Lian-Li Industrial Co. Ltd is pleased to announce that it will bring the latest O Series PC-O9, Q series PC-Q34, and new PC-J60 to CeBIT 2016. Lian Li would like to extend an invitation to all to visit its booth (Hall 17, Booth H24/1) to glimpse its exciting new products.

The O Series launched in 2014 and was lauded for its aesthetics - Lian Li's hallmark brushed aluminum combined with large tempered glass windows, allowing DIY enthusiasts to showcase their most elaborate builds. Like its predecessor, the PC-O8, the PC-O9 uses a larger form factor and incorporates big, beautiful glass panels, but is halved into two compartments: an all-glass area for showcasing hardware, and a more convention aluminum section for hiding cables, drives, and the power supply.

AMD is working on a standardized external graphics solution for notebooks. This solution will allow people with ultra-thin notebooks to enjoy the mobility served up by frugal, mainstream hardware; as well as high-end gaming, with the graphics card plugged in at home. It also probably gives AMD greater control over design and cooling solutions. Unlike a mobile GPU that sits inside your notebook, and makes it bulky due to additional cooling and power requirements, an external graphics card sits on your desk, sipping on wall socket power.

AMD's external graphics solution isn't necessarily an AMD-branded piece of hardware, but rather an open specification for notebook vendors to follow. AMD will merely provide the GPUs and software ecosystem that makes the solution truly universal and plug-n-play, with "standardized connectors, cables, drivers, and OS support." Such a graphics card will interface with just any notebook with a high-speed interface (eg: Thunderbolt). Its drivers will make it crunch your games, while sending back output to your notebook's display, over the same connection. This gives you the mobility of an ultra-thin notebook. You should also be able to plug this into your work's boring Dell desktop, or any SFF ITX box. Pictured below is a Razer Core graphics solution embedding a Radeon R9 Nano. Other examples include MSI Gaming Dock and Alienware Graphics Amplifier.

Corsair took a plunge into the world of high-end SFF gaming PC builds, with the SF line of fully-modular PSUs, built in the SFX form-factor. The company showed off its 600-Watt variant, which offers enough juice and straws for an SFF build with a high-end graphics card. It may use a tiny 80 mm fan to keep itself cool, but features a Zero-Noise mode that keeps it off under a load threshold. Corsair plans to launch a broader lineup of SF Series PSUs in 2016.

Shuttle Computer Group, Inc., one of the world's leading designers of small form factor (SFF) computers, announced its XS35V5 and XS36V5 with improved graphics performance. A host of features make them perfect for commercial applications including digital signage, kiosks, menu boards, and more.

"The latest 4K monitors need higher performance graphics, and our XS35V5 and XS36V5 make images and text pop out loud," said Marty Lash, director sales and marketing, Shuttle Computer Group. "They're easy to configure, have great connectivity, and provide cool-running, non-stop operation. They have everything an integrator needs for any display application."

AMD's Radeon R9 Nano graphics card, started selling on Amazon. The listing confirms the card's US $649.99 pricing. The card being sold is XFX branded, but as AMD's "co-flagship" product, there likely won't be any custom-design adaptations of this chip. The USP of the R9 Nano is to offer the highest possible performance for SFF gaming desktops. It has a nearly identical specifications sheet to that of the Radeon R9 Fury X, but with slightly lower clocks, and a far more conservative power-management system, which reduces its typical board power rating compared to the R9 Fury X by 100W, down to 175W. The first orders on Amazon should begin shipping after the 13th of September.

Edit: Sapphire's R9 Nano is also listed, at $649, too.

GIGABYTE rolled out its premium SFF gaming PC motherboard that supports 6th generation Core processors, the Z170N-Gaming 5. Bearing the company's coveted G1.Gaming branding, this mini-ITX motherboard supports socket LGA1151 processors, with dual-channel DDR4 memory. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, and conditions it for the CPU using a 5-phase VRM. The CPU is wired to two full-size DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel memory; and the board's lone expansion slot, a PCI-Express 3.0 x16, with a reinforcing brace.

