Sam's PCp

[samjc3]

Video plox!

I only have my Cell at the moment, so Pictures will Have to do for now. I'll try and get a camera soonish so I can take some videoage. I'll upload some pictures in a moment. First, i gotta move this thing off my desk so it is actually visible that Its running on batteries.

Also, past 2 hours in ME2, and still going strong.

 

[XCVG]

Are you going to leave the connectors like that or solder to the board?

 

[samjc3]

Are you going to leave the connectors like that or solder to the board?

Soldered to the board, of course. And the batteries will be rewired in a much more minimalistic fashion. I should start fabricating the case tomorrow, but I'll probably end up playing games the whole day, as I need to do a battery life test with a full charge.

It just got almost exactly 3 hours of Mass Effect 2 on the charge it had when it arrived. That bodes very well.

And, speaking of batteries, I am suddenly annoyed, because I noticed I forgot to include this in my batteryspace order.

 

[vskid3]

So you got 3 hours? Did you measure the power draw? I bet you can get at least 5 or 6 hours out of it with a full charge. My laptop's battery is about 1/3rd the capacity of your battery and it'll go about an hour while gaming with a ton more computing power.

 

[samjc3]

Battery life testing complete. 4 hours, 45 minutes of Mass Effect 2. Which runs my system harder than anything else, by like 30% system load. Meaning I could get like 6 hours on a less intense game, and maybe more on something like Audiosurf. That battery was worth every penny I payed, for sure.

Cost so far: ~$650, including some new cutting wheels and such that I picked up for this. Luckily I have 99% of what I need. Just need a big diode (I have something up my sleeve for charge and play) and a few other bits and bobs. I plan to start casing tomorrow.

 

[samjc3]

Case is glued up, working on the faceplate and holes in the main body right now. I have video and power and USB all hardwired. (pulling the ports was evil) Have my battery monitor wired up, and controls partially done. This will hopefully come together rather quickly now.

 

[Bush]

Have anymore progress? This is freaking sweet.

 

[samjc3]

Yeah, ive been working on it. Now that Im on Christmas break, I should be able to get alot more done.

 

[samjc3]

No this isnt dead. Nor do I have any real progress to show you, because I have been mulling over other things. Such as spending ridiculous amounts of money and getting something better made. I am not saying that the hardware I have sucks, I am simply pissed off that there is nothing better and its driving bonkers.

For example, take this EPIC (165x115mm, so slightly smaller than mine) form factor motherboard. It is small. It has full headers for everything. Imagine, if you will, this same chipset, without any of the silly connectors except maybe one miniUSB and an LVDS header, and everything else board mounted, or stripped as far as possible. Which is to say one RAM slot, or onboard memory, a small (1.8" or less) SSD, and overall stripped as much as possible. Now, I am not sure, but I would bet, that if one were to forego the pretense of standard compatibility, and used proprietary (small) connectors and a rather more layered PCB and went along the path of an integrated electronic device, then presumably, it could be made much smaller. AND Dangit I WANT SMALLER.

Exhibit 2: The viliv n5. Its small. and a bit of a joke. single core atom, GMA 500. Fanless cooling, and it can run F.E.A.R. and half life 2. BARELY. (and yes I know thousands of others exist, its just that this one doesnt look like butt, and they are all almost identical specswise.)

By now (if the whole thread hadnt kinda tipped you off already) you should be getting the picture. Despite the fact that the max TDP of a low powered i5 sandy bridge (1.4ghz dual, turbo to 2.3ghz with integrated video that supposedly doesnt suck) is roughly 15 watts higher, I cant help but think a cooling system that actually uses thermally conductive materials, such as COPPER, and aids it with AIRFLOW, rather than lame aluminum object, should be able to keep up.

Anywho, I dont expect I will ever get past a pretty flaxty mspaint mockup, but it cant hurt to try (besides my ego, when everyone slams the door in my face), so, who wants to give me $100,000?

(and yeah, I was here for the thousands of discussions we've had before on this same subject, but sandy bridge really opens up possibilities)

 

[XCVG]

Sandy Bridge is nice and more powerful, and you could deal with the heat but not the power consumption. That being said, a small, powerful PCp would be awesome. I'm thinking a Sandy Bridge mobile processor- quad is nice but dual is more efficient. Then either a Radeon HD 5470 or Radeon HD 5650, all cooled by the metal backing using a vapor chamber setup. I have no idea how well that would work. More (but less) realistic would be a single-die setup with a dual core Sandy Bridge and a decent graphics processor. Maybe something related to Fermi. And a quantum power cell for power.

With enough time and money, one could acquire something slightly bigger than a Pandora and quite powerful. Realistically, it's going to be kinda big and kinda weak, or powerful but insanely large and with two minutes of battery life.

Or you could do what I did, which is give up on the idea before spending any money and get a laptop. Not as cool, but more practical for most things and I'm too lazy to build anything.

 

[samjc3]

Ah, but you see, I am not so adverse to difficulty as you. After searching the netherworld an awful lot, i have found a 5x3.5" motherboard with either a sandy bridge i7 or i5 (2.1ghz quad, 2.5ghz dual, respectively). Matter of fact, I have found several. (3 different manufacturers, several versions each.) Now, on one, based on the specs, with the included heat dissipater, the total thickness is 16.8mm, and it looks like aluminum. Which means improvement can be had. Looking into these things more in depth now.

 

[Bush]

Why not an i3? Im thinking those will eat power fast.

 

[XCVG]

I'm assuming you'd be going with the onboard GPU with one of those? I was reading some stuff a while back, and apparently the on-die GPU of Sandy Bridge is about as good as that of a PS3 or X360. Amazing how far we've come.

 

[Mako321]

I'm assuming you'd be going with the onboard GPU with one of those? I was reading some stuff a while back, and apparently the on-die GPU of Sandy Bridge is about as good as that of a PS3 or X360. Amazing how far we've come.

I don't think any pc game is as optimized for a certian video card as a ps3 or 360 is with their graphics processing, though.

 

[XCVG]

No, it doesn't work that way. Some stuff does perform better on ATI vs nVidia vs Intel, but usually it's about the same for the same price point. Besides, no amount of optimization will make up for what's inferior hardware in the first place, despite what that one guy insisted. Does anyone remember nVidia's "optimizations" for NV40?

 

[vskid3]

So what exactly is the status of this project? Are you going to finish it in its current configuration or wait for something better?

 

[samjc3]

I think I am gonna wait. I have it sitting here, but I really cant find the motivation to work on it.

 

[samjc3]

Good news everyone! Ive got a line on a new PC:
102 x 147mm (With all the ports on it, and the stock heatsink, its almost identical in size to a 3.5" HDD)
2.2ghz dual core neo
hd4200
SATA III
DDR3 1333 (up to 4gb)
(and I can actually buy one, its not like I just found it)

I will be using:
Wireless N pcie card that ive got on hand
1.8" hdd (probably 250gb)
This RAM

Batteries TBD, Screen TBD. (I want that AEIcomp 800x600 3.5", but $250, which strikes me as high for a damned screen.)

Bad news is I need to come up with $570. So buy my flax.

 

[XCVG]

Link?

 

[samjc3]

The -22h version