The Four-Inch PC

[Skiz]

Created by Xi3 Corporation, it's a 4-inch aluminum cube that contains a fully-upgradeable modular PC. Runs an Athlon 64 X2 CPU, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, and offers plentiful ports. You can even drop an i7 in there if you want.

Spoiler: Show

Press Release

Xi3 Corporation Unveils the Xi3 Modular Computer

Winner of a CES 2011 Innovations Award in the Computer Hardware Category, the cube-like
Xi3 Modular Computer measures less than 4-inches per side, is powered by
dual core processors and may be "the last computer you ever need to buy"

SALT LAKE CITY -- November 10, 2010 -- Xi3® Corporation today announced its Xi3 Modular Computer™, a truly new approach to personal computing.

Showcased last night for the first time to journalists and analysts at the CES Unveiled@NY Showcase and Networking Reception in New York City, the Xi3 Modular Computer was named by the Consumer Electronics Association as an Innovations Award Winner in the Computer Hardware Category for the 2011 International CES trade show.

Measuring less than 4-inches per side, powered by dual core processors, yet requiring less than 20 Watts to operate, the Xi3 Modular computer is a small cube-like computer that is (as its name suggests) completely modular in nature. The Xi3 Modular Computer is supported by six issued U.S. patents and utilizes the Xi3 computer architecture which divides the classic motherboard into three separate boards:

One board that houses the processors and RAM, and
Two additional I/O boards to handle all connectivity and input/output requirements.
Each Xi3 board can be quickly removed, modified and/or replaced. Additionally, the Xi3 design makes it very easy to connect new external devices to the Xi3 Modular Computer.

"We reject the concept that computers should have a useful life of only two to four years," said Jason A. Sullivan, President and CEO of Xi3 Corporation. "Instead we believe that computers should be upgradeable and updateable over and over and over again, and that's how we've designed the Xi3 Modular Computer, making it (potentially) the last computer you ever need to buy."

Xi3 Modular Computer Design

The Xi3 architectural design houses the three boards within a strong yet lightweight aluminum cube that is small enough for almost any embedded solution, yet is supremely functional for both office and home use. Additionally, the aluminum casing of the Xi3 Modular Computer serves as a type of heatsink, while the flow-through design and the placement of the processors within the computer combine to help mitigate and dissipate heat blooms inside the enclosure itself. Three of the external sides of the aluminum casing also host separate universal mounting slides, making it simple to mount an Xi3 Modular Computer to almost anything, anywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZa9uViPx1Y&

[sandman_1]

Nice device until I saw the price for the thing, ewww.

[Detale]

Where did you see the price for it. Personally I want one...BADLY! All I saw was less than $1000. Also it's not really a good sign when the site http://www.xi3.com/ is parked

[tesco]

Where did you see the price for it. Personally I want one...BADLY! All I saw was less than $1000. Also it's not really a good sign when the site http://www.xi3.com/ is parked

http://xi3.org/

[Cabalo]

$864 with the standard configs. http://xi3.org/buy_now.php
Interesting thingy, a bit pricey too.

[iLOVENZB]

What does this mean:

Hard Drive Standard- Internal SSD 16G Flash Drive (not available for Windows OS)

Why can't you install a windows based os on it? Or do they mean the drive isnt available if you purchase a windows os from them?

[Xbox_360]

Very cool and is neat great for people who don't have space even for the micro atx systems. The price is a bit to much right now for close to $900 does not get you a whole lot compared to if you built or bought a pc for around that price. I know he was talking about people using it to stream movies really? That would be a pain having all these external encloses everywhere since this pc only has 8gb SSD drive. Now I could see them selling it as a home theater pc this thing would easily fit anywhere and not stick out.

[jallen100]

Hmm "Xi3 Modular Computers use 19 watts of power to operate" You couldn't do any upgrading to this even if you could find the parts. An i7 would use much more power than what what i think it's rated at, but i could be wrong. The only advantage to this is portibility, but you could find a netbook with the same spec's for cheaper. Nice find though! I'm amazed how they crammed all the essentials of a computer into such a small package.

[iLOVENZB]

Xbox_360: Home theater chassis look much sexier, I can assure you .

jallen100: It would be more economic to dump the unit in a icebox as fitting additional fans would be overkill.

Apart from fish tank builds I think this guy got his cooling cap on right:



I'm starting to like this site: http://justrelaxout.blogspot.com/2009/02/pc-fun.html

[megabyteme]

Thanks for keeping your eyes on stuff like this, skiz. This is a great design that looks like a "next-gen" direction. I used to find $1000 a pretty comfortable price for a build until I got spoilede with good-enough performance in the $300-$550 range. I don't imagine it will be too long before Asus comes out with something that will be similar, yet cheaper. Gotta love the times we are in (at least regarding tech)...