Storage connectivity on the Z170N-Gaming 5 includes an M.2 slot with 32 Gb/s bandwidth (reverse side of the board), two SATA-Express 16 Gb/s ports, and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Display outputs include dual-link DVI and HDMI. USB connectivity includes two USB 3.1 ports (one type-C, one type-A), five USB 3.0 ports (three on the rear panel, two by header), and four USB 2.0/1.1 ports by headers. Network connectivity includes gigabit Ethernet (Killer E2200 controller), 802.11 ac WLAN (up to 867 Mbps), and Bluetooth 4.2. The onboard 8-channel audio solution combines a 115 dBA SNR CODEC with audio-grade electrolytic capacitors, and a headphones amp. Dual-UEFI BIOS makes for the rest of it. Expect premium pricing that's just north of $150.

AMD's upcoming super-compact graphics card, the Radeon R9 Nano, will be faster than NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980, and a whopping 30% faster than the GTX 970, according to the company. At its size, it will offer the fastest pixel-crunching solution for compact ITX/SFF gaming PC builders, and that is something AMD want to capitalize on. If what we're hearing is true, then not only will the R9 Nano have the same core-config as the R9 Fury X, but also its price - US $649.99. At this price, the R9 Nano definitely isn't going to affect sales of the GTX 970 or GTX 980, which are currently going for as low as $299 and $465, respectively; but serve as a "halo product," targeted at SFF gaming PC builders.

AMD issued a statement on its upcoming Project Quantum SFF gaming desktop featuring Intel CPUs. The company clarified that it will offer both Intel and AMD processors, in the interest of consumer choice. AMD pointed out that the star-attraction in Project Quantum is the fact that it features two "Fiji" graphics processors in CrossFire configuration, to serve up graphics power unheard of, for this form-factor. Buyers will have a choice over the CPU, so if they feel that a CPU of a particular brand serves their needs better, they can make that choice.

Project Quantum will be an SFF gaming PC designed for super high resolution gaming. The company collaborated with liquid cooling majors to come up with a custom solution that cools the CPU and the two "Fiji" GPUs, over a common coolant channel, and a single large radiator. The system is split between two thermally-isolated chambers, with just coolant tubing and wiring running between the two. The bottom chamber features the mini-ITX form-factor motherboard, the dual-GPU video card, the SSD, and the power distribution PCB (PSU is external), while the top chamber is dominated by the radiator, and other liquid cooling components, such as the reservoir, pump, and a single large fan.

One of the three unexpected products based on the "Fiji" GPU, which AMD announced at its E3 event, Project Quantum, or the quest to design a 4K-worthy SFF gaming PC, which runs two "Fiji" GPUs in CrossFire, had the press assume that the rest of the system could be AMD-based, such as AMD-branded (albeit Patriot Memory manufactured) memory, AMD-branded (albeit OCZ manufactured) SSD; and importantly an AMD-made CPU or APU. Given its liquid-cooling, the prospect of a 95W "Godavari," or even upcoming "Carrizo" APU didn't seem far-fetched. Even a 95W FX CPU could have been deployed, since AM3+ on mini-ITX is not impossible.

When taken apart, Project Quantum was shown to be running an Intel Core i7-4790K "Devil's Canyon" CPU, on an ASRock-made mini-ITX motherboard, with its non-essential parts soldered out. The i7-4790K is neighbored by a pair of half-height Crucial Ballistix memory modules, which is excusable, since there are no half-height AMD Radeon memory modules, yet. The SSD is AMD-branded. The unit features a unified liquid cooling solution that's custom-made for AMD, by Asetek. A large (200 mm?) radiator, with a single fan, cools the CPU, the PCH, as well as the two "Fiji" GPUs.

ASUS today announced TUF Sabertooth X99, the world's first consumer desktop motherboard to support all NVM Express storage devices, including PCI Express (PCIe), M.2 PCI Express and the latest 2.5-inch solid-state drives (SSDs) with SFF-8639 via the mini SAS HD connector on the Hyper Kit1 expansion card. With built-in USB 3.1, TUF Sabertooth X99 maximizes choice for ultra-high-speed transfer options speeds, handing users total flexibility.

