Taiwanese vendor offers barebones small form-factor PC TAIPEI – Taiwanese hardware maker Iwill plans to update its small form-factor Opteron workstation later this year with the introduction of a new version, the ZMAXd2, according to a company spokesman.The ZMAXd2 updates the ZMAXdp, a small form-factor PC designed for dual Opteron processors that was unveiled last year. Like its predecessor, the ZMAXd2 will be offered as a barebones system, and does not include processors or a hard-disk drive, which users add themselves, said Matt Chang, a spokesman for the company, speaking at the Computex exhibition in Taipei.The shoebox-sized ZMAXd2 runs on two dual-core Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which are connected by dual HyperTransport links. This boosts the processing performance of the system by around 20 percent compared with a comparable system using a single HyperTransport link, according to Iwill. The system also supports two PCI Express graphics cards. Having two graphics cards running simultaneously allows for improved graphics performance because they are sharing the processing load, Chang said.Samples of the ZMAXd2 will be available in August, Chang said. Pricing of the systems has not been finalized, but will likely be about $750, he said.Computex runs through Friday. Technology Industry