Specifications

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, a showdown of full-size
super PCs can get pretty boring. What you
usually end up with is fi ve systems all pack-
ing the same internal components.
But a contest among computer makers
that restricts physical size? Now that
seemed bound to yield some interest-
ing results. Just as any race sanctioning
body, such as NASCAR or FIA, sets weight
limitations or adds restrictor plates, we
thought that by limiting vendors to the
simple term “small form factor,” we’d rein
in the out-of-control system specs and
benchmark-crushing performance that we
see with full-size systems.
Our plan worked and it didn’t. It worked
because we received an incredibly diverse
set of machines that show what can hap-
pen when you’re thermally and spatially
constrained by a SFF rig. Our plan didn’t
work because the machines we got blew
our mind in specsmanship. We really did
not think it was possible to cram as much
hardware into such small machines as the
vendors did here.
CyberPower’s LAN Party Evo impressed
us with its size, power consumption, and
capability. It actually serves as a good
zero-point for the kind of performance
you get out of the prototypical small form
factor machine. As we said in our review,
it’s enough fi repower to keep most of us
happy, and when you consider its small
footprint, who can complain? And yet it
gets no cigar and shouldn’t. The other
rigs’ performances were simply superior.
Next we had Falcon Northwest’s
FragBox. It’s not much bigger than the
CyberPower machine, yet it packs GTX 580s
in SLI and its P-series chipset allows for
some overclocking. Its main limitation is its
size. Like the CyberPower, the size imposes
a thermal ceiling on the rig. There’s no
thermal headroom to run this generation
of dual-GPUs in the FragBox, nor crank the
processor clock very far. While we feel the
Falcon is the best of bunch for folks who are
severely space-constrained, the quad-GPU
confi gs rip up the GeForce GTX 580s pretty
handily. Of course, Falcon could have opted
to add more fans and increase airfl ow, but
we’re kind of glad it didn’t.
That’s perhaps a lesson that AVADirect
and Origin PC should have taken to heart.
Instead, we suspect the builders decided
to throw caution to the wind in their pur-
suit of victory. In performance, both boxes
are certainly fast—fast enough to put
some full-size boxes to shame.
AVADirect’s use of the overclocked 990X
is perhaps that machine’s most eyebrow-
raising feature. Well, that and the use of the
Radeon HD 6990 cards. The HD 6990 cards
have a reputation for being loud—a reputa-
tion that’s well deserved, we discovered. Ulti-
mately, that cost AVADirect serious points.
Similarly, acoustics were a serious failing
with Origin PC’s Chronos, which was even
more obnoxiously loud. Part of that may
come from the innovative Silverstone case.
With the AVADirect, the loud-as-hell 6990
cards at least have the audio directed out
the back. With the Silverstone, the audio
emanates from the top and the side panels,
which makes it sound even louder.
With Origin and AVADirect penalized for
audio, that left iBuypower’s LAN Warrior
II as the last man standing. From what
we can see, the GeForce GTX 590s can be
kept running at lower fan
speeds if you have enough
fresh air moving over
them. With the NZXT
Vulcan case, a mas-
sive 20cm fan ducts external air directly
onto the GTX 590 cards. The LAN Warrior
II is certainly not quiet, mind you—espe-
cially when compared to the CyberPower
LAN Party Evo or Falcon Northwest Frag-
Box—but the fan whir is fairly low-pitched
and more comparable to a standard full-
size gaming machine.
The LAN Warrior II’s performance
numbers are certainly all smiles. It’s a
smidge slower than the Origin PC Chro-
nos in the Heaven 2.5, STALKER: CoP,
and 3DMark 2011 benchmarks. Applica-
tion performance is also competitive,
but not the best.
The only issue we have with the LAN
Warrior II is its size and shape. Even
though it has the same volume as the
AVADirect and Origin PC rigs, its shape
is closer to a mini-tower than a small
form factor. In that respect, is it a fair
competitor to the more conventional Fal-
con and CyberPower SFFs? In the end,
we decided that philosophical arguments
aside, the fact remains
that the iBuypower LAN
Warrior II is not only a fine
machine but the overall
winner in this contest.
Small Form Factors: The Final Analysis
How a controversial winner emerges from a fi eld full of surprises
JUL 2011MAXIMUMPC
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small form factors