TUF's newest motherboard additionally introduces all-new and exclusive TUF Detective technology that displays live system information on smartphones and tablets, right at users' fingertips. TUF Sabertooth X99 is also equipped for ultimate cooling with exclusive TUF Thermal Armor, TUF Thermal Radar 2 and TUF ICe technologies. Exceptional durability and tested reliability is assured, with TUF Fortifier and TUF Components, including 10K capacitors, TUF chokes and a military-grade MOSFET.

ASRock rolled out the H81TM-ITX R2.0 thin mini-ITX motherboard for SFF PCs and AIO desktops. The socket LGA1150 motherboard is based on Intel's entry-level H81 Express chipset, and draws power from an external 2-pin DC power source. It features a 3-phase CPU VRM, a PCI-Express 2.0 x4 slot, apart from an mPCIe; two SATA 3 Gb/s ports, and two DDR3 SO-DIMM slots. Connectivity includes DVI and HDMI display outputs; two USB 3.0 ports, gigabit Ethernet, stereo HD audio, and a couple of USB 2.0/1.1 ports.

CyberPower Inc. , a global manufacturer of custom gaming PCs, today unveiled its custom small form factor (SFF) configurator, which allows customers to choose from a carefully selected menu of high-end components to build the custom SFF Mini-ITX gaming rig of their dreams.

As far as performance goes, the sky is the limit. The CYBERPOWERPC design and engineering teams worked hard to stuff enough processing, graphics and cooling power into these pint-sized machines to rival any full-size desktop PC. According to CyberPower Inc., small form factor gaming systems have traditionally been limited from the start because of their inability to support many advanced options. For example, most designs were limited to 1U, 2U server or SFX power supplies, which are more difficult to upgrade and are often not powerful enough for high-end graphics cards.

Small form factor desktop gaming done right. XOTIC PC announces the HYDRA. The all new HYDRA gaming desktop is powered by the latest Intel processing technology, with upgradeable options to the Intel i7-4770K. Featuring a slim and streamlined design; the HYDRA can be placed vertical or horizontal to fit your lifestyle and convenience and was built for performance. A solution for gamers, businesses or home entertainment, the HYDRA delivers.

Be Quiet launched its SFX Power 2 and TFX Power 2 lines of power supplies for compact gaming PC builds. As their names suggest, they're based on the SFX and TFX form-factors, respectively. The SFX Power 2 comes in capacities of up to 400W, with enough juice to drive a gaming PC with a single high-end graphics card; while the TFX Power 2 comes in sizes of up to 300W, with the ability to power gaming PCs with performance-segment graphics cards. The TFX Power 2 300W flaunts 80 Plus Gold efficiency, and a dual-12V rail design; while the SFX Power 2 400W makes do with 80 Plus Bronze efficiency rating, and a dual-12V rail design.

Big performance in a small box - that's what we're delivering with the new iBUYPOWER HEXA, a new ultra small form factor PC designed to blast through all your computing tasks, and then some.

From the skunkworks operations deep within iBUYPOWER's lab, we worked with Gigabyte to bring you a new experience that's unheard of in a system that takes up nary a stack of sticky note's desktop space. Most iBUYPOWER will be offering two flavors, AMD and Intel systems, with iBUYPOWER's configurability. You don't get this level of performance and customization from anywhere else. The HEXA delivers six-sides of gaming goodness.

Digital Storm today unveiled Bolt II, a small form factor (SFF) and hybrid Steam Machine gaming PC at CES 2014. Bolt II, the first liquid cooled Steam Machine and will feature with both Steam OS and Windows allowing gamers to play any PC game from the comfort of their couch.

Digital Storm's second generation SFF system features a refined look, increased accessibility and advanced thermal design. With double the cooling power of its closest competitor, Bolt II differentiates itself from other SFF and Steam Machine systems by focusing on delivering the best graphics possible and refusing to compromise on performance.

