Two posts in a row mentioning power standards! I’m excited about it, anyway. Over on Anandtech (a great site for very technical reporting), they have a brief post about the upcoming Braswell motherboards from ASRock.

ASRock is one of the main motherboard manufacturers, and Braswell is a line of processors by Intel that are low-power and low-to-moderate performance, for use in inexpensive PCs and what are known as home-theater PCs (HTPCs), which usually are primarily for serving media. You wouldn’t use a system built on these components for hardcore gaming or graphics processing or piloting the space shuttle. 

The motherboards use the Micro ATX and Mini-ITX form factors. These are simply size and expandability terms, with Micro ATX boards usually having a couple expansion slots and ports, with one side being 9.6 inches, and the other being up to 9.6 inches. It’s a smaller version of a full-size (regular ATX) motherboard. Mini-ITX boards are very small, the smallest available actually, at 6.7 inches on all sides, and with very limited slots and ports, usually two DRAM (memory) slots and one expansion slot.

Here are some pictures to give you an idea of how these boards are organized. The Mini-ITX is first, and the Micro ATX is second; you can really see the difference in capabilities just from the layout (as an added interesting point, the memory and expansion slots on motherboards are perpendicular to each other to assist in airflow):

Mini-ITX (Photo from bit-tech.net)

Micro ATX (Photo from bit-tech.net)

What is really amazing is that they can use DC-in for power. That means instead of using the standard three-prong C14 connector often found on the back of a PC, they can use what looks like a headphone jack or adapter for a portable device. This eliminates the need for a full power supply, but also limits the power of the machine itself. Even so, I’m always amazed when I see a full PC, insomuch as it is, being powered from the same type of plug that charges my electric razor.

Here are some samples, taken from Wikipedia:

DC power connectors

Again, these are not for powerhouse machines or heavy-duty computing, but if you need an inexpensive machine to use as a server, even a personal web or mail server, these are a good choice.