Interest level query: DIY-friendly, high power, highly compact, desktop computers.

I ran across an article the other day about some upcoming product offerings from a certain industrial electronics manufacturer, and it got me thinking about some alternative applications.

If there were a product available which would give you a high power* desktop computer in roughly twice the volume of a high-end GPU, is that something that any of you would be interested in?

What I have in mind would be a roughly 285x105x160mm (DxHxW) and be fully user-serviceable and upgradeable (within the limits of certain parts). This would come to roughly 4.79L, which is smaller than an Apple Pro (5.50L), and less than half the volume of the NCASE M1 (12.60L). Cost would probably be somewhere in the $1,500-$2,000 ballpark for the chassis, motherboard, CPU, and PSU. This would be a roughly $700-$1,200 premium over a comparable miniITX-based system in an NCASE M1.

Possible alternative configurations could have lower power Intel chips and/or AMD APUs for correspondingly lower price (rough estimate for an AMD RX-4277BB based model would be ~$500 cheaper but would have lower speed on one of the M.2 slots and one M.2 slot would be disabled).

*
CPU: Most likely the E3-1505M (most similar to the i7-6700T)
RAM: 2x DDR4 SO-DIMM (ECC compatible)
GPU: Any full size PCIe GPU
Storage: up to 2x PCIex4 M.2, up to 4xmSATA/4xSATA(2.5")

So I was doing some thinking on this yesterday, and if the design were to be limited to the new "miniITX GPU" cards that have been coming out recently (6.7" max length rather than 11"), the entire design could be brought down to 3.54L (225x150x105mm). This would limit the GPU choice available, but it would make it the smallest device on the market with desktop class hardware, by a pretty hefty margin.

A question for anyone voting in the poll: if the estimated price is too expensive, would you mind adding a comment stating what a doable price range would be? The estimates in the OP are just that: rough, back of the envelope, guesses. I wouldn't be surprised if it came out cheaper than that.

I've seen the M1 and have been really curious about it. I'd like to have a LAN machine, especially for demoing VR. I've also seen this case which is pretty impressive.

As always, however, I have no budget for this. I'm interested, but my wife and I are always focused on the next money step. We literally plan out our big yearly expenses at least six months in advance. It was last December that I told her the biggest (and essentially only) thing I wanted this year was an HTC Vive. We were going to buy a house this year, but it's been harder than I thought to find the right thing so last weekend we just paid $4k off my student loans just to feel like we're making headway on something.

Anyway, I'd be interested based on a prototype. M.2 for a hard drive would be fine, but I personally would like a full size GPU.

Yeah, I ran across the DAN A4 recently, and that's actually what prompted me to consider the miniITX GPU. My thinking being that: if a user wants a top-end GPU, they probably want a top-end CPU, not a step-down-from-top like this would be. If higher power is a priority, the DAN A4 is actually an awesome choice, and I think it's about as small as a miniITX-based system can get. But, if size is the priority, and you can live with a step-down-from-the-top GPU (miniITX GPUs are currently available up to GTX970 and Radeon R9 Nano, which looks to perform about on par with the GTX980, or a bit higher) then we could cut off 1.25L.

I'll be evaluating both options. Fortunately, the harder component to build will work with both. More on that in a bit.

I hear you on the cost; that, I think, will be the single largest hurdle on this thing. We'll see how things turn out; hopefully it'll be cheaper than I'm expecting.

So, for a bit of context on what I'm thinking of, this article is what started me thinking. Key being:

Quote:

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With a bit of digging, we learned that Adlink also is readying two other Skylake-based COM Express lines. The “Express-SLE” will be minted in Type 6 Basic size, will use Intel’s Xeon E3-15XX v5 processors and CM236 chipset, and will support ECC RAM (hence the “E” at the end of the family name).

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As I noted earlier, the E3-1505M is the likely candidate for this board, given the layout of the Intel SKU lineup. This is very exciting to me because, as I noted, this CPU is about on par in performance with high-end i7 CPUs. What makes this exciting is the format:

COM Express is a Compute On Module standard, primarily used for industrial applications, which basically takes all of the complicated circuitry and components of a motherboard, and places them on a small module. These connect to what are called "carrier boards" which provide connectors for I/O, peripherals, expansions, and the like.

The COM Express Type 6 Basic format is 95x125mm. Based on my rough sketching and estimates, I should be able to build a carrier board with the above mentioned connections in less than 150x150mm. Initially this doesn't seem like much of a decrease over miniITX (170x170mm; so it's about 23% smaller), but the key differentiator is that all of your components (storage/etc) end up on the carrier board and we strip the system down to only what is needed.

It sounds promising, and the GTX 970 and R9 Nano are both pretty strong cards (if you leave price out of the equation on the nano). I'm still interested for sure, but seeing even a digital prototype will make a huge difference.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by d_stilgar

seeing even a digital prototype will make a huge difference.

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Aye, that's the next step. Coming shortly, hopefully (need to dust off my CAD skillz).

I haven't had time yet to finish the initial CAD designs for this, but Adlink posted a datasheet for the upcoming CoM.

http://www.adlinktech.com/PD/marketi...sheet_en_1.pdf

This gives us confirmation on the pinouts and CPUs. Looks like there will only be 7 PCIe lanes available (outside of the 16x for GPU), not the 8 I was hoping for, but that's fine; just means that one of the M.2 slots will be a 2x instead of a 4x. I'll tie in the seventh lane to one of the mSATA connectors to make it a hybrid mSATA/mPCIe slot.

CPUs we're interested in for this idea are: E3-1505M and i7-6820EQ. They are essentially the same aside from ECC support and some additional business-oriented capabilities on the E3. Which one I'll be targeting will largely depend on price and availability. ECC support would be nice, but if the E3 CoM is significantly more expensive, I'll be sticking with the i7.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by x88x

CPUs we're interested in for this idea are: E3-1505M and i7-6820EQ. They are essentially the same aside from ECC support and some additional business-oriented capabilities on the E3. Which one I'll be targeting will largely depend on price and availability. ECC support would be nice, but if the E3 CoM is significantly more expensive, I'll be sticking with the i7.

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I should note, me "targeting" one of these CPUs just means that'll be the only I'll be prototyping with. The beauty of the COM Express standard is that (in theory) any COM Express board can be connected to the carrier board and everything Just Works because the COM Express connector pinout is standardized.

What would these be used for, really?

As in, what could this computer form factor do "better" than a notepad, laptop, or desktop? No doubt applications can be found in all sorts of industries, but we already have laptops/desktops/etc ... and I suspect most consumers (not us DIY modding types) are chiefly interested in dedicated computing machinery (like TV/media set tops, etc) looking more like sleek Sony appliances than like beastly tech boxes. I even suspect that homo technopublicus has barely reached that evolutionary cusp where it has dawned on him that he wants fewer all-purpose devices with more intelligence and intercompatibility, he doesn't want more and more special-purpose devices which are locked into dumb or proprietary functions. What could one of these computers do that would convince my calculator-hating old uncle to buy one instead of buying an iPad to hate instead?

The idea of these computers is very interesting to me, their purpose and niche seems ill-defined.