require a lesser PLX chip. so far there's no indication of running without the PCH. (also if there's no PCH you'd be losing all the SATA and USB IO and whatnot)
I mean x16 in slot width, not bandwidth...hehehe
 
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JosephEK

Cable-Tie Ninja
Mar 6, 2017
175
84
New Zealand is such a strange place to imagine. I picture it as one of the few places like my New York climate in the southern hemisphere.

  • I used to be more excited about Raven Ridge, but since then I've kinda changed my opinion because discrete GPU have gotten so efficient, and some so small that there's just about always a scenerio where you can get so much better performance for such negligible size compromises.
  • Happy to see AMD taking the crown back.
  • I'm not going to complain about TR4 not having ITX because I'm not sure why I might want to give up all the features that can use all those PCIe lanes. I bet there's some cool ATX cases for users who want to dabble in SFF.
  • Another AM4 ITX case is always appreciated, I think getting an 8 core 16 thread CPU into the ITX platform is great and I certainly don't want less of it. I'm content in waiting until 2018-19 for Zen 2 and I'll probably get the 1700 equivalent (R7 2700?)

That picture of the RVZ01, is that your PC? I take it you've got a Ryzen 7 in it with the Wraith Spire cooler? I know that case has enough clearance for that stock cooler and that's what my ideal plans would look like for such a Zen 2 upgrade as I mentioned earlier.

About that Gigabyte Brix thing: I see it has a GTX 1060 inside it, but how much of a system like that is modular and replaceable? Is the GPU an actual card that could be replaced or is it completely proprietary and impossible to source a replacement?

Thanks for sharing.
 

confusis

John Morrison. Founder and Team Leader of SFF.N
Original poster
SFF Network
SFF Workshop
SFFn Staff
Jun 19, 2015
4,129
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sff.network
N
That picture of the RVZ01, is that your PC? I take it you've got a Ryzen 7 in it with the Wraith Spire cooler? I know that case has enough clearance for that stock cooler and that's what my ideal plans would look like for such a Zen 2 upgrade as I mentioned earlier.

About that Gigabyte Brix thing: I see it has a GTX 1060 inside it, but how much of a system like that is modular and replaceable? Is the GPU an actual card that could be replaced or is it completely proprietary and impossible to source a replacement?

Thanks for sharing.

No, my PC wasn't at the event (I'm running an Athlon 860K in a NCase M1 btw). I shared the pic as it was the only non barebones SFF system at the event! It was at the Wacom booth, being used to demo their drawing tablets.

Regarding the brix - It's not very upgrade friendly. Here's a pic from someone else's review of the previous generation;

 
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EdZ

Virtual Realist
May 11, 2015
1,578
2,107
Using the Brix diagonal layout for an ITX board is something I haven't seen done before, could be an interesting variant on the 'ITX cube' design with the 'longest dimension' constraint moved to the diagonal rather than a side length. Tricky bit would be packing in the PSU, could probably one be done with an AC-DC on one corner and DC-ATX in another. Custom heatsinks would be nearly mandatory though, so not really any more upgradeable than a Brix. A fantastic layout for straight-through shared ventilation though.
 
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quetzacoatlx

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Aug 11, 2017
103
62
Honestly, I don't see the point to ITX threadripper, and mATX seems a bit dubious as well.
One of the main offerings of Threadripper is the connectivity. You can't house enough hardware to use those PCIe lanes, and it's tough for mATX as well. Ryzen is already bringing the 8 cores of goodness to the masses that would otherwise use X99
Just because some itx chassis looks great. For example the phantek shift x.
 

Boil

SFF Guru
Nov 11, 2015
1,253
1,094
Just because some itx chassis looks great. For example the phantek shift x.

The 'regular' Shift is a decent looking chassis, but I have doubts about its cooling abilities; would really like to see some build ups & reviews that include temp testing & such, looking at you, Hardware Canucks & Bitwit...

But the Shift X, that is a too tall monstrosity...
 

quetzacoatlx

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Aug 11, 2017
103
62
The 'regular' Shift is a decent looking chassis, but I have doubts about its cooling abilities; would really like to see some build ups & reviews that include temp testing & such, looking at you, Hardware Canucks & Bitwit...

But the Shift X, that is a too tall monstrosity...
You can get enough room for huge radiators and reservoir.
 

Bruman

Trash Compacter
Feb 24, 2017
47
37
I was there and one of my mates won a half price computer (which means I now have a full size 1080, so I guess I'm not going as SFF as I thought!). I was very glad to see more ITX based builds than most Expo's here, ignoring the disappoint high price of the Brix systems. Of note to me was the Shift X, it was much nicer in person than just looking at reviews.
 
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confusis

John Morrison. Founder and Team Leader of SFF.N
Original poster
SFF Network
SFF Workshop
SFFn Staff
Jun 19, 2015
4,129
7,057
sff.network
Some day we will have to organise some form of NZ SFFn meetup!