Hey,
Surely pretty much a legacy thread here, since it looks like in a OC forum the SFF are rather unpopular, since the general mentality is, as bigger as more OC. However, people have to take into account that OC is never without risk, no matter how huge a tower and how good the cooling, there is so much factors which are unseen. Usualy, a small OC is the better OC in term the full power isnt needed on a daily basis. Even some SFF systems can handle a small OC.
Anyway, The reason why the super small boards are hard to get is because most users who buy those systems usualy aswell want a proper and small design and are usualy not a buyer of "pieces from the scratches" because most SFF buyers do not care a lot about power. In order to be more effective, and aswell cost effective, a intergrated solution would be cheaper and make the system even smaller (best example are Notebooks). Ofc huge board always look very promising, and then the people think, because it got alien tech which is, according to the manufacturer, totaly foolproof. they can OC up to the heaven. And at some point its all burned down, so, even the highest hyped product got its limits and rather drive save.
However, there is indeed the power users who wish to buy something small but still with lot of power. Those doesnt truly have a lot of options because most super small factor boards are either not very powerful, or there simply is no one around with a few very rare exceptions. One of those exceptions are the Shuttle SFF boards, and me as a long time user of those Shuttle systems am pretty happy about theyr quality. They might be pretty expensive but you always get what you pay for, and in that term, the quality does suit the price, that im sure about.
However, theyr strongest flagships usualy come as a barebone version. Not only the board but there isnt more than a case, board and PSU incl. cooler. Some may only want to buy the ultra small board which isnt possible because the entire design is proprietary, yes its mcro ATX but not fitable on standart cases, so there is no reason only to sell the board. Its not a standart size, its a proprietary shrink Shuttle made, which will need a special case. I dont say its impossible to build a very own case, but it will pretty much be a freak product and the cost wouldnt matter at all, at such a "custom single piece", if it does, then no one would ever start to think about, custom will always be the most expensive stuff at such a level.
So, the official version is a barebone and i own theyr currenlty strngest flagship. I made a test and am truly surprised what kind of power its able to handle inside such a small case. For example the Asus P8P67M-Pro may look good but its nowhere near the power which the new SX58H7PRO could handle. Its able to use a LGA 1366 CPU and triple channel memory. Its far above the Asus board in performance, actually in benchmarks the Shuttle board can keep pace with huge Asus Rampage boards, its simply impressive. The only true bottleneck it got is the higher temperature (equal to a stock cooler), and that it only can fit and handle a single GPU, however, i dont think any mini ATX user want more than 1 huge double slot GPU, since it will be impossible, just to much heat.
I would be interested what kind of alternate stuff is around. However, as it seems most manufacturer of micro ATX got the mentality to provide a small and cheap media center and arnt haivng any focus to make it very powerful, thats why Shuttle seems to be the almost only option for power users who want to go small. Im open for alternate stuff, if someone know something else.. i dont know someting comparable with same size. My system and all its tests can be seen here:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=678584 (please note, it may be unavailable for some time, but you can see the same topic on overclockersclub).