Video: JBC313 and JBC323 Mini PCs with Dual Intel LAN and AES-NI
October 24, 2016
We have entered the video age and made a short piece about the JBC313 and JBC323 Mini PCs. They are rugged, low power consumption and fanless Mini PCs under a litre in volume with 2x Intel I211-AT Gigabit LAN ports, powered by a Quad Core Celeron N3160 Processor with support for AES-NI acceleration in hardware. The Intel chipsets and AES-NI make these machines ideal as dedicated Linux-based network appliance devices - pfSense advocates in particular will like these. We plan to make more. If there is something else you would like us to make a video about please let us know in the youtube comments.
Gigabyte and Zotac first out of the blocks with Mini-ITX sized GTX 1070 and GTX 1060
July 13, 2016
PC Gamers have been able to use Mini-ITX motherboards and standard length graphics cards together for a long time, but is has only been fairly recently that short depth “Mini-ITX” high end graphics cards have been available. Gigabyte’s latest offering is the first card to be announced that usurps the previous king of this form factor - AMD’s R9 Nano - by fitting an NVidia GTX 1070 into a 17cm long package. The GTX 1070 Mini-ITX OC shares the same Pascal architecture as the flagship GTX 1080 whilst offering 1920 CUDA cores, VR and 1440p gaming support. To fit into the smaller form factor Gigabyte have made some changes to the GTX 1070 reference design. The card has a 5+1 phase power design (upped from 4+1), a 90mm fan with a custom blade design, and The card can be run in two performance profiles: Gaming Mode and OC Mode. Both modes are clocked slightly faster than the standard length Founders Edition card. The card has a semi-passive fan which remains off until a pre-defined temperature or GPU load is reached, keeping noise levels down under light usage. The standard GTX 1070 is a 150W TDP card and we would expect the GTX 1070 Mini-ITX OC to be very similar. With the GTX 1060 launch only days away, details are emerging from other manufacturers of their variants. Zotac look set to be first out of the blocks in the Mini-ITX form factor with their GTX 1060 Mini, with the ubiquitous 90mm fan attached to an Aluminium heatsink. Gigabyte GTX 1070 Mini-ITX OC Product Page Zotac Press Release
Mini-STX (5x5) Roundup
April 05, 2016
It's been a while since we reported on Intel's 5x5 boards - smaller than Mini-ITX boards with full size processor sockets. Here's a roundup of what has been happening. Name Change: 5x5 has been renamed as Mini-STX. ASRock have announced a H110M-STX Motherboard and a H110M-STX MINI PC using this motherboard: Tomshardware have specifications. MSI announced a Cubi 2 Plus barebones based on Mini-STX: PC World have details. ECS have shown their H110SU-02 Mini-STX board and LIVA ONE and SF100 machines based on Mini-STX : MaximumPC and LegitReviews have your back for these. Akasa have demonstrated their fanless Euler ST enclosure: : Hexus from FanlessTech this time. And finally, Silverstone have shown a Mini-STX enclosure of their own: TomsHardware again.
Intel introduce 5x5 boards: Socket CPUs supported up to 65W TDP, Smaller than Mini-ITX, Larger than NUC
September 02, 2015
Intel have introduced a new motherboard form factor targetted at manufacturers of miniature systems which measures approximately 2/3 of the size of 170 x 170mm Mini-ITX boards, with the ability to add up to a 65W TDP socket CPU. The approximation has spread to the 5x5 name - the boards more accurately measure 140 x 147mm, or 5.5 x 5.8 inches. We'll let this slide as the 5x5 board shown at IDF 2015 has some interesting features. The socket itself looks to have a narrow mounting pattern meaning custom heatsink solutions will be required. Intel are pushing manufacturers to use copper to reduce temperatures. The most powerful 65W TDP processors will sit in taller chassis due to the increased cooling requirements. Much like NUC PCs, chassis designs across manufacturers will share similarities as Intel have strictly defined the position of all components on the boards, with connectors positioned on both the front and the rear. Power is provided by an external AC Adapter. The example board appears to have a DC input, (HDMI?) Graphics outputs and Ethernet on the rear, with a headphone output and USB on the front of the board. There is a single SATA socket for chassis variants supporting 2.5in HDD or SSDs, together with an M.2 SATA socket for solid state storage mounted directly to the board. The 2x SODIMM slots suggest at least 16GB will be supported. Further coverage at Ars Technica
AMD's Project Quantum showcases their R9 Fury in an incredible custom Mini-ITX chassis
August 27, 2015
AMD demonstrated their Project Quantum at E3 this year as a showcase for their shiny new R9 Fury GPU. Project Quantum is a proof of concept created for AMD by the Mixer Design Group in Texas. PCWorld snagged and dissected unit #5 of around 12 units, revealing its cooling and powering secrets in all their glory. The nerve centre of the Quantum is an ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac Mini-ITX motherboard powered by a (shocker!) Intel i7-4790K processor. This is no off the shelf board though. All the heatsinks and several of the front panel ports have been removed.The ATX power connector has been flipped through 90 degrees and fitted with a powerful DC converter. A meaty AC Adapter sits outside the case entirely, providing the DC converter with plenty of power. The cleverest part is the cooling - a custom milled Aluminium waterblock sandwiches the board and the GPU, which all sit in the bottom half of the case together with the SSD. A pump and 180mm radiator and 3D printed reservoir sit in the top half the case, connected to the bottom by 3D printed hoses.
