New PC design

I had the idea many years ago, and came up with some sketches for a computer case very similar to the one of the Amiga 500, where one could fit an microATX motherboard, single slot graphics card, a powerful cpu, fully loaded with standard ram, and possibility of 2 x 2.5 HDD units. It would have 2 usb ports on the left and 2 on the right. It would have it's own built-in power supply (350 watts and above). You would still have the standard backplate where you can plug all your accessories. Sound would have to be built-in the motherboard (AC97 or various other more interesting ones). The DVD burner is a slimdrive. Finally, the unit is also fitted with 3 x 50mm intake fans to supply air circulation.

With that sort of box, you can easily imagine a powerful setup. Let me give an example:
- Core 2 Quad QX6700 (with low profile Vantec CCK-7015 HSF)
- Nvidia Geforce 8600GTS (single slot) graphics card
- Asus P5LD2 VM DH motherboard
- 4 gigs of OCZ Reaper PC2-8500, DDR2 memory
- 2 x 250GB 2.5inch 7200 SATA2 HDD
- Pioneer DVR-K17 Slim Drive
- Seasonic SS-400H1U 400 watts PSU

All this neatly fitted in a new form factor PC case that is no bigger than an A500/A1200 (in fact it looks close to the A500 model), fitted with a very nice keyboard and the latest technology in PC parts.

Your toughts?

http://www.cybernetman.com

Andy

LOL! That design sure is ugly! You'd buy that Andy? Not me. Not to mention that it's not your choice of parts, and the price must be out of proportion for what it offers.


Give me a break! It can't even run Blitz3d!

Ok, for the more powerful model (the ZPC-9100), that uses a 150 watt PSU, hardly enough to support ANY graphics card combined with a powerful processor. It's and old design of theirs using apparently a P4 compliant motherboard. The slimdrive IMHO is on the wrong side. I suppose they haven't found a heat dissipation solution between that and the PSU.

It's a "wannabe" futuristic design syle of all-in-one system. It's not a de-facto "ISO class" standard all-in-one design, such as the ATARI 520ST, MSX 2+ (SONY HB-F9S for example) or Amiga 500/1200.

Or as a reference, you can look at the Acorn Archimedes 3000 as a reference for my design:
http://www.silicium.org/uk/acorn/archi3000.htm

In an all-in-one PC design, it is imperative to leave enough room for the graphics card. Usually, you prepare at least 220 to 250mm for the length of the graphics card, which stretches from the back of the unit and under the keyboard close to the front. So, in essence, you will end up having "minimum" a case that has an overall depth of 320mm. The width is the same as a standard AT keyboard, which is roughly 450mm. That's how it is supposed to be. 450mm is the exact width that you can use to slide a keyboard inside a rack unit panel (convenience size).

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/pcrange.html?FEN

I'd much rather have it built into the monitor and not have a heavy as buggery keyboard to lug about.

That sort of thing has been about for ages though hasn't it, take a laptop, flip the screen round the other way and plug and external keyboard into it... hey presto 'PC built into screen' yeah, big whoop.

Oh, cool! It reminds me of the TI-99 and a bit less of the TRS-80 CoCo (my first computer).

The good ol' 1980s when there were a dozen makers to choose from and the rigs were like biplanes compared to today's stealth fighters! That Acorn Archimedes 3000 is more like the CoCo or the Tandy 1000 EX (my second system).

It'd be hard to justify owning a PC design like either of those from a practical standpoint, but I'd sure love it for the nostalgia.

I wasn't suggesting it was new, just that I would prefer it built into the monitor than built into the keyboard.

That Tandy, which I do remember because one of my friends in those days had one, was a huge beast! Plus it weight a ton... An Archimedes A3000 (or A3020) or an Amiga 500 for that manner is much smaller and mugh lighter.
In fact, you can't put a tube monitor on an Amiga 500, as it would probably get crushed (not to mention there isn't enough room to put one).

The truth is, PC design hasn't evolved one bit. You can prove it to yourself, just look at a Sharp X68000 (dated 1987) or the NeXT workstations. Just look at the PC tower of today and the PC tower of 1985.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlgEY7ZX30I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdPxKDJzt7Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efnKLV7wSNk

Seems a bit daft to put an expensive computer inside a keyboard when keyboards are easily breakable but cheap and easy to replace.

You could always get a laptop I suppose.

There is no way your proposed design could dissipate the heat generated by your proposed components. It might not actually melt, but it would be much, much too hot to touch, and you would have to clean the fans regularly (like each day).

