Hey guys, I've been semi-actively working on a mITX case since late summer, from what I gather I'm hardly alone on this forum who like to tinker. There are a lot of discussions that I've been following since August (when I found this forum), but all seem relatively centered around whatever piece of hardware the topic was created for.
I'm now at a stage where I'm ready to start ordering parts from China/Taiwan for prototype measurements, testing, etc, and an integral part of making anything for the market is to make sure it's what people actually want, and need, and not what the designers think people want.
As people will use stuff the way they want it to, regardless of designer intentions, I'm curious to see what people actually want from a SFF computer system. What thoughts did you put into your previous SFF build, or maybe even a future build?
I'm not talking steam box type media centers, but as actual computers, be it to work or game on (or anything in between). Some things I'm looking for in particular is the need for "standard"-sized components (3,5" HDD's, 5,25" ODD's, ATX-PSU's, 12" GPU's, tower type CPU coolers, etc).
Also, if you like to go on LAN's or just crash at a friends house over the weekend (which IMO is one of the great benefits of a mITX build), what is your stance on watercooling? My understanding is that water cooling is for more... stationary builds, but I'm genuinely curious to see what other people have to say about it.
Easy to build in, good cable management, well thought out features, etc, I get those. They're universal, but also subjective. What is your stance on these, what more specifically are you looking for? What about LED's, when to use them and when not to?
Hopefully some big shot computer case manufacturer finds this thread and reads all these amazing and illuminating responses and decides to make a new line based on all the knowledge they gather from this thread.
I'm now at a stage where I'm ready to start ordering parts from China/Taiwan for prototype measurements, testing, etc, and an integral part of making anything for the market is to make sure it's what people actually want, and need, and not what the designers think people want.
As people will use stuff the way they want it to, regardless of designer intentions, I'm curious to see what people actually want from a SFF computer system. What thoughts did you put into your previous SFF build, or maybe even a future build?
I'm not talking steam box type media centers, but as actual computers, be it to work or game on (or anything in between). Some things I'm looking for in particular is the need for "standard"-sized components (3,5" HDD's, 5,25" ODD's, ATX-PSU's, 12" GPU's, tower type CPU coolers, etc).
Also, if you like to go on LAN's or just crash at a friends house over the weekend (which IMO is one of the great benefits of a mITX build), what is your stance on watercooling? My understanding is that water cooling is for more... stationary builds, but I'm genuinely curious to see what other people have to say about it.
Easy to build in, good cable management, well thought out features, etc, I get those. They're universal, but also subjective. What is your stance on these, what more specifically are you looking for? What about LED's, when to use them and when not to?
Hopefully some big shot computer case manufacturer finds this thread and reads all these amazing and illuminating responses and decides to make a new line based on all the knowledge they gather from this thread.