I was never into "PC Building", but had a friend who was and a few years ago they helped me build out a "Small form factor" PC, using this case: https://imgur.c

I was never into "PC Building", but had a friend who was and a few years ago they helped me build out a "Small form factor" PC, using this case: https://imgur.com/a/7xLBiC3 https://imgur.com/a/7xLBiC3 The case was designed to have two columns, and one side was dedicated to fitting a full sized graphics card. The other column was the rest of the computer. The graphics card had its own fan system, but I also needed a fan glued to the CPU and then an extra one at the bottom to help spit out exhaust. The thing ran so hot, and the cords ended up just jammed into the case where they fit. I had no experience with building PCs and was amazed I could fit a 2TB Hard drive in a tiny little stick on the motherboard, whereas X amount of years before, I would have had to install a spinning disk, much bigger. Such a huge leap forward. The main reason I wanted this form factor was because the perceived elegance of it appealed to me. But it became clear to me through the process that "small form factor" for enthusiasts is usually more about the challenge of building in a tight space. The thing is super loud with the fans and runs super hot when using it for gaming, even with a 1080ti card. That's one of the reasons Apple's progress with CPUs is so great to me. I don't want the entire industry to move to SoC style where everything is soldered to the motherboard, but the more efficient you can make the rest of the computer, the better cooling system you can design. Just like the M.2 form factor for SSDs was a huge leap. But even if you can't eliminate the need for active cooling, something like this would make things a lot better. I think you'd still have to design around where the exhaust blows out though. I think it'd be better to have the ARM increase in efficiency and then maybe combine it with something like this for extra powerful models, the way graphics cards are sold with the fans attached. Someday I'd like to be able to upgrade the build and optimize it. The dream would be to not have any fans, but some other form of active cooling, and for the machine to be basically silent, while packing a 3090+ tier graphics card.