Gaming in Tight Spaces…..mini-ITX (featuring Gigabyte, Silverstone, and Prolimatech)

[miahallen]

I recently built a mini-ITX gaming rig...check out my story:
http://www.techreaction.net/2010/08/...d-prolimatech/

[Eugenester]

Very nice! Very much like Falcon Northwest's "fragboxes". Nice i3 you had too. Shows how much budget systems can actually do.

[halfwaythere]

Very nice write-up. Another confirmation the H55N is a great piece of kit.

[saaya]

hahah the first pic looks so awesome!
airflow is terrible though with that heatinks in that case...
i think a thin low tower heatsink standing up with a direct front to back airflow would do better...

very nice article mia! fun to read

[miahallen]

hahah the first pic looks so awesome!
airflow is terrible though with that heatinks in that case...
i think a thin low tower heatsink standing up with a direct front to back airflow would do better...

very nice article mia! fun to read

Thanks guys....with the high powered Delta's in there, aireflow is not a problem

[Hondacity]

love that cooler woot..nice find

[grishenko45]

this is brilliant - the OC'd results are far higher than i thought!!!

i've always wanted to do something like this - how much do you recon it cost you to build??

[miahallen]

A cost analysis is included in the article

[Nanometer]

kick ass build! I love condensed stuff like that. I bet it was a lot of fun to put together. What makes these more fun is the absolute must to plan where everything will go and what can and wont fit. It's literally a puzzle. bot like building a full ATX where you have about 101 options to put things in different places. Well done!

[Eugenester]

Lol at the 3.4k Delta. How many dba is it rated for?

[l0ud_sil3nc3]

great right up, pretty much sums it up all, this board is the best mini itx board ever made

[miahallen]

kick ass build! I love condensed stuff like that. I bet it was a lot of fun to put together. What makes these more fun is the absolute must to plan where everything will go and what can and wont fit. It's literally a puzzle. bot like building a full ATX where you have about 101 options to put things in different places. Well done!

Thanks, it was a lot of fun

Lol at the 3.4k Delta. How many dba is it rated for?

46.5 Db/a But I play in a noisy room with headphones on

great right up, pretty much sums it up all, this board is the best mini itx board ever made

Yes sir

[Hu1kamania]

I love this project. If i had the extra cash, I would build one myself.

[slaveondope]

Im amazed the psu held up.
I thought I was getting by well with a single 5850 and 4ghz 955 on a 450watter.

[miahallen]

Im amazed the psu held up.
I thought I was getting by well with a single 5850 and 4ghz 955 on a 450watter.

It's pretty impressive what little power these modern components actually need

[sup3rfly]

i think without the casing the mobo will be floating when u on it =D

[sno.lcn]

AWESOME job Miah! I''ve been toying with the idea of build an ITX H55 setup for a while now, I think it's about time to take the plunge, and get this big ass computer case out of my living room

[dinos22]

[Clint]

Nice write up! I just completed my built based on the Lian-Li PC-Q08 but this got me intersted. I think it's possible to cut out for a ATX PSU and still fit the VGA, and still have room underneath for the Thermalright AXP-140. I would throw out all the junk that holds DVD and HD's and make a simple construction for a disk array with rubber mounts, no need for internal DVD these days, hardly ever use it. Why did they not put a 140mm fan in the front of the Sugo, it sure has empty space there? Maybe grab the Sugo-06 and cut out for a 140mm, wouldnt show due to the plastics...

..I wonder how many disks one could fit there, hmm?

[miahallen]

I like the Lian Li PC-Q08, but here are the dimensions:
(W) 227mm x (H) 272mm x (D) 345mm

Here are the dimensions of the SUGO SG05:
(W) 222mm x (H) 176mm x (D) 276mm

The SG05 is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller

While they may have been able to fit a 140mm fan...it doesn't bother me, I prefer the selection of 120mm fans on the market.
Did you read the artilce? There's no need for a full size ATX PSU for this build....and if the 300W isn't enough, Silverstone is now making a 450W version.
I like your idea of modifying the HDD area, I think it would be easy to fit a half dozen 2.5" drives

[Clint]

I like the Lian Li PC-Q08, but here are the dimensions:
(W) 227mm x (H) 272mm x (D) 345mm

Here are the dimensions of the SUGO SG05:
(W) 222mm x (H) 176mm x (D) 276mm

The SG05 is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller

While they may have been able to fit a 140mm fan...it doesn't bother me, I prefer the selection of 120mm fans on the market.
Did you read the artilce? There's no need for a full size ATX PSU for this build....and if the 300W isn't enough, Silverstone is now making a 450W version.
I like your idea of modifying the HDD area, I think it would be easy to fit a half dozen 2.5" drives

Yeah, it is actually perfect for a travelling workstation. The maximum allowed cabin luggage is just a tad to small for the Lian-Li. The reason for the bigger PSU is the 140mm fan, would match the fan of the CPU cooler perfectly, and of course less noice when loaded. Airflow wise it's a good match to the 140mm in front as well I think if I cram a ATX PSU in there I'm kinda locked in on a 7 x 2.5" disk array, of which 1 would be a SSD. The GA-H55N-USB3 has 4 SATA ports, but I use the eSATA and a adapter for USB3 to two SATA connectors.
http://usb.brando.com/usb-3-0-to-dua...0c061d015.html

I'm still waiting for a couple of SATA extension cables, and then I'm going to do some benches on the adaptor.

[prava]

Can't see the review...it seems they do not allow my ISP for some unknown reasons :/

[TJ TRICHEESE]

nice pc, just built a wc'd one it was the hardest thing i have ever done

[miahallen]

I'm planning to rebuild this with some proper modding in the next few months to turn it into the ultimate mini-ITX rig....what do you guys think of the following upgrades?

Intel i5 750 CPU - Which I'd hope to run at 4.2GHz or more, plus it has a good IMC and 4 real cores. I'm not going to pursue an i7 because I'd turn off HT anyhow.

Corsair H70 CPU cooler - all internal. I'll have to replace the 3.5" HDD with a 2.5" and then relocate both it and the SSD.

Corsair Dominator GTX3 memory - rated at DDR3-2400 9-11-9-27, but I'll probably try to run DDR3-2000 CAS6 or DDR3-2200 CAS7.

Gigabyte Radeon HD 5870 SOC - stock clocks of 950 core and 1250 memory should give a noticable boost in GPU limited games. I'll have to mod the case a little for this to fit.

500GB Momentus XT - to replace the 1TB Green drive I'm running now.

And last but not least, I think I'd be pushing this 300W PSU a bit too hard, so I'll plan on upgrading to the new 450W SFX unit by Silverstone.

[TJ TRICHEESE]

i doubt the 450w would be able to handle a 5870

and a closed loop cooling system would be much easier than a custom one