Dell has this week introduced a new OptiPlex business-ready desktop, a model dubbed OptiPlex 3020 that promises to offer 'industry-leading performance and best-in-class security in a budget-friendly package'.

Coming in two versions - Minitower (MIT) and Small Form Factor (SFF), this compact PC features a tool-free design and packs a 4th gen Intel Core processor, up to 16 GB of RAM, Intel HD 4600 graphics, either a hard drive or a solid-state hybrid drive (for up to 2 TB of storage on the minitower SKU), one PCIe x16 slot for graphics expansion, two USB 3.0 ports, and VGA and DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. The OptiPlex 3020 starts at $499.

Announced early this month, the M8 gaming-craving barebone PC has now become available in the US. Developed by ASRock in collaboration with BMW Group DesignworksUSA, the M8 measures 372 (W) x 123 (H) x 400 (L) mm, it packs a 450 W power supply and is equipped with a Z87-M8 motherboard offering support for 4th gen Intel Core processors, up to 16 GB of RAM, and one dual-slot PCIe graphics card.

ASRock's compact barebone can house a 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch storage drive, one slim optical drive, and includes WiFi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, a 4-in-1 card reader, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports, plus HDMI and DisplayPort outputs. The M8 is priced at $549.99.

If you're on the hunt for a computer that is not merely capable of running all of the latest hardcore PC games on maximum performance, but also decorated in such sophisticated appearance that it constitutes your right to be a gamer no matter how old you get, then ASRock and BMW Group DesignworksUSA has the perfect answer for you! Gamers beware, the long anticipated Intel 8 Series gaming rig M8 is hitting the markets!

"Our goal was to create desirability and iconic differentiation in a small Gaming-PC," said Sonja Schiefer, Director, Munich Studio, BMW Group DesignworksUSA. "To enhance the perception of pure power we created a design language focused on superlative and a design solution that is very much an exaggerated mode of expression."

Bitspower, the Taiwanese water cooling and modding specialist, recently launched the first water block designed for ASUS' previous generation mITX wonder board, the P8Z77-I Deluxe. While no longer the best mITX board on the market, the Haswell launch parade made sure of that, the P8Z77-I Deluxe did develop quite a following, particularly with the SFF crowd, selling in good numbers for its segment and making the rounds in a plethora of SFF projects that sprung on various enthusiast boards around the web.

The Bitspower AIZ77ITXD block makes use of high quality acrylic for the top cover and nickel plated copper for its base. The top cover comes in two versions, either transparent acrylic (Clear) or a semi-transparent black acrylic (ICE Black). The block's design approaches the full cover idea to a larger degree than any other motherboard block I've seen, accommodating all the heat generating components on the board, the CPU, the Z77 chipset and the vertical VRM as well. A design concept that Bitspower refers to as Unibody Style Construction Design (U.S.C.).

HP today announced the first professional monitors of the new Z Display family as well as new entry-level Z Workstations that offer reliable and flexible workstation performance at PC-like prices. HP is continuing to drive innovation across an evolving workplace with the introduction of the HP Z22i, Z23i and Z24i IPS Displays. Offering outstanding image accuracy and mission-critical reliability, the HP Z Displays are optimized for use with HP Z Workstations. HP Z Displays are ideal for engineers, architects, designers and photographers who require image accuracy at an affordable price.

