Iwill is no stranger when it comes to the small form factor game. A while ago they released their XP4 and ZPC SFFs. The XP4?s made perfect little office machines due to their compact form and simplistic nature. The thing with the XP4s and ZPCs were they utilized Intel?s 845GV chipset; which lacked support for external AGP graphics cards. This steered users who were looking for a tower replacement away from Iwill solutions. This proved to be a problem for Iwill, as they were once known for producing products that was praised by the overclocking world.

It?s been a while since the last ZPC and XP4s were launched, but Iwill is back in the game with a brand new small form factor system with all the bells and whistles. The new SFF is dubbed ZMAX and features a totally new design. According to Iwill, all their SFFs will be consistently named with a Z prefix.

A closer look?

The unit we will be looking at today is Iwill?s P4 model with integrated wireless AP functionality; the ZMAX-AP.

The new ZMAX is painted white with chrome trim and looks quite sexy. The Optical drive slot is covered by a front flap that does an excellent job concealing beige drives but proves to be a problem for slot load drives. Dimension wise, the ZMAX is approximately half an inch taller and wider than a Shuttle XPC. The depth is comparable.

Powering the ZMAX is Intel?s 865G dual channel DDR chipset.

Like an old 50?s Cadillac, the ZMAX has a fin towards the rear of the SFF. The fin serves a non-aesthetic purpose and is actually the WiFi antenna for the unit?s AP and Wireless capabilities.

Hidden below the optical drive flap is a USB 2.0 card reader that supports Compact Flash, Smart Media, SD/MMC, and memory stick. Unfortunately, there?s no support for XD cards, which is a format Olympus and Fuji are touting. For those who have no use for an internal card reader, the reader is removable and can be replaced with a floppy drive. Below the card reader are USB 2.0 and 1394a ports. Absent from the front panel are microphone and headphone jacks, which can be considered a negative by some users but praised by others.

When the ZMAX is powered up, the system has a blue glow that is very bright. When a peripheral is plugged into one of the front ports, the blue light changes to a red and stays red till the device is unplugged. Unlike the other SFFs, the Iwill only has blue and red LED?s, which looks great compared to say Shuttle, which still uses orange LED?s for hard drive activity.

On the backside of the ZMAX, Iwill has opted to use a customized micro ATX power supply with a few slight modifications to make it slide out.

The ZMAX features a relatively standard layout that features PS2, Serial, VGA, dual Ethernet, 4 USB, and audio connectors. In addition to the standard connectors, the ZMAX features an eSATA connector above the Ethernet jacks for external SATA devices. Absent from the back of the ZMAX is any type of digital coaxial/optical in/out connectors; which leads us to believe Iwill isn?t targeting the ZMAX for HTPC usage.

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• A closer look cont... (1 of 5)
• An even closer look...BIOS, and Test Setup (2 of 5)
• Overclocking & Benchmarks (3 of 5)
• Benchmark Comparisons, Noise, and Temps (4 of 5)
• Conclusion (5 of 5)