[Watford] High Spec PC - Small Form Factor

[Yvan Seth]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 01:36:32PM +0100, Mark Stewart wrote:
> I need a small form factor PC with a minimum spec of a 64 bit
> processor and 32gb of RAM.
> 
> It needs to be small so it can go as hand luggage around Europe, it
> will be running Redhat 3 and some memory intensive apps that crunch
> huge datasets .

I've dealt with a lot of embedded systems vendors and have only seen
that sort of memory capacity in their top-end systems.  They'd be far
too large/heavy for carry-on.  Just checked NexCom and Portwell, nothing
with that memory capacity that is "small" - though they're smaller than
equivalent standard server equipment.  (They're bloody expensive too.)

We used to carry around Shuttle XPC (shuttle.com) boxes for trade shows,
but they seem to max out at 8GB at the moment.  Have you tried the
similar mini-PC vendors?  (I think Asus make some, and there are probaby
other vendors around by now.)

A restricting factor will be chipsets, how many are there that support
that much memory?  That'll narrow down the viable boards at least, then
see if you can find an ATX board with the right chipset and enough RAM
slots!  I know Tyan (tyan.com) make some ATX boards that can handle a
pile of memory - might be worth hunting around their range.  A quick
search in "System Boards" shows a few, all the contenders seem to be
dual-CPU though.

Find a board and stick it into the smallest ATX case you can get your
hands on?  Can always mod the case a bit to fit it in? :)  

-Yvan