A Computer You Can Upgrade Forever?

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A company called Xi3 has just taken the wraps off a a mini modular computer that they say can be “upgraded forever.” The tiny cube computer, with an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and up to 4GB of RAM, actually has decent specs for what it is.

Measuring less than 4-inches per side, powered by 64-bit x86 dual core processors, yet requiring an average of 20 Watts or less to operate, the Xi3 Modular computer is a small cube-like computer that is 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.
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Upgrade forever? Cube? Oh my God, they're Borgs!
 
The price of entry starts at over $1,000 and just how in the hell do you upgrade this thing? It looks like a proprietary motherboard. The only way I see for upgrading this is that the case is re-usable. I may be missing something here, but if this is simply a very small form factor pc shoved into a small case I think this company will be lucky to sell 4 of these.
 
weuntouchable said:
The price of entry starts at over $1,000 and just how in the hell do you upgrade this thing? It looks like a proprietary motherboard. The only way I see for upgrading this is that the case is re-usable. I may be missing something here, but if this is simply a very small form factor pc shoved into a small case I think this company will be lucky to sell 4 of these.
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I guess you didn't follow the link to the product page. It isn't upgradable in the sense that you can replace components in the module. It is upgradable because it can be teamed with many other modules. So, if the dual-core doesn't cut it, add 2/4/6/8/10/12/14...more cores via additional modules. It is also redundant in that sense. Not cheap, but interesting technology.
 
maybe, i was thinking of building my own small form factor case.
 
weuntouchable said:
The price of entry starts at over $1,000 and just how in the hell do you upgrade this thing? It looks like a proprietary motherboard. The only way I see for upgrading this is that the case is re-usable. I may be missing something here, but if this is simply a very small form factor pc shoved into a small case I think this company will be lucky to sell 4 of these.
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So this x 2, or an SR-2 build? I must be missing something. :confused:
 
Maybe they mean it in the way that any computer can be upgraded forever?

Yes, it CAN be... but HOW and WHY is the question. Did I miss somewhere that they explain this?
 
isn't the average computer modular as is? video card plugs in and can be replaced with a different one, same for cpu, memory and everything else.
 
Ok you guys are thinking home user.

An average server will run you, say 10k to be conservative. That's without HDDs. Now the base price for these is $850, check the site. You can put 10 of these together for less, have more horsepower and save on electric bills. Not to mention that you can scale them up by adding more down the road as you need them. Sounds like a great deal to me.
 
OKANG said:
I guess you didn't follow the link to the product page. It isn't upgradable in the sense that you can replace components in the module. It is upgradable because it can be teamed with many other modules. So, if the dual-core doesn't cut it, add 2/4/6/8/10/12/14...more cores via additional modules. It is also redundant in that sense. Not cheap, but interesting technology.
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I did follow the link and I'm still somewhat confused. We've had clusters of computers being able to work together for quite some time. My basic understanding is that cluster computing requires software to allow all of the computers to work together. If they have been able to do this through hardware, color me impressed. If I just simply plug a 2nd computer in and the OS sees and is able to use the additional resources then this may have some legs. Being able to seamlessly daisy chain additional computers to work together on any task would be interesting.
 
Temo Vryce said:
Ok you guys are thinking home user.

An average server will run you, say 10k to be conservative. That's without HDDs. Now the base price for these is $850, check the site. You can put 10 of these together for less, have more horsepower and save on electric bills. Not to mention that you can scale them up by adding more down the road as you need them. Sounds like a great deal to me.
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this thing has way too many mundane i/o to be designed for server use... why would you need to hardware decode 1080p on a server? builtin audio? 6 USB ports?

c'mon
 
An average server will run you, say 10k to be conservative
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You can get servers from dell for 1099$ with a Xeon® L3426, 8GB Ram, PERC S300 , 2x250GB HDs, so im not sure where the 10k figure comes from.
 
Temo Vryce said:
Ok you guys are thinking home user.

An average server will run you, say 10k to be conservative. That's without HDDs. Now the base price for these is $850, check the site. You can put 10 of these together for less, have more horsepower and save on electric bills. Not to mention that you can scale them up by adding more down the road as you need them. Sounds like a great deal to me.
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Check out the box that "splits" the "computer" into 3 different computers. Not too bad, but it has been done before. And more cost effectively I'm sure
 
What a pile of crap.

IT is a step way backwards. You have to rely on the company Xi3 to supply with with any "upgrade" modules. Many tech companies like these are here today, gone tomorrow.
But HECK, I remember the days when a MB held the CPU, memory and ISA slots. ANYTHING else you had to have an "expansion card" for. That included, floppy controller, HD controller, serial and or Parallel port card, and of course a video. Sound? What the heck is that for? You have a PC speaker for sound! :D You may decide to skip the video card and log into it with a serial terminal. :p

Ahhhhh, the Bad old days.
 
