So, we have had the Prodigy for a while now, which shook the itx market for quite some time, but now that more and more people are heading into the SFF market, we are seeing so many fabulous contenders.
Bitfenix Brodigy, courtesy overclockers.co.uk
Many people, even though the Prodigy got a face lift to support matx, are still moving to the competition to see what else is available in this go-tiny battle, and I think it can stand to reason why: the prodigy is simply one hell of an enormous itx system. Watercooling? Well, you may have a point there, but 5x120 of total available radiator space is overkill even for cf/sli setups.
Then there's the phenom and colossus series. Personally, it would be great for an matx system, but for an itx? No thanks, but it's still refreshing to see some good contenders in the matx market.
Bitfenix Phenom courtesy bit-tech.net
Bitfenix Colossus courtesy bit-tech.net
Lian-Li has had their fun with the PC-Q08, Q28, Q25, Q30, and T100. Cooler Master with their Elite 120/130 and that WTF Haf Stacker. Silverstone's SG05/06/07/08, and then their plethora of htpc cases. But all of these cases, with the exception of Lian-Li's PC-Q30, the WTF Stacker, and a couple of Silverstone's htpc's, lacked in innovation. Sure, most of them got simplicity down and kept the price reasonable, but in my opinion, none of them really shook the market because it was, for the most part, "been there, seen that" or "wtf is that?" (looking at you, Lian-Li)
Enter Fractal Design, which surprised us all with their minimalist but solid and elegant design when they flopped into the market with their Define and Define XL. I must admit that if I were to build another rig right now, I would choose the r4, hands down.
Well, they came back and brought some refreshing competition to the ITX market with the Node 304. (now in white, yaaaay)
Fractal Design Node 304, courtesy pcper.com
An absolutely outstanding case. Innovative, well thought out, expandable, great price point, and still downright beautiful. I must give Fractal's designers a hand. They know how to build elegant cases, without going gaudy or making them bastardy expensive. I've built in this case 3 times now, and I LOVE IT. Ever since it was released it has been the first case I recommend for ITX gaming builds, and my second recommendation for SFF NAS/server right next to the current king, the pc-q25, with its f***king 7 3.5" + 1 2.5" drive bays (we really need another contender to that q25, and the node 304 is the closest it comes)
LIan Li pc-q25 with 6/7 3.5 bays + 1 2.5 bay used courtesy silentpcreview.com
I mean seriously, someone PLEASE make another contender to the q25. That market needs to be shaken up a bit.
Well, on to the new contenders.
At CES 2013 there were 2 ITX cases that really caught my eye. First, the ASROCK (yes, asrock, IKR?!?!) M8.
Asrock m8, courtesy hardforum.com
A great contender. It's about time someone other than F***ING DELL with their Alienware X51 took into account a f***ing riser card to save space
Co-designed by BMW, this case is nothing to gawk at. It supports a graphics card up to 11.4" long with room to spare for those beastly oversized coolers like the HIS blower-style or the Asus triple insanity (though I still would not use a non-blower style cooler in this or any itx) if you opt to not put hard drives on the tray beneath the gpu.
However, here's the real kicker.
It's only available as a barebone. The specs for it are as follows:
Silverstone 450w strider with short cable kit
Asrock z87 m8 (6 sata gb/s, quad-antenna AC wifi with bluetooth, 2 so-dimm ddr3, 4 usb3, 4 usb2, 1 gigabit, 1 esata, creative soundcore 3d)
Dvd combo slim ODD
Up to 5 2.5" drives or 1 3.5" and 1 2.5"
4 70mm fans
Front programmable OLED display with dial
$550, USD
Yeah, I know what you're thinking, 450w for a rig that asrock claims you can overclock, and that's WITH a gpu.
Uhm...
Yeah.
Don't put anything more than a 7870 or 760 in here. Just don't. Please spare the magic smoke.
Also... 550 bucks?? Really?? That needs to be dropped by at least 100 to remain competitive, unless Asrock really thinks that this barebone kit is the end-all be-all king. Or they spent all their money in R&D with BMW. Or both.
I'm just interested in the case, f**ck off, other hardware.
If you really want to see more about it, here's a video.
http://youtu.be/3u_IAQcZH90?t=6m59s
Next, also appeared at CES 2013, the Silverstone Raven ITX.
Silverstone Raven-i, courtesy of techpowerup.com
So, another awesome case. I'm more excited for this than any other case rumored to come out. Specs have not been confirmed, but what we can see here are 3 3.5" bays at the top, a slim odd, and I assume some place to put a few more drives if you opt not to have fans below the risen gpu. If you look closely at the side of the case in the second picture, it looks like you can also put in 2 more 80/92mm fans.
I can already see the cons for this case, and the largest one would be cable management. However, Silverstone has always been very good with their manuals in their SFF cases, and more than likely the first thing in there will be something along the lines of "Silverstone recommends this case to be used with our short cable kit."
The second con is all that damn plastic. Hopefully we see less of that in the production model.
I don't know about you guys, but these last 2 cases, the M8 and the Raven ITX are what I have been waiting for for a long time. The first place I would put an ITX gaming rig would be in the home theater. HTPC's tend to be either too large to consider to put next to your a/v equip, or so slim you could never even imagine doing anything other than an APU. Now, we have cases the size of x-bones and playsh*tters that actually have full-sized gpu support.
In short, thanks to these 2 cases, we should see more contenders like this in the coming year.
:D yay.
That's all I have, folks.
Enjoy Lightning derping.
Now, let's discuss this.
Wheeeee.