The Redstone PC is the Ultimate Mini-ITX Minecraft Machine
August 13, 2015
Spencer Kern put his skills as a 3D video game artist at Microsoft to good use when he created the Redstone PC. Inspired by a Minecraft redstone block, the Redstone PC is an 8.5in cube constructed from extruded acrylic bars and laser-cut acrylic sheets solvent welded with acrylic cement. The outer shell is decorated by custom vinyl decals covered with a clear poly finish to dissuade them from lifting off the surface. At the heart of his build is a Gigabyte GA-H97N WIFI Mini-ITX motherboard with an EVGA GTX 750Ti graphics card. The board is mounted upside down with strategically placed fans pulling air down and out of the bottom and rear of the case. Spencer took several rolls of paracord and a crimp tool and braided all of his custom-made internal cables, and even designed an entirely new power button to match the rest of the case. This clearly wasn’t enough work for Spencer. He also: - Fitted internal LED lighting using light strands
- Designed a two colour decal for the SSD
- Customised a mouse, headphones and an Xbox One controller
- Designed and had custom key caps printed for a mechanical keyboard
*For the benefit of our few readers from undiscovered Patagonian tribes still unfamiliar with Minecraft - Redstone is a building block used to make rudimentary and often highly complex circuits. Spencer Kern's Redstone PC
Roundup of the First Wave of Intel Skylake Z170 Mini-ITX Boards
August 05, 2015
Intel have today officially announced their 6th Generation Desktop Processor Platform, aka Skylake-S. With Skylake comes 14nm lithography, updated Intel graphics, DDR4 support, a new range of '100 series' chipsets and most importantly a new socket type: Socket 1151. Yes - you will need a new memory, processor and motherboard type to make this upgrade. The first Skylake compatible Mini-ITX boards to emerge over the past few weeks all use the 'Performance' Z170 chipset but boards using the 'Mainstream' H170 and 'Value' H110 chipsets together with the more business oriented B150, Q150 and Q170 chipsets will all follow. This is our roundup of what we currently know about the first wave of Z170 Mini-ITX boards. Expect to see the boards hitting store shelves (including our own) in the next few weeks as boards are officially announced and supplies trickle through to vendors. We will update this story as new information emerges. The ASRock Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac has Dual HDMI and DisplayPort on the back panel, together with Intel I219V LAN and both 3.5mm Analogue and Optical audio outputs powered by an ALC1150 codec. There are a healthy 7x USB 3.1 Type-A ports and a snazzy new reversible USB 3.1 Type-C port. Dual band 802.11ac WiFi internally connected to a half Mini PCI-E slot and a combo PS/2 keyboard/mouse port complete the back panel. On the board itself are 6x SATA 6Gb/s connectors, a SATA Express connector, the PCI Express x16 slot and 2x DDR4 memory slots. The board has an 8pin 12V connector. The ASRock Z170M-ITX/ac has DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort on the back panel, together with both an Intel I219V LAN and Realtek RTL8111E LAN and 3.5mm Analogue audio outputs powered by an ALC892 codec. There are a 6x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports and a combo PS/2 keyboard/mouse port. The Dual band 802.11ac WiFi looks to be internally connected to a vertical Mini PCI-E slot. On the board itself are 4x SATA 6Gb/s connectors, possibly an M.2 slot on the underside (TBD), the PCI Express x16 slot and 2x DDR4 memory slots. The board has an 4pin 12V connector. We only have a blurry picture of the Asus Z170i Pro Gaming board so far, but we can tell it has 4x SATA 6Gb/s and 1x SATA Express connector, onboard 802.11ac WiFi and most likely one LAN port. Unclear is the presence of USB 3.1 or M.2 SATA. The PCI Express x16 slot and 2x DDR4 memory slots are in their usual positions. The board has an 8pin 12V connector. The Gigabyte Z170N-Gaming 5 has at least DVI and HDMI on the back panel, together with Gigabit LAN and a double stack of 3.5mm Analogue audio outputs. There are USB 3.1 ports and a USB 3.1 Type-C port. The Dual band 802.11ac WiFi is connected to a slot on the board with a vertically mounted Intel AC-8260 Mini PCI-E card, which supports Bluetooth 4.2. On the board itself are the PCI Express x16 slot and 2x DDR4 memory slots and 2x traditional vertical SATA 6Gb/s connectors and 4x SATA 6Gb/s and 2x SATA Express connectors mounted sideways on an edge connector. The board has an 8pin 12V connector.  |  |
