I hope mini-DTX catches on beyond VIA although a dual-core Nano might have some usefulness. This case is begginf for a board with two expansion slots: graphics+soundcard, graphics+tv tuner, tv tuner+sound card...it could make a wonderful and more flexible HTPC that way.

Umm, I'm confused. There's nothing above the box. Why not simply have a taller box -- .a.k.a. a normal tower. "footprint" is just that, footprint; the two have virtually identical footprints. Granted, with this smaller box, you get to see more white kitchen tiles. Get a white box.

Like some of the other comments here, i'd have to say an iMac style PC would be a better choice in my gf's kitchen. For some reason, aesthetics matter more to her then unreadability etc..

Adi

What range are you getting on that keyboard? Mine seems to have seriously degraded (good at ~15 feet to good ~3-5 feet) in the past year. I (try to) use mine from the couch on my HTPC.

I would've bought a cheap iMac, but that's just me :) You can run Windows on those as well, and the form factor is ideal for places like that.

I'm down to two Shuttles. Both H7's the SX58 and the SP45 but this looks interesting.
Thanks for the heads up and good luck with your new box.

But my wife wanted something with a DVD drive it it—the Kitchen PC is her main computer

*joke about women staying in the kitchen*

Honestly, I hate Mac Minis but they are the quintessential kitchen computer. That is, if you're going for aesthetics.

Here's a "great" kitchen PC: iMac.

I'm not trolling (please no Apple bashers), but it makes a great system for limited desktop room. If you aren't going to game and spend more time in a browser, this makes a perfect setup.

This would be a good kitchen build... http://www.flickr.com/photos/25537037@N07/3487829326/

Seems like a laptop would have made much more sense.

What is there to upgrade anyways, you save $100 by being able to keep the case around. Who cares, especially when you are talking 2 years?

very lovely build.

man, Zotac is really pimping on the mITX front. I'm loving it.

For the naysayers, I just want to point out that you can cram a lot more power for the price in one of these setups Scott's picked out than any laptop / imac / all-in-one alternative.

Pretty hard to get a quad-core imac with card that can run farcry 2 nicely, or a laptop with a quad core cpu, decently big screen, and a new GPU for ~$600...

Sure, there are alternatives that would fit the bill nicely, but this little guy offers way more overall computing value.

I haven't read the article yet, but wouldn't a laptop be a better choice if you wanted something compact for the kitchen. Heck, you can even take it with you once you're done.

I don't get it. Why do you need a computer in the kitchen? So you can cook and eat food while you are on the computer?

What's the point of putting a PC in the kitchen? I like to keep all my awesome hardware in a room dedicated to its awesomeness...

one thing i'm curious about, won't you get your box clogged up with grease from all the cooking?

As a guy who spends a fair amount of time in the kitchen (hey, I'm single and I like to eat!!), I want a "kitchen PC" that mostly shows me a set of tabbed windows with info I want to be able to get at a glance, or, at most, at a touch and a glance - i.e., the weather, the news, etc. It will alert me if I have an e-mail. It will let me play a CD, or a DVD. Bonus if it will also be an interface to my PVR so I can catch up on "Fringe" while I make dinner. And, sometimes, I want to be able to pull up a recipe that I'm going to make, maybe even be able to search for one on the internet.

So my ideal kitchen PC is going to be a 19 - 22" wide LCD mounted on a tilt/swivel wall bracket. It's a touch-screen. The "pc" is a mobo mounted on the back of the LCD. It has a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray laptop-style drive that slides out from behind the right side of the screen, behind the decent set of built-in speakers. And - here's where I slip into fantasy-land - it has a drop-down, full-size keyboard that slides out from the back of the LCD at the bottom, kinda like a giant-size version of the Palm Pre. For that matter, I could be happy with a WebOS -type interface, especially if it includes a phone. I don't really need to be able to run Quickbooks - or Crysis!! - in the kitchen while I chop onions.

Now that I think about it, that would make it easy for me to make my grocery list in the kitchen, and have it right there on my Pre when I go to the store. WebOS's Synergy would take me beyond e-mails in the kitchen to include Facebook (if I ever join!) and Twitter (ditto!). Interface to my PVR from my phone and then watch the show when I get home...

Hmmm.... Palm, are you reading this?

Anyhow it is a very neato case with a rare for the form factor 120mm fan.

A few questions:

1) How is the overall air pressure in the case? I imagine with the 120mm the vents on the top, sides, and rear of the case are expelling air, if not I'd be really concerned about grease and dust buildup in a kitchen.

2) The PSU itself is fully passive with no fan?

3) Is there a filter for the front fan? It's clearly not in front of the fan, but if there's no filter I'd get one in there asap. Kitchnes are nasty environments for PCs between grease and the usual dust.

4) How much vertical height is there between the motherboard standoffs and the bottom of the PSU? I'm wondering just how tall of a CPU cooler one can fit.

I've just built a machine in an SG05 for a client

Q9550S
4GB DDR2-800
Zotac 9300M-ITX mainboard
Geforce GTS250 1GB
1TB WD Caviar Black
LG Blu-ray burner
Noctua 120mm intake fan, Scythe Shuriken HSF on the cpu

It's tiny and really rather fast in the grand scheme of things, pulls roughly 13000 3dmark06 points

And to holophrastic, no, it's not the same footprint as a normal tower, it's about 10 inches front to back, it's TINY

here it is (before the PC itself got installed in it) with my Dell Mini9 on top
https://photos-1.getdropbox.com/i/o/Nfz6gW1GPgGD0mgQv1bpgvW49WyrCO0...

I am thinking even more advanced and a smaller footprint. Something along the line of a thin client attached to a borg arm attached to a monitor.

The keyboard and mouse should be one piece of hardware like the Logitech diNova and either kept on the desk on a tray attached to the swing arm.

Also, the monitor should be a touch screen to allow for quick touch responses instead of typing or mousing.

It's the little PC that could

The case is perfectly fine but the front panel is plastic so it's not that nice to the touch, the PSU is quiet enough but not really silent, Silverstone claims they used a q9550 and a GTS250 for product development though so it should be reliable

I have built on of these myself, and it's all I need for my bedroom PC, my part list is:

- Silverstone SOD01 DVD-RW
- Zotac 9300-ITX
- GTS250 1GB
- Intel e8400@3.5Ghz
- 2.5" 250Gb SATA HDD

I also replaced the front fan (800rpm I think) with a 1400rpm coolermaster fan and used a GeminII as CPU cooler without any fans. It sits there cool and silent unless gaming, and even when gaming it's not annoying and it certainly runs cooler than my main PC (e8500@4Ghz, 8800GTX sli)

the Kitchen PC is her main computer

I lol'd! Gloria Steinem has been notified :D

That's a nice looking system. I would probably end up putting in a laptop semi-permanently, but this has a much better upgrade path.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find no pics of the old machine on life support. Where's the love for ugly hacks that our families only put up with because it keeps the hardware running?