New modular PC to blow out the competition?

[foxytaur (imported)]

http://www.xi3.com/news.php?id=829

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vgyj2in8kbE

K so most gamers, at least heard rumours, are huge steam patrons. Well, Hows this puppy for a change?

I swear I'm getting a steambox when it comes out.

No more heavy DRM, affordable gaming, huge library + mods and excellent service. Tell me what you think?

But what's this Steam's Gabe Newell worried about apple picking up the pace in console industry?

Not Sony or Microsoft?!!!

[fhunter]

Remember, electronics is a science about bad contacts . So - 2 big connectors, non standard, so you are vendor locked, if you want a new graphics card.

Integrating internal PSU board and graphics card was a nice touch . Can you spell "hardware vendor lock-in". We already had that, in MCA bus, RDRAM and other things. I want standards. Standard ram modules, standard module connectors, etc.

CPU, which is not exactly powerful (and we are speaking gamers here), and non-upgradeable RAM (at least I have not seen any obvious ways to plug more. So - you need more RAM, you are out of luck).

As for clusters of such things... What for? Pack of small webservers? Pure computation? Render farm? IMO, modern ARM CPUs are much more efficient in MIPS/Watt. So if you are not tied to a "legacy platform", and in clusters you are usually not, you can go for much more energy efficient solution.

It is a strange device. As is - looks cool. But the "modular" claim just would not fly... I'll wait and see. ARM is now evolving quickly, and, is more efficient due to not being weighted down with <s>compatibility with i8080</s>compatibility with old tech.

PS. No dedicated RAM for GPU????? Ewww...

[foxytaur (imported)]

Ah come now Fhunter. You can upgrade the 3 boards piece by piece but yes I understand everything is integrated. Its not a bad device and clearly this will destroy console gaming.

If you have a bigger budget though a dedicated PC rig is the way to go but this device ain't too shabby:D

I have a problem with Xbox , Ps3 and nintendo DRM liscenses and it's getting to the point where if something isn't done second hand physical medium is going to be impossible. There is current worry that's what MS and sony have in mind. Imagine a used game not being able to run across different xboxes bc it's locked down to your device only with it's unique serial key.

I think this is being done to curb used game sales bc developers aren't getting their share of the pie(think EB games and gamestop)

I walk into store buy a $60 game

Im now done with it, the avg idiot will sell it to ebgames and get back shit in return.

Eb games sells it back at $54 bucks and calls that a sweet drop in price.

Excuse me......but are people really that stupid!!!

Yes, Yes they are......sad thing is EB doesn't pay licesning fee's to game developer's and now

it's gotten so bad that DRM , digital online content and unique serial keys are being used to combat

giants like EB games.

The steam formula however challenges the big 3 and literally takes a shit on gamestops front door.

Why do you think gamestop doesn't sell PC games no more?

Steam took over that's why.

And now Valve wants to release a small modular PC (cough console.)

I wouldn't say this will replace the PC but it might ease gamers from consoles to transition and experience things the steam way and you know what I agree.

This is amazing. Steam never has restricted indie game developers,I can run my own game mods on steam, prices fluctuate drastically with weekends offering sweet deals.[How's $9 vs $54 that gamestop is offering?],

Their is also a greater social integration involved with steam vs Xboxlive or PSN network.

I can chat while playing diffrent games and type all under the steam client which is lightyears much more advanced than the shitty console counterparts.

That's about all I can say.

Steam is your friend, I suck steam's cock, and i'll continue to suck steams flagpole

ain't nobody gonna stop me P. I'm getting valuable "product" and there is no alternative that can do better otherwise atm.

[fhunter]

Ah come now Fhunter. You can upgrade the 3 boards piece by piece but yes I understand everything is integrated. Its not a bad device and clearly this will destroy console gaming.

If you have a bigger budget though a dedicated PC rig is the way to go but this device ain't too shabby:D

I have a problem with Xbox , Ps3 and nintendo DRM liscenses and it's getting to the point where if something isn't done second hand physical medium is going to be impossible. There is current worry that's what MS and sony have in mind. Imagine a used game not being able to run across different xboxes bc it's locked down to your device only with it's unique serial key.

I am a bit more realist. I have seen some tech, that you just could not upgrade. And was even stuck with this some of it. So no I am cautious. I remember socket 423, which never really caught on, and was quickly replaced by socket 478. With my luck, I ended up with the first one (oh, and with RIMM memory to add insult to the injury). I still remember searching for more ram (and not being able to afford replacing the whole machine except for case, disks and PSU). That was not fun.

I still remember how Intel made 3 different series of Pentium 2/3 incompatible with each other (on purpose, for the people to buy new motherboards), and how crafty people fixed this incompatibility, by soldering some wires on motherboard and modifying socket (and I have done this).

Damn, one more offender, Zotac - Mini-ITX board, PCI-Express 16x socket. It is general purporse, right? No, it is "graphics card only", and if you install something other than the graphics card there, machine would not even start.

Modular? Compatibility? I do not believe, until proven otherwise.

I too don't like the licensing for xbox/ps3/etc, but I do not play games that much, so I do not really care.

[foxytaur (imported)]

I have a mini ITX running damn small linux. quite neat little device.

ATM I wnt to order a 35$ raspberry PI to install xbox media centre.

giggles

[fhunter]

I have a mini ITX running damn small linux. quite neat little device.

ATM I wnt to order a 35$ raspberry PI to install xbox media centre.

giggles

I have a mini-ITX machine as a main desktop. Quiet, compact and powerful enough. Core2Duo IS fast. Fast enough . That is what current computers reached.

Forget about Raspberry PI. It has rather slow storage, no way to expand it (what? no sata?), slow network link (the network adapter is connected via USB, and shares usb uplink with two other ports). Usb ports have too low value fuses (140mA). The list goes on. Oh, the chip does not have proper documentation, and Broadcomm is not known for good opensource support, so no luck with any customizing of kernel, other than by a reverse engineering. And it was WAY OVERHYPED. The creators of it cut too many corners to reduce cost.

[foxytaur (imported)]

hehe Its on it's way in mail, I only bought it to dick around with it hehe

[Riverwind (imported)]

I have one, plays my FM station, music the way you want it,its small, one board, yes its a computer with a single function.

As for that box, I agree with fHunter, non standard parts, propitiatory meaning high price, I would rather had a standard boards, with standard parts, interchangeable even.

River

[Paolo]

I'm getting to the point where I just need a cheap new one!

[foxytaur (imported)]

For my final project I was thinking about using a raspberry PI to create a cool complex sound amplifier.

A lossless audio mp3 player that can play multiple formats and run the legendary rockbox on it.

Hows a open source mp3 player that can play over 40 audio formats with dsp audio amplification and won't break on you.

maybe if im ambitious turn it into an opensource video player and if its possible bc the thing actually has a decent video card good enough for nes games