The form factor is why this thing is cool though. I know a handful of tournament organizers who love how much better these things have gotten. (Also, this is using about a tenth of the energy that your ATX build will likely use.)
Why do you carry a smartphone around? Surely you could get more computing power per dollar if you just carried an ATX board around with you.
responding to edits:
What’s cool about spending ridiculous amounts of money on needlessly small products?
$550 is ridiculous? You’re not getting much more power in an ATX build if you’re only filling a 1080p display anyway.
Like Minesweeper tournaments?
Skullgirls, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R, basically anything retro and emulated, Puyo Puyo. Take your pick. This thing can run Street Fighter 6, and let me tell you how many problems there are with running it on a PS5, even if it outputs a better image…Sony really made things harder for everyone.
Because it’s doing a tenth as much work.
Exactly! Now you’re getting it!
And also, most game-playing time worldwide is spent on games that are over ten years old and don’t need a lot of power. If you want the form factor more than power that you don’t need, you may as well lower your energy bill and the amount of space this thing takes up in your home.