More powerful than many tower desktops and most notebooks

May 21, 2010 14:49 GMT  ·  By

When speaking of gaming PCs, the minds of consumers usually drift towards those very massive, colorful and heavily modded desktop systems that are as large and imposing as they are powerful. This is understandable, considering how that really is the kind of form such a configuration tends to take. The fact remains, however, that such a large chassis and motherboard are not really necessary. In fact, it is possible to create a small form-factor PC, the size of an HTPC for instance, that is just as, or even more powerful than some such beasts.

Puget has come to prove this very fact. By combining a Lian LI PC-Q08 chassis with the Zotac H55ITX-A-E motherboard, the PC maker set the basis for something small and deadly. The small box has an Intel LGA 1156 Pentium or Core i3/Core i5/Core i7 central processing unit at its heart, as well as a memory capacity of up to 8GB DDR3. There is also, surprisingly, enough room for one or two SSDs or hard drives, as well as a Corsair or Seasonic power supply.

Obviously, since it is a gaming system, one would expect the graphics capabilities to be quite high. Puget obviously knows this, which is why it offers not just the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480, but also the ATI Radeon HD 5970 as available options. This will ensure that even the most complex of games, including those that can take advantage of DirectX 11, run smoothly.

"Small form factor PCs are a special challenge to design." Jon Bach, president of Puget Systems, said. "With the Echo III, we are excited to be able to take high end components from our full size desktops, and fit them together very densely into a small, quiet, well cooled package. Our rigorous testing and thermal imaging has come through yet again, allowing us to safely push the envelope of performance computing."

The machine is known as the Puget Echo III and is pre-loaded with either Ubuntu 10.04, or the Microsoft Windows XP or Windows 7 operating systems. As for pricing, end-users will have to part with at least roughly $1,100.