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There are plenty of products, but they're all underwhelming. Form factor and position of all the key components is so unfortunately mismatched, that no matter h
by pornel 4y ago
There are plenty of products, but they're all underwhelming. Form factor and position of all the key components is so unfortunately mismatched, that no matter how you arrange them, there has to be a ton of wasted space.
It doesn't help much that you can have a small motherboard. You will need a CPU cooler stick out the middle of it, which already takes most of the space you have above MB's footprint. If you insert a GPU without a riser cable, you'll have to move the PSU to the side of the MB, and that's already almost as chonky as a regular ATX. So you're forced to deal with airflow-choked GPU, low-profile coolers, and no room for a powerful PSU.
If you instead opt for an easy-to-cool CPU and no discrete GPU to save space, it's still a massive box for a computing power of a tablet.
- saxonww 4y agoMaybe you're interested in a NUC, then. I remembered earlier there is an alternative GPU form factor for laptops called MXM. You can get desktop boards that accept these, I think they are called Micro-STX or Mini-STX. They are small, and the GPU is a flat module that plugs in more like a daughterboard than a PCI card. You're still looking at low-power CPU though. I'm not sure what your vision looks like, to be honest. I think you want a laptop without the integrated screen and keyboard. That's a NUC, IMO; if an integrated or laptop-grade GPU isn't good enough, you'd want to do eGPU over thunderbolt I guess.