What FlameDuck said. There's a reason that the majority of laptops use relatively slow CPU's and have sub-standard video adapters -- ultra compact design + high-end components = HOT.
Ever said next to a 1U server case? sure it's low profile, but those things also tend to be insanely LOUD thanks to the dozen+ 1" fans going nuts inside the case.

Personally I've found that *silence* is much more desirable when it comes to a Pc than looks/size. (As far as the old Amiga designs were concerned: I didn't mind the A1200, but the 500 sure was *ugly*)

Why not just buy a cheap laptop and chop the screen off :P
(that is delicately remove it with the right tools and mount it on a nice stand with a connection of some kind)

Or simply leave it on and save lots of bother...

Lol, I think i missed the point somewhere didn't i :/

I have a 833MHz Celeron laptop and a 550Mhz Athlon desktop, both of which I run Blitz3D and BlitzMax on...

Good for you. You don't need a 3D accelerator to run BlitzMax. Blitz3D is a little different.

@FlameDuck:
I have my doubt about if high density resin would actually even get hot enough to the touch. The fans would need cleaning if they didn't have a filter behind them (intake fans). The designs I have made for these portable systems are all tought out since 2004, and parts get better every now and then. 2.5 inch HDDs are dissipating less and less heat as they evolve. Power supply get stricter regulations, such as 80 Plus, which dissipate less heat and give more wattage output. CPUs such as the new INTEL core 2 Duo and Quad dissipate little heat compared to the old Pentium 4s. The only ennemy towards a dense system remain the graphics cards, which consume and dissipate still a lot of heat. But a midrange graphics card is quite reasonable, if not overclocked.

So? I don't know what model you were looking at, but the only two I can find both have Intel 3d graphics cards, both of which are Shader Model 2.0 ( or higher ) compliant. That's more than enough to run B3D.

And I can't find any that have an 800mhz CPU, come to think of it. I can only assume you're confusing the CPU speed with the FSB speed.

Laptop's best.

http://www.cybernetman.com/Default.cfm?DocID=9000

I built my server inside the fridge.

It looks ugly but its nice and cool.

Yes, as I assumed, you're confusing the Front Side Bus with the CPU clock speed.

I'll conclude from what I read here, nobody seems interested in the concept, or are afraid to voice themselves.

Well okay. Which part of the laws of thermodynamics don't you understand?

Then you'd just have to clean the filters instead.

No they don't. My laptop drive gets much hotter than the HDD I had in my A1200. Why?

a) It's spinning faster.
b) It has a higher density, which in turn means that the heads need to be closer to the cylinder.

Besides the point that 80 Plus isn't a regulation, it is not possible for any PSU to have an 100% efficiency rate. Some heat will always be generated. Now while it's true that modern PSUs are marginally more efficient at transforming electricity, they need to generate significantly more power. So yes, a 20 Watt 2007 PSU will waste less energy in the form of heat than a similar 2004 model, 20 watts is no longer sufficient to power even the most basic "Vista Ready" PC. If we say that a 2004 has a 95% efficiency rating at 20 watts, it will be wasting roughly 1 watt of heat. A 2007 with a 98% efficiency rating, pumping out 400 watts of electricity will still be wasting 8 times as much heat.

Which was a flaw of the old Pentium 4's, more than anything. Seriously, which heatsink is larger, the Intel Core Duo one, or the one you had in your 2004 PC?

No. Even without a graphics card, or using one of the Intel on-board ones Gabriel mentions, the biggest enemy is the obstruction of airflow. The denser your system gets, the more difficult it becomes to dissipate heat, because of the lack of sufficient airflow, around large surfaces (like for instance a heatsink).

Or maybe they just realize that you're wrong?

I think the design could work... I just don't see any possible reason why someone would want to. You would have the worst of both worlds... laptop expandability issues with the need to plug a monitor into the machine like a PC. One or the other. Not an unhappy medium ground.

It was good back in the days of the amiga because laptops were more of a "luggable" machine than a laptop. Almost all pc's were plugged into a monitor and sat right where they were placed for most of their useful life. But laptops are no longer underpowered pieces of crap. My alienware has a dual core athlon and a 7900GTX video card... It has dual hard drives in raid array... 2 gig of ram... dual dvd burners... hell it even has a video camera.

Sorry, but your design is a step backwards. But keep plugging away. Rome wasn't built in a day.