The list of intriguing new Mini-ITX cases just keeps on growing, this time with the announcement of the Fractal Design Node family of cases at Computex. Representing Mini-ITX will be the Node 304. The Node 304 is a relatively petite cube-style small form factor case capable of housing six hard drives, making it an exciting option for HTPC or home server builds. […]
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Mini-ITX always seems to be right on the cusp of bursting into the mainstream. Low-power and cool running processors abound and many of the major manufacturers are offering compelling mini-ITX motherboards, but for those of us that like to roll our own systems, the biggest challenge in selecting components for a mini-ITX build is often in selecting the right case. […]
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Every so often, a case manufacturer decides to try to break the mold and release something new and different. Such efforts tend to result in, at best, niche products, but occasionally the result is so eye-catching, that I can’t help but root for it. SilverStone’s FT03 was one such case. The first time I saw a picture of the FT03 in all […]
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Few things can take the shine off a new HTPC faster than a noisy fan, and few components are more likely to be the source of that noisy fan than the power supply. There are many ways to hide the sound of a CPU cooler and eliminate case fans, but for most folks, there is little remedy for a PSU […]
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At Cebit this year, ZOTAC unveiled three new ZBOX mini-PCs. At the show, ZOTAC was also showing off a prototype motherboard for a new generation of ZBOX machines, a motherboard that was only a fraction the size of a mini-ITX board and even smaller than VIA’s pico-ITX standard. It merited little more than a blurb in the Cebit write-ups that […]
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I recently had a Blu-ray player die right in the middle of family movie marathon night, leaving me wishing that my HTPC was equipped to take its place. An HTPC like the ZOTAC ZBOX Blu-ray AD05 Plus would have come in mighty handy. The AD05 is the latest in ZOTAC’s line of Blu-ray equipped mini-PCs. The base model is a […]
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March seems to be turning into the month for hard drive technology announcements. Last year, Samsung was showing off the first 4TB hard drives. This year, Seagate is showing off the technology that they expect to take hard drives up as high as 60TB. That technology is Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR), a system that uses lasers to flip the bits […]
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Cebit is usually one of my favorite tech trade shows. CES may be fun, but shows like Computex and Cebit are when the real hardware is unveiled. Unfortunately, between the Windows 8 Consumer Preview release and the new iPad announcement, this year’s Cebit kind of fell through the cracks for me. It’s unfortunate too, because there was some neat stuff on […]
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ZOTAC kicked the new year off at CES with the announcement that would be unleashing a new line of ZBOX mini PCs in both AMD and Intel flavors. We’ve seen a review of the AMD E-450-based AD04, but if Intel Atoms are more your speed, then the ID80 may be worth considering. Under normal circumstances, an Atom-based system would be […]
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VIA has announced a pair of new mini-ITX boards, the EPIA-M900 and EPIA-M910, aimed at digital signage and consumer media applications. The new boards can be outfitted with the VIA Nano X2 processor, but are also the first to support VIA’s QuadCore processors. Both boards pair the processor with the VX900 chipset that we most recently saw VIA using on their […]
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