Asus DigiMatrix - The Pizza Box Form Factor
by Andrew Ku on February 11, 2004 1:41 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
When we hit the floors at Comdex, there wasn't much to see, and we ended up expecting to see little when it came to the variety of products that interested us and more specifically, our readers. Other than some roadmap information on AMD and Intel, the scene was relatively quiet for us. Perhaps the most interesting product that really stuck out was Asus' DigiMatrix, a take on a PC for the home entertainment system.
This is another attempt at the SFF market with a digital entertainment twist. MSI has done this for sometime with their very well designed Mega PC line, but they take it more from a PC with the flare of a digital entertainment taste, versus the other way around. With the evolution of the home theater PC, thanks in part to Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition OS, ATI's All-in-Wonder cards, and the SFF PC, the market for digital entertainment PCs is a ripe for the pickings.
The home entertainment market in the sense of the PC is a fickle one because of the natural size of the equipment involved. Digital receivers, TiVo/VCR/DVD players, cable/satellite boxes, etc. are often referred to as the pizza box by SDs and SIs (system designers and integrators) and has been long put to use since beta VCR players. This unofficial PBFF is not just practical, but fits well into the home theater, allowing everything to be easily stackable. The other benefit is obviously the small profile of the equipment. PCs, on the other hand, have long since followed the tower format, which definitely looks odd when put to use next to the TV or anywhere in the near vicinity. The Small Form Factor helped breathe new life into the market by allowing PCs to fit conformably into the concept of the family entertainment system. The trade-off the build-it-yourself home theater PC remains to be the options available over the size of the system, as SFFs aren't stackable by the nature of the PBFF.
Asus has taken things from a whole different vantage point with their DigiMatrix. Instead of offering a SFF PC that provides multimedia features, the DigiMatrix takes the PBFF and redesigns it to operate as a PC.
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mindless1 - Thursday, February 12, 2004 - link
LOL, it's just wastefull to design a box big enough for RAID 0+1, and MPEG2 certainly does not need (even) modern HDD performance levels.It was a nice review, but I'd have to disagree with one part- It is not desirable to decrease the size of the power supply. Make it too small and it's going to have high heat density, lower reserve capacity, and overall less quality in the design. It IS possible to use very high quality and more exotic parts to decrease size, at about 3X the cost.
I agree that it would be very nice if the remote had a touchpad on it, similar to that on a notebook.
One thing I wish Asus had done differently, is to find a way to make more of the front panel ports, or at least the DVD tray, accessible without opening that front hatch. I imagine my hatch would always stay open just so I didn't have to open/close for something as simple as loading a DVD.
Doormat - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link
I've been looking at SFF/HTPC like boxes, but my biggest gripe is that they only have 1 or 2 spots for a hard drive. When I build a HTPC, I'd want more than 2 HD spaces (preferably 4 SATA connectors w/ bays). That prolly wont make it a SFF box, but a Tivo-size box could provide for that. The idea is that 4x200GB in RAID 0+1 would provide enough for recording TV in HD/SD MPEG-2 as well as ripping DVDs and storing them, plus other misc stuff. None of the products on the market can suit me and look nice...AlabamaEnigma - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link
It's not a bad little box, but I prefer their new T2-P Deluxe. It has MOST of the features of the DigiMatrix, but uses the i865G chipset and has 8X AGP. It's also a lot cheaper.3Suns - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link
It doesn't come with a hard drive, processor, or memory. It's a barebones system. And the 533 MHz refers to the FSB.for $400 I actually think it's kind of a bargain. Nice case with a volume knob and case buttons and an LCD, motherboard, video capture card, radio tuner, tv tuner, gigabit ethernet, wireless ethernet, DVD/CD-RW, separately powered MP3 player, 7-in-1 card reader...
I'm seriously considering putting together a sub-$1000 system and trying to get it running as a personal Linux fileserver/media station. Wish me luck!
ChemMan - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link
I think by 533 Mhz they mean the fsb, not the clock speed of the processor.Jeff7181 - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link
Am I reading this right?It doesn't come with a hard drive? Not even a tiny little 20 or 40 GB drive to get someone started using it as a Tivo type of thing? For $400 the least they can do is stick a little 20 GB 5400 RPM hard drive in there... sheesh.
Call me crazy, but shouldn't you be able to passively cool a 533 Mhz Pentium 4? I mean... a Pentium 4 @ 533 Mhz is probably creating what... 10-15 watts of heat? I was shocked to see what looks like a heatpipe and two large fans in there... looks like a very poor cooling design to me.