DFI unveiled the P55 MI-T36 to the public a couple of months ago. It's an exciting little board based upon the P55 chipset, cut back to the most desirable essentials in order to facilitate a shrink down to the mini-ITX form factor.DFI unveiled the P55 MI-T36 to the public a couple of months ago. It's an exciting little board based upon the P55 chipset, cut back to the most desirable essentials in order to facilitate a shrink down to the mini-ITX form factor.DFI unveiled the P55 MI-T36 to the public a couple of months ago. It's an exciting little board based upon the P55 chipset, cut back to the most desirable essentials in order to facilitate a shrink down to the mini-ITX form factor.DFI unveiled the P55 MI-T36 to the public a couple of months ago. It's an exciting little board based upon the P55 chipset, cut back to the most desirable essentials in order to facilitate a shrink down to the mini-ITX form factor.

What DFI are attempting to do is bring near enthusiast level performance to a form factor that is associated largely with web-browsing and HTPC use. Teamed up with a suitable GPU, the prospects of having a compact multi-purpose PC capable of delivering a high-end gaming experience is rather compelling.

Unfortunately, there's not exactly an abundance of suitable PC cases on the market catering for such builds. Right now, you're limited to a couple of ITX offerings from Silverstone, namely the SG-05 and SG-06 models, while Lian-Li have the PC Q07. Obvious limitations in going such a route are related to PSU requirements. Once you team a board like this up with a hefty GPU, cooling and power demands throw minimum case dimensions towards M-ATX sizing, which defeats the attraction of going for mini-ITX in the first place.

Nevertheless, products like these create demands for innovation and we're sure the MI-T36 has given PC case and PSU vendors something to think about for the future. So although the MI-T36 seems like a bit of an outcast in certain scenarios at this stage of proceedings, it's still interesting to see what DFI have managed to cram into the mini-ITX form factor.

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