bit-tech.net | Preview: IWILL ZMAXd2 SLI SFF

The_Pope 25th May 2005, 16:06

It's green and I want one!

kickarse 25th May 2005, 16:11

Now this is a lan box... Holy green goblin spiderman!

mclean007 25th May 2005, 16:52

Am I the only one who's slightly worried about cooling in that bad boy? I mean, a pair of Ops (X2s!!) and a SLI config in a case so small you could probably sneak it through customs and they'd have to bring out the rubber gloves. Have you seen how tight those gfx cards are? I'm seriously questioning the airflow getting into those. And now there's talk of replacing them with a pair of 6800GTs!

Nevertheless - ooooh that's a nice rig

Tim S 25th May 2005, 16:55

Dual Core AMD processors are surprisingly cool from my experiences - cooler than an FX-55. :)

LAGMonkey 25th May 2005, 17:20

But surely twin 6800s will be in the yellow or even the RED on the Nvidia temp probe.

Still....i do want one.

RTT 25th May 2005, 17:28

Looks very sweet :)

Firehed 25th May 2005, 17:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by LAGMonkey
But surely twin 6800s will be in the yellow or even the RED on the Nvidia temp probe.

Still....i do want one.

If the PSU can cope. That's a huge strain, there aren't many *desktop* PSUs that could handle dual procs and a pair of 6800GTs and more than one hard drive.

As they said it's a pair of Opties, it's safe to assume those are s940 and not s939? I'd rather see a single s939 with dual core support than a pair of s940s in a SFF, just because 940 needs special ram and whatnot.

Mister_Tad 25th May 2005, 18:26

thats just nuts, again with the psu though

quad cores and SLI is a feat for ATX psus let alone sff ones

TTmodder 25th May 2005, 18:41

F*** a powerfull sff comp. but how are they gonna squesse 2 6800 ultra 512 mb gfx down in that one

Starbuck3733T 25th May 2005, 19:01

Me likey! How does the size of this board compare to a normal shuttle mobo?

Stompy 25th May 2005, 19:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Firehed
As they said it's a pair of Opties, it's safe to assume those are s940 and not s939? I'd rather see a single s939 with dual core support than a pair of s940s in a SFF, just because 940 needs special ram and whatnot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Article
Here is the motherboard which would have to be a contender for the Most-Power-per-Square-Inch Award. Dual 940-pin sockets dominate the vista, and there is now a dual Hyper Transport link between the two CPUs

TheAnimus 25th May 2005, 21:59

that is just sweet, but soo much power in such a small space, generally a smaller PSU that has to have high current wastes more. The fans on that will make you think the worlds comming to an end, but as i was saying just the other day to a mate that in 6 months time i'll be building a gaming rig and moving my current dualie to a water cooled fully stealthed dev machine only, that thing is serisouly tempting me. The dual RS-232 ports been presented made me smile too, if its not too loud i'm seriously looking forward to that!

RotoSequence 25th May 2005, 23:31

With the size of the cooling solutions in that thing and the recent bump in complex CNC milling for custom waterblocks, I would not be surprised at all to see someone watercool this bad boy

M_D_K 25th May 2005, 23:53

want one and want too watercool it hehe :)

morgan.

The_Pope 26th May 2005, 00:34

Just bear in mind guys that nobody said it COULD handle a pair of 6800GTs - it will be demo'ed with 6600GTs and I will certainly ASK about whether it can handle a pair of faster cards.

If you can read between the lines, here is the Engrish from the sales sheet:

Quote:

Thanks IWILL engineers, thoughtful design, ZMAXd2 support nVIDIA SLi Graphics card. With two PCI-Express X16 and 400W PSU, ZMAXd2 could handle a loaded system with a dual Opteron and nVidia SLi series. The answer is: "yes". it can!

They seem fairly confident, and tbh, you wouldn't put together a system like this without knowing your stuff. You also have to be aware that many (far too many) PSU manufacturers "cheat" with their PSU outputs - I've seen 600W units actually struggling to hit 400W etc etc

So maybe, just maybe, if this IWILL unit is a GENUINE 400W, then it could cope. We'll know more next week :)

Firehed 26th May 2005, 03:50

Thanks for that Stompy... figured it had to be that way since 939's don't do dual-procs at all AFAIK.

In reality, if you can't do dual 6800GTs it's just silly to have the SLI capability there, seeing as a single 6800GT will be on par and you don't need to worry about application compatibility. If it CAN though, then it's really something. Pope, you'd better find out. In fact, bring a pair so you can test it on the spot :D

logan 26th May 2005, 11:37

Looks incredible! Now where did I put that winning lottery ticket?

Can't wait for the full feature.

Surely something that small could accidentally slip into your pocket on your way out the building...

Nexxo 26th May 2005, 13:33

I have a vision... a vision of a compact, powerful PC... a vision of a small roaring hurricane on your desk that makes your ears bleed... a vision of a squre hole burned through the desktop... and the floor below... and the basement...

How hot is that baby going to get?... The CPUs in its predecessor comfortably hit the 70C mark already.

TheAnimus 26th May 2005, 13:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nexxo
I have a vision... a vision of a compact, powerful PC... a vision of a small roaring hurricane on your desk that makes your ears bleed... a vision of a squre hole burned through the desktop... and the floor below... and the basement...

How hot is that baby going to get?... The CPUs in its predecessor comfortably hit the 70C mark already.

its like the swiss army knife of SFF PCs, you use it to catch ur food (take it to a multiplayer lan, they get sucked into the cooling fan. Then you slowly cook the capture food with ur few killowhatts of power. Then just have to eat it. yummie

jezmck 26th May 2005, 14:18

that's a ridiculous amount of power in such an ickle box.
and surely the best way to cool this would be to make it watertight and fill it with oil.

wharrad 26th May 2005, 23:37

Ummmm, SFF *Homer voice*

But yeah, makes you consider a small one for your main desktop doesn't it?

user0001 27th May 2005, 20:32

Weird. I saw this a month and a half ago at a small local LAN party. Very hot air coming out of the PSU I recall...

Lovah 28th May 2005, 08:35

Me want!

Risky 1st June 2005, 14:13

Quote:

SATA-II is now supported, meaning drives up to 3Gb/s; there are four SATA ports in the bottom right corner of the motherboard, though there is really only appears to be room for two hard drives. Maybe when the engineers were doubling just about everything else, they decided to double the number of SATA ports.

Two HDDs, one SATA Optical Drive and one external SATA port. See you really did need four ports :p

Go4t 4th June 2005, 11:26

me want
as for the video card cooling it would be rather nifty if they did the heatpipe thing like shuttle is doing in their sli box

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Preview: IWILL ZMAXd2 SLI SFF

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