While many of us are content with traditional desktop tower PCs, in that location are those who have been pushing for a more compact and quieter culling.

One of the pioneers of pocket-size calculating, VIA Technologies, developed the Mini-ITX form factor over a decade ago in 2001. Although VIA'south solutions were too underpowered for daily usage, over the next few years motherboard manufacturers were able to conform more than powerful AMD and Intel platforms to employ along the tiny 170 × 170 mm (half-dozen.vii × 6.7 in) Mini-ITX motherboards.

Subsequently case manufacturers provided support with a range of creative Mini-ITX solutions such equally the Lian Li PC-Q25, which we reviewed and awarded a couple of years agone. Considerably smaller than traditional ATX and Micro ATX estimator cases, the PC-Q25 not only supported the latest Intel Cadre i7 processors, just it also allowed for a PCI Express x16 dual-slot graphics card. An impressive feat no matter how you measure it.

Canon EOS 550D size comparison

But what if you want to get even smaller? That's where Thin Mini-ITX motherboards come in.

Sparse Mini-ITX motherboards are similar to standard Mini-ITX as they still measure 170 × 170 mm, except they are not equally tall. Whereas standard Mini-ITX boards measure 35mm alpine and are designed to exist used with standard coolers and retention modules which can take the total height to over 50mm, the Thin Mini-ITX format dictates that no board should exist taller than 20mm (25mm with I/O shield).

Yet the Thin Mini-ITX format is more than ultra-low-profile motherboards, information technology's an entire ecosystem that requires new cases and memory, favoring laptop SO-DIMM modules over the standard desktop DIMMs.

The Akasa Euler case alongside HIS' Radeon Hard disk 7970. That won't fit, of course

The idea behind the Thin Mini-ITX format, besides the obvious which is to create seriously compact computers, is also to allow for DIY all-in-ones (recall of trivial PCs you can attach to the back of your monitor). Having that said, we don't fully intend to go the all-in-ane route in this commodity, merely are aiming to build a powerful Thin Mini-ITX organisation that can be used in the office or at domicile every bit a media PC.

So, to recap, this is our goal: extremely compact, powerful, and virtually silent operation, as in no-moving-parts silent. For less than $700 including a 256GB SSD, we believe yous'll love what the final product will wait like.