**** PHINIX NANO TOWER **** Smallest and most powerful mITX rig !!!

[phinix_mike]

Ladies and Gentlemen

for the second time, welcome to my project log!
After my first scratch - build - Phinix Cube - I decided to start new little adventure, little enough to call it NANO

First plan was to case-mod Lian Li A05 case, I'm sure some of you saw introduction to this project, but after some heavy thinking I decided to scratch build again I just didn't feel like modding case, when so many projects have been done with it already. You can find so many beautiful builds, I didn't feel like I could bring any new fresh ideas to this case. I felt I have to do something extraordinary, something better than we all have seen already, something that will open everyone's mouths and drop their jaws on the floor

Right now Nano Tower is in the first stage - planning and gathering materials and hardware.
I will update it every time I make a next step. Right now, short introduction...




As you could already noticed from my previous build I'm always trying to use smallest dimensions I can get, to create great performance unit without any sacrifices on power and abilities. What I want to make is a case that its base will be smallest as possible, so it won't take a lot of space on my desk. To do that I would have to make it a bit taller, so that is why I decided to build tower-shaped case. Is it going to be tall? Tall just enough to take the longest graphic card on market. Engineering sample of dual chip ATI 5970 had ~34cm, so anything like that monster must go in my case.. just in case I win a lottery and buy one
Also I want to cool it with water. Baaah... not one loop, but two! Yep, why not! One loop for CPU, one for GPU, so these two elements won't make any influence on temps of each other, adding more heat into the loop. After reading so many good reviews of that Corsair H50 cooler I decided to get one for my new i5. What about GPU? having in mind that it's not out yet, I can predict that triple radiator will be enough for dual chip graphic card.

I built my Cube from acrylic, now its time for aluminium!

So, it will have small base, 20x20cm, it will be tall - main aluminium structure rods have 40cm. Tall, smooth tower - this kind of shape will look really good and a bit "mysterious"! Don't you think?

Now, to make it more difficult for myself, apart of longest card and i5, two loops of water cooling, internal, I will squeeze in two SSD drives in RAID0, one 2.5"HDD and one slim dvd drive. What else? Full size ATX PSU, 750W modular.
I think that will make it difficult enough to get your attention

So, here it is, main idea, general plans and hardware that will be used to create Nano-Tower:

Main ideas :

• install motherboard in vertical position, so I/O panel will be on top
• water cooling system installation, two loops, one for CPU (Corsair H50), one for GPU
• vertical PSU installation, power cable will go outside through the bottom panel
• laser cut window installation on the left and right panel
• fabricate mesh-radiator grill for top of the case a'la TJ-07 (clean mesh)
• some nice laser-cut front panel
• lighting system installation

Hardware:

• i5 750 watercooled
• DFI MI P55-T36 mITX motherboard - first and most powerful mITX mobo on market !!!
• new generation graphic card (also watercooled, right now I got GTX295, but waiting for Fermi )
• 4GB dual channel DDR3 CRUCIAL Ballistix Tracer memory !!!
• 2x SSD RAID0 as OS drive
• 1x 2.5" HDD as games drive
• 750W Modular PSU

Water cooling system:

• Corsair H50 watercooling kit for CPU
• EK 4.0 pump + combo reservoir
• triple EK-CoolStream RAD XT (360) radiator for GPU loop
• GPU water block
• Bitspower silver compression fittings
• Feser tubing (yellow)
• 3x 120mm YateLoon SL slim fans for triple radiator
• Akasa Apache fan to use on H50

Additional - EXTRA stuff:

• Switches and fan controller to control all lights and fans.
• leds to light it all up
• yellow acrylic.. a lot...

Project color scheme : black and yellow!


My NanoTower Project is sponsored by:

DFI




Check this out here.


CRUCIAL



Check this out here.


MNPCTECH



Check this out here.


EK Water Blocks



EK gave me huge discount on their products so I ordered these - check this out here



PHENOPTIX



Ben from Phenoptix is sponsoring all lightning equipment in this project!


BITSPOWER



Vincent from Bitspower will sponsor all amazing Bitspower goodies!


*** AQUATUNING ***



Aquatuning will sponsor quick release fittings sets for my water cooling loop !!!



*** ANTEC ***



Antec will support my project with their fantastic TruePower New TP-750W Modular PSU !!!


So.. have fun with me once again and... STAY TUNED !!!

PHINIX