Temo Vryce said:
Ok you guys are thinking home user.

An average server will run you, say 10k to be conservative. That's without HDDs. Now the base price for these is $850, check the site. You can put 10 of these together for less, have more horsepower and save on electric bills. Not to mention that you can scale them up by adding more down the road as you need them. Sounds like a great deal to me.
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What server are you getting for $10k without HDs that you can replace with these? Better yet, what are you getting that is $10K without HDs period.

Last server i just purchased was $2900, wasn't anything special but would be what i could expect you to have if you think that you can replace it with little cubes.. Single Xeon e5520, 8GB ram, Windows 2008 R2 Standard, 3x 250GB drives, and 3 year support.

On a slightly higher end, $24K got us 2 server (dual xeon e5540, 24GB ram, 2x 30GB HD) + an external raid array (15x 600GB HD), but the servers there were only $5500 each

So i'm not sure what you get where you think $10K is being conservative unless you are looking for more than a "average" server. Higher end computers for virtual machines or stuff like that. Also for this little block that doesn't give you any hard drives so you end up with eSata or usb as your choice of connections. what type of server are you going to be running when your system is using a software raid of extrnal drives like that.

It seems to me that buying a server instead of a lot of these would still be cheaper, and still use a lot less power.
 
macs can be upgraded forever too.....you just throw the old one away and buy a new one .
 
Temo Vryce said:
Ok you guys are thinking home user.

An average server will run you, say 10k to be conservative. That's without HDDs. Now the base price for these is $850, check the site. You can put 10 of these together for less, have more horsepower and save on electric bills. Not to mention that you can scale them up by adding more down the road as you need them. Sounds like a great deal to me.
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I wish I didn't do the last post I did but whatever.

There is an extremely large company that pretty much did this whole thing and is doing it. All these guys seem to be doing is copying what Google has already done with their own servers except that google is able to use cheaper hardware.
I really see no difference between this and making your own blade server farm other than that because the company doesn't use a conventional rack system that you would have to use their own proprietary system. Really they are just the Apple of server farms. Just a big waste of money. especially when you can buy a roughly equivelent blade module that has room for internal hard drives and can support more than 4 gigs of ram
 
Low power, but it still uses DDR2?

So, if you buy 4 of these things, then it looks like a 4-CPU (but 8 core) computer through the back-plane fabric automatically?
 
Temo Vryce said:
Ok you guys are thinking home user.

An average server will run you, say 10k to be conservative. That's without HDDs. Now the base price for these is $850, check the site. You can put 10 of these together for less, have more horsepower and save on electric bills. Not to mention that you can scale them up by adding more down the road as you need them. Sounds like a great deal to me.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a blade center to me.
:D
 
I recall laptops where you would be able to upgrade the GPUs forever.
bet they got a lot of suckers with that
 
although I wouldn't buy the modular computer to run a server it does seem intriguing to me to try to make it work in my car hooking it up to my dvd system. with it being as small as it is I don't think it would be all that bad to take their base model and use it as a computer for the car on roadtrips or something.
I do see problems integrating it into stuff I have but the size of the unit does make me want to just want to put one somewhere random just for the hell of it
 
I just dont see the market for this. Either in enterprise or home use.

Now that being said. I really like the way the unit looks.
 
I don't see much standard use for this, but I think it has awesome potential for military/aeronautic/space markets. A small, low power, self contained and easily upgradeable computer would be brilliant if they can get some long term defense contracts. Not only would it allow rolling upgrades, but also easy in situ replacement. Spread 3 or 4 of these around a tank/plane/shuttle/whatever for additional redundancy.
 
My concept of "upgrade forever" is different than what they came out with. At least they're thinking a bit differently. Too bad there isn't a way to have a case and motherboard that will accept different plug-in modules for any cpu/bios/memory/cards. Newer cpu? Just get it with the module to plug into the board type of thing. You'd never need a different board, just swap the component.
Not really doable, but it's just a thought.
 
Blast from EISA past! Modular designs may still be a way off, but it's nice to see the spirit is still alive.

I was playing around with the system builder and came up with $809 for the cheapest option. For low power server options this doesn't really compare to similar ITX U1 platforms at around $200 each...
 
So..

All I need is about 50 of these and it'll be as powerful as my SR-2 build.

That's.. 1000w and.. 28"x28", and.. 50,000$.

So, it's identical, except that it costs more than 10x as much.
 
Looks like there is an external power supply, not shown in the pretty pictures.
 
Azhar said:
Apple use PC parts now in case you didn't get the memo.
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ever try changing out the superdrive on a macbook? you literally have to take out EVERY component. that is no exaggeration. EVERY PART MUST COME OUT in order to change the superdrive.
 
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