Log What's the next big small thing?

[petricor]

Hey all,

I feel things are getting a bit stagnant in this space as the underlying hardware leaps at the intersection of does-it-run-crysis, and does-it-look-reasonably-small-next-to-a-can-of-coke seem to be rare recently. The only thing I'd bet my money on is that at some point later this year we'll see a next gen Nvidia flagship - same size, more punch, probably more expensive - reasonably predictable.

So - what's your take at the next exciting big small thing to build?

Tiny PSUs? Workstation-grade ARM64 CPUs doing away with ATX boards as we know them? Scalable multiprocessor platforms at desktop size?

Curious to hear what you think the future may hold!

 

[Damascus]

Well, I can’t quite match the raw specs of many builds, I’ve been working on something “big” for a while. After acquiring an EK annihilator, an S4T-L (made almost entirely of prototype parts lol) and a trusty 500w GaN unit from HDplex my 180mm rad build is just missing the 180mm radiator.

I’ve been running a 3080 and 5700X3D for a few months on the GaN, but because of my desire to not pay for a 3080 block I’ll be using a 3060 that’s ready for water. I’m aiming to have the build online with a 4080 or 50-series equivalent when the new hardware drops.


As you can see, the S4T-L is a bit bigger than the S4M! I think the 180mm rad and DDC pump should make up for the additional 1.6L of volume when it comes to usability though

 

[Curiosity]

I feel like perf per watt is kinda cool
And to my eyes running the fastest hardware on the smallest PSU (within flag limits) is exciting.

Currently I'm working on replacing my WLP350 w/ a LOP-300-12 for my desk mini build. It's a 4070S + 5600g, nothing crazy but I feel like the 180-300w (450w 3s peak) of the new unit is safely close to the limits of the combination, and it's half the size of the old PSU.

 

[HWI]

There is some pretty efficient hardware in the current generation of GPUs and CPUs. I mean you can stuff a 7800X3D and 4070 Ti Super in a 4.9L case without any physical modification, that's a lot of power in a small package when it comes to gaming.

 

[Jace]

For me, the most exciting thing is smaller and more efficient hardware. And APUs. Just recently, we've started to really see big gains with GaN power supplies and powerful iGPUs. I'm not much of a gamer anymore, so I have no need for a big and powerful GPU. I'm fully committed to using only APUs now and in the future.

CAMM2 RAM is also a really exciting new thing, especially combined with APUs. I just hope that it actually becomes a standard in the desktop segment and is not just for laptops. There's already the one MoBo from MSI that uses it, but that's just one motherboard... Fingers crossed.

And then there's the mini PC market... Which, honestly, is starting to look really tempting for an APU user. I just hope that more reputable manufacturers with better warranty policies will jump in because I have my reservations about the "a dime a dozen" smaller Chinese manufacturers.

 

[Curiosity]

+1 for CAMM2

 

[REVOCCASES]

+1 for CAMM2

+2 but only if they place it somewhere under the board, else this would waste quite some space on an ITX board...

 

[Shatrod]

im excited for the AMD strix halo APU.
I would love it if it became the rise of STX. If it truly is 4070-ish performance as leaked, putting that on an asrock deskmini and a fancy case could really be awesome.

 

[HWI]

im excited for the AMD strix halo APU.
I would love it if it became the rise of STX. If it truly is 4070-ish performance as leaked, putting that on an asrock deskmini and a fancy case could really be awesome.

The 4070 performance comparison is a bit misleading. It was compared to a mobile 4070 at 80W, which would be the lowest of the low end laptop 4070s. Don't get me wrong, good performance for an APU, but we aren't talking legitimate 4070 performance here. If they could legitimately get 4070 performance out of an APU I would question why that performance is not being leveraged in their dGPUs against Nvidia.

 

[Snerual]

Good question… I would definitely love to see more GaN stuff, more quiet Flex ATX PSUs and such, or cases built around the HDPlex PSU.

Also curious if the rumored RX7400 GPU will be a 75W low profile offering and if yes, does it take the 75W crown? (For consumer hardware)

Aside from that it will be interesting to see if the BTF trend will continue and trickle down to ITX boards and mainstream cases, but with sandwich layouts now also available from mainstream case manufacturers… I feel like we would benefit more from a repositioning of the PCIe slot than from the other connectors lol.

 

[hrh_ginsterbusch]

Good question… I would definitely love to see more GaN stuff, more quiet Flex ATX PSUs and such, or cases built around the HDPlex PSU.

You might be in luck then, as I just bought a "new" case, thats probably only gonna be "do-able" with a HDPlex GaN (next on my wishlist).
But maybe not in what people normally think, like smaller, harder, insaner - more like: Sleeper PC, but different.

cu, w0lf.

 

[morj]

Not a "big" thing in terms of endgame SFF, but I'm really interested in USB PD 3.1. The theoretical power limit is 240W, so it might be cool to see a build pop up which utilizes a compact USB-C GaN charger for something we are usually see here with HDPlex GaN 250. The only caveat is that 240W is can only be delivered using 48 volts.

 

[M0NSTER]

I really want to try to shove a 5090 and 9800x3d in a 5L case. I have my eyes set on the Cooj MQ6 but I may just 3D print my own case.

 

[morj]

I really want to try to shove a 5090 and 9800x3d in a 5L case. I have my eyes set on the Cooj MQ6 but I may just 3D print my own case.

This is not the "next big thing", this is the "current big thing" adjusted for the future components, I would say.

Check out this 2 build logs about stuffing high end hardware in <= 5L:

1. petricor
2. morj

P. S.: I've built in the Cooj MQ6 before, it's huge (almost 7L) and it's not really for breaking records since the shell is very thick. It's very pretty though.

 

[M0NSTER]

This is not the "next big thing", this is the "current big thing" adjusted for the future components, I would say.

Check out this 2 build logs about stuffing high end hardware in <= 5L:

1. petricor
2. morj

P. S.: I've built in the Cooj MQ6 before, it's huge (almost 7L) and it's not really for breaking records since the shell is very thick. It's very pretty though.

I guess that's true lol it's the same goal every generation. Also I meant to say MQ4 but more realistic is probably the MQ6. But yeah my inspiration actually was petricor's 4090 build that's about 5L.

 

[hrh_ginsterbusch]

MY next big thing is going to be a sleeper build in a ThinkCentre M73 SFF case. Which probably is identical to the Inter-Tech IT 502 / 503 Desktop cases. But the branding would be missing, so I aquired a whole system via Thinkpad-Forum

cu, w0lf.