The Gigabyte Z170N-WIFI shares a lot of similarities with the Z170N-Gaming 5. It has Dual HDMI and DVI on the back panel, together with dual Intel I219V LAN ports and 5x 3.5mm Analogue and Optical audio outputs. There are 4x USB 3.1 Type-A ports and a USB 3.1 Type-C port. Dual band 802.11ac WiFi internally connected to a half Mini PCI-E slot and a combo PS/2 keyboard/mouse port complete the back panel. On the board itself are the PCI Express x16 slot and 2x DDR4 memory slots and 2x traditional vertical SATA 6Gb/s connectors and 4x SATA 6Gb/s and 2x SATA Express connectors mounted sideways on an edge connector. The board has an 4pin 12V connector. The EVGA Z170 Stinger has HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2 on the back panel, together with Intel Gigabit LAN and both 3.5mm Analogue and Optical audio outputs. There are 6x USB 3.0 ports and 2x USB 2.0 ports. On the board itself are an E-type M.2 SATA connector (up to 32Gbps) , 4x SATA 6Gb/s connector, the PCI Express x16 slot and 2x DDR4 memory slots. The 10-layer board has an 8pin 12V connector and 2 digit LED display which can provide POST diagnostic codes and temperature information. The ECS Z170IU-C43 is a more budget board with DVI and HDMI 2.0 on the back panel, together with Intel I219V Gigabit LAN and 3.5mm Analogue audio outputs powered by a Realtek ALC892 codec. There are 2x USB 3.1 ports and we think 4x USB 2.0 type ports. On the board itself are 4x SATA 6Gb/s connector, the PCI Express x16 slot and 2x DDR4 memory slots. The board has an 8pin 12V connector. We've yet to find a picture of MSI's Z170I Gaming Pro AC, but expect it to have Intel I219V LAN, Intel 802.11ac WiFi and MSI's USB Audio Power to stabilise the 5V output for external USB audio devices, a Turbo M.2 SATA connector, no USB 3.1 connectors and the usual array of SATA and memory slots on the board.
CES 2015: MSI Z97I Gaming ACK Mini-ITX Motherboard
January 05, 2015
MSI have launched their Z97I Gaming ACK Mini-ITX Motherboard at CES 2015 this week. The ACK is an evolution of their earlier Z97I Gaming AC board, but in this case the 'K stands for Killer - both the wired LAN and wireless LAN port chipsets are Killer branded for low latency and traffic optimisation. The Intel Z97 Express chipset board supports current Haswell (4th Gen) and future Broadwell (5th gen) processors and overclocked memory up to DDR3 3300 speed. The board has highest quality components throughout to withstand the rigours of online gaming - as you would expect on a board of this nature - though we're undecided whether the backlit audio codec is overkill or marketing genius! We'll expect to see the delightfully red and black accented ACK on store shelves within the next few weeks. MSI's Z97I Gaming ACK Mini-ITX Motherboard
CES 2015: Silverstone SG13 Mini-ITX Chassis
January 05, 2015
Silverstone's SG13 was first seen in prototype form at Computex 2014, but has now been officially launched at CES 2015 this week. The SG13 follows the effective 'Elongated Cube' Mini-ITX chassis design pattern first popularised in the early 2000s by Shuttle and now used by many manufacturers. The case supports graphics cards up to 26.6cm and up to a 15cm (14cm recommended) deep ATX power supply, meaning most low to mid range AMD graphics cards and almost all NVidia cards will fit within the 11.5 litre chassis. The Mini-ITX motherboard of course sits at the back of the case and mounting points are provided in the front for a water cooled radiator to support the meaty graphics card you just fitted. VIA Silverstone's SG13
The "Restomod TV" reinvents an 80s CRT Television as a Mini-ITX powered OpenELEC Media Center
October 09, 2014
James Nethercoat picked up a Bang & Olufsen 7702 and replaced its guts with a Mini-ITX board running OpenELEC. The "Restomod TV" repurposes the original power button and remote receiver with modern equivalents. 
Read how James performed this feat here: James Nethercoat's "Restomod TV"
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