Kryotech Cool K6-3 500

It's growing increasingly painful to see Kryotech produce such high quality, high potential products, that are just shy of a complete recommendation on AnandTech.  The Cool K6-3 is definitely an improvement over the original Cool K6-2 system AnandTech reviewed last December, unfortunately it is still lacking in a few areas:

• Performance - Although it's based on the K6-3, 500MHz just isn't enough to be competitive.  Once the K6-3 450 starts shipping in mass quantities you can expect to be able to have a chance at taking those processors up to 500MHz, which would nullify the majority of the "advantages" Kryotech's Cool K6-3 500 offers.  The only K6-3 based Kryotech that could possibly draw the attention of the majority of readers out there as well as myself would have to be a 600MHz system released in a timely manner. 
• Expandability - The Mid-Tower ATX case is simply too small for the price you'll be paying for it, 3 - 5.25" bays is nothing with all of the drives users are putting in their systems.  Especially for users with DVD and CDR drives, it won't be too long until those three precious drive bays are populated and you begin to worry about finding a home for your next 5.25" peripheral.   The number of internal 3.5" drive bays is limited as well, a single internal bay is definitely not enough when thinking about future expansion.  Although there are 2 external 3.5" a second internal would be greatly desired.  Basically, a larger case.
• Price - We all knew that this area needed improving, for $1250 you could purchase a similarly performing Celeron based system, not a bare bones kit, but a complete system.  The price seems to be the tragic flaw this time around, the Cool K6-3 is once again, too little, too late. 

...and the strong points?

• Lower Ambient Case Temperature - Because the K6-3 is isolated from the rest of the system, the ambient case temperature of the Cool K6-3 is considerably lower than most other systems since you don't have that processor contributing to the case's heat problems.  This ensures that other components, devices, and peripherals function within a much more desirable range of temperatures, which decreases the chances of any sort of erratic system behavior.
• Improved Upgradeability - The Cool K6-3 is much more user upgradeable than the older Cool K6-2, Kryotech will even allow users to perform their own processor upgrades without voiding their warranty (unless they damage the system).  Kryotech has posted a fairly decent how-to guide on upgrading the Cool K6-3's processor on their web page at www.kryotech.com.
• Stability - The Cool K6-3 is probably the most stable Super7 system you will ever come across, the cooler temperatures make sure that the system operates well within its specified limits and even in spite of the overclocked state of the computer, the Cool K6-3 is as close as you'll get to a crash free Super7 setup as you possibly can.  Most crashes on the Cool K6-3 will be software related and have very little, if anything at all to do with the hardware in the bare bones unit.

So once again we are forced to play the waiting game.   If armed with the K6-3 450 could Kryotech get up to 600MHz?  It seems doubtful, however there's always hope.  Kryotech has an extremely promising future, unfortunately it seems as if their promising future doesn't lie with the Cool K6 line of systems, there are bigger and better things coming up and not all are from Intel.   Kryotech has a wonderful relationship with AMD at this point, and in the upcoming months AMD will launch yet another new processor; in the short term we await the Cool K6-3 600, and in the long term, there isn't a soul out there who can't help but wonder what a Cool K7 might bring...