Building upon HP's award-winning Z series of workstations, the new HP Z230 Workstation, available in a tower or small form factor (SFF), is built for demanding application workloads. The HP Z230 is a great choice for knowledge workers and specialists, design engineers and creative designers who require rock-solid reliability at an affordable price. Designers using applications like Autodesk AutoCAD and photographers using Adobe Photoshop will benefit from the new functionality of the HP Z230.
"Our customers want products that are designed and engineered to meet the most demanding computing and visualization needs, and HP's Z moniker has become synonymous with meeting that challenge," said Jeff Wood, vice president, Worldwide Product Management, Commercial Solutions Business Unit, HP. "The new HP Z230 Workstations and Z Displays meet these workload demands at an affordable price, and demonstrate HP's leadership in providing solutions for professional solutions at all levels."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has developed the industry's first 2.5-inch (SFF-8639) NVM Express (NVMe) PCIe solid state drive (SSD), to open up the high-end enterprise storage market. The newly developed high-speed 1.6 TB NVMe SSD provides a sequential read speed at 3,000 MB/s, which allows it to process 500 GB (gigabytes) of data (equivalent to 100 Full HD movies 5 GB in length) in less than 3 minutes. When compared to other products with similar specifications, this new SSD is 14 times faster than a high-end enterprise HDD for server use, and six times faster than Samsung's former high-end enterprise SSD storage.

The XS1715's random read performance reaches up to 740,000 IOPS (Input Output Operations Per Second), which is more than 10 times as fast as existing high-end SSD storage options. The new NVMe SSD XS1715 comes in 400 GB, 800 GB and 1.6 TB (terabytes) versions. It can also be found on the NVMe Integrators List (IL), which makes it an easy-to-manage and highly reliable solution for data center and server storage customers. System performance can be improved dramatically by upgrading to the NVMe SSD XS1715 from a 2.5-inch HDD or a 2.5-inch SATA SSD.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today held the 2013 Samsung SSD Global Summit at the Westin Chosun Seoul in celebration of the launch of its new solid state drive (SSD), the Samsung SSD 840 EVO. Along with the announcement of its latest SSD under the theme of "SSDs for everyone", the Samsung SSD Global Summit also explored the future of the global SSD market, which is quickly replacing the HDD market.

"After accelerating the growth of the SSD market by last year's launch of entry-level, high-performance SSDs we are introducing a much faster SSDs with up to 1 TB capacities offering consumers a wider range of choices," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung continues to enhance its SSD brand image by delivering the industry's highest quality solutions and continuously increasing its SSD market share by expanding the adoption of higher density SSDs especially in client PC segments"

The modding and custom water cooling scene has never been a particularly stable or reliable medium to build a business in and around of, with its intrinsically superfluous character making it a particularly risky bet for a start-up of any sort, and indeed a losing bet for very many of those who did bite the bullet, invested the money and delivered the goods, but failed to capitalize on what can best be described as a frivolous demand. A multitude of brands with a wide variety of products have come and gone, while some of those still on the scene are slowly fading into irrelevance, all of whom failed to correctly grasp the nature of that demand.

Thankfully, all is not gloom, this is a vibrant scene I'm talking about, with many household names that have been around for many many years, and some quite new ones also, doing very well and in some instances thriving. All of whom brought and bring to market products that not only meet existing demand, but primarily come to generate it. While generally a low volume market, the sheer variety of products is quite overwhelming, from completely over the top contraptions such as the Aqua Computer GIGANT radiators or the obscenely expensive, functional artwork boasting the Murderbox branding, to grotesquely designed and executed kitsch that will remain unnamed, in-between you'll find anything meeting every taste or budget. And from this busy, vibrant and idiosyncratic scene a new player by the name or Parvum Systems is looking to carve a piece for itself.

SilverStone unveiled Raven Mini-ITX, a new compact SFF case fit for mini-ITX gaming PC builds. The case feature signature Raven series styling, and bears design elements from its recently launched sibling, the Raven RV-04. The case is designed to look great in both tower-type (vertical) and rack (horizontal) orientations, with its slot-in slimline optical drive bay, discrete-looking air vents, USB and audio jacks.

Internally, the case is nothing short of an engineering marvel, you can install a high-end, dual-slot, full-height graphics card, and a 240 x 120 mm radiator for your liquid cooling loop. It works using a PCI-Express x16 riser that lets you install the graphics card along the plane of the motherboard, with enough room to spare underneath for the radiator. On the storage front, you get a slimline slot-in optical drive bay, and a number of 3.5/2.5-inch drive bays. An SFF PSU bay appears to be located towards the front. The Raven mini-ITX is still under development, SilverStone will formally announce the case later.