B. Mann Consulting

I want to keep some sort of track of the tiny boxes that are floating around out there, but apparently somebody has decided that this is the way of the future (actually, I agree). So, a bunch of links to reviews about various small form factor (a.k.a. SFF) PCs. Some are nothing more than small cubes, while others are leaning more to the "stereo component" look.

After reading through the articles and the specs, my 1Ghz Duron seems pretty low-powered. Well, it is low-powered! I'll get a new PC for testing in 2006, when Longhorn ships. Now click the read more link for the article URLs.

• X-bit Labs: Three Small Form-Factor Barebone Systems for Pentium 4 from Shuttle, Soltek and FIC: three cube systems, which make nice gaming systems when paired with a decent graphics card
• X-bit Labs: MSI MEGA: Mini-System with Maxi-Features: I talked about the MEGA already, this is a full review. Conclusion seems to be that you can get a lot of the components for cheaper, but the look/style may very well count for a lot. Are the companies that make these boxes running the same equation and reallizing that "style" has higher margins?
• OCWorkbench: ABIT DiGiDice AB-2003 i865G SFF Barebone Review: features a giant front-panel LCD screen that can display all sorts of information. And a giant "volume knob". And Serial ATA?! I gues it shouldn't be surprising that this box is high-performance, since it is being reviewed by an over-clocking site...
• Gamer's Depot: FIC IC-VL67: they especially mention that the power supply has enough juice to handle a 3.2Ghz P4 plus a Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card...