Holiday 2012 Small Form Factor Buyer's Guide
by Zach Throckmorton on December 5, 2012 1:55 AM ESTConclusions
It never ceases to impress me how rapidly PC hardware advances. Compared to the SFF systems we recommended in 2011, today's small computers either cost less, are substantially more capable, or both. I am particularly pleased with the continued innovation in the ITX case market. That said, I remain disappointed in the lack of diversity of FM2 ITX boards, and I hope that motherboard manufacturers address this sooner than later, as AMD's Trinity APUs lend themselves particularly well to SFF systems.
Intel's side of the equation is served reasonably well in the budget market with Sandy Bride based Celeron chips, but we're still waiting for Ivy Bridge based Celeron offerings. The trade off with Intel right now remains one of generally better CPU performance with worse graphics performance - substantially worse when we're looking at Celeron G540 vs. a Trinity APU. If you don't care about graphics and have reasonably mainstream media habits, the Celeron chips are a good option, but as we see additional emphasis on heterogeneous compute that could change.
As I've alluded to throughout the guide, it's especially important to keep your eyes on prices as we approach 2013. Retailers, both locally and online, change prices frequently and sometimes by large amounts. Identifying specific components and watching their prices will help you acquire them for as little as possible. AnandTech's Hot Deals Forum is a great place to find out about great prices. Finally, you can ask questions of fellow enthusiasts, and share your expertise in AnandTech's General Hardware and SFF Forums.
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Taft12 - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
A 40mm fan? No, no, no, no and no.DanNeely - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
It's a 17W mobile part. A slow 40mm fan is more than sufficient when combined with the improved airflow of even a SFF case when compared to a laptop chassis. The similar sized fan on my 18W E-350 file server has never gotten gotten loud enough to be heard.dananski - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
He's probably concerned about the pitch of the sound. I've avoided anything smaller than a 120mm fan in all my builds as even quiet high pitched noise is a nuissance. Your file server probably has a low CPU load compared to the video playback cyrusfox intends to do, so I'd expect it to stay nice and cool with the fan barely on. He might not be so lucky.As for the board & integrated CPU, seems pretty good value for money, though I'd like to see some more powerful mobile chips in this sort of design. Will probably become more common with Haswell.
cyrusfox - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
Board came today, I am load testing it currently. Bios is nice, fan is fully customizable(so much so that you can set it low enough to not turn on) and cpu and gpu power can be altered(step down, you can also underclock the cpu or diable a core-won't be doing that). Trying to see how low it can go and be stable. So far it is silent and not even in its case yet(cardboard build, waiting for the last parts to arrive).You don't need much air flow for a tiny 17watt chip. The fan is removable, so you could just add some heat pipes and make a passive build out of it, CPU good to 100°C. It really is a low profile board, highest part is the audio connector on IO. Whenever Temash gets out, I'll probably replace it, but this should be more than good enough to emulate, stream, and surf on the couch.
ricardoduarte - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
Why are you suggesting 1TB hd, and no SSD in the gaming systems.I would one of these would be better:
-2TB hd, and 256gb ssd would be a better choice.
or
- 3TB hd and 64gb ssd for cache
Norseman4 - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
True it's double the price of the OS, but it looks like Win8's Storage Spaces revives and possibly improves the best part of the original WHS ... Drive Extender.It's be nice to see an investigation into SS and it's direct comparison to DE, though. (I've only seen pages on how to set up a SS, so how it functions is still unknown to me)
DanNeely - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
I looked at W8 + Storage Spaces recently; but benches put it significantly slower than rival fakeraid options. Hopefully MS will be able to patch it up to more competitive levels in an upcoming service pack (Blue?) or W9.bigfire - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
I've had my AMD Athlon 64 X2 for about 6 years and it still works well. I've never had any troubles with this guy.DanNeely - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
What mobo chipset did you use? Both of mine have been dead for over a year after nForce4 boards 4 and 5 followed my first 3 into the grave.amdwilliam1985 - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
Same here, I have x2 2.5ghz with stock fan, it's probably been 5 years now.It's still running as a champ for my workload. The only upgrade I'm made in the past 2 years is the $99 5770 :) great investments.