NFC - S3 Chassis (100% aluminum, ITX, and made in America)

[bamtan2]

1. Defining my customers.

My goal for the S3 was not to compress extreme gaming hardware into as small a box as possible. I have another project for that, and companies like Digital Storm, Cyber Power, and Falcon Northwest have done this in 2012. I had hoped to beat them to the punch...but oh well. My goal was to find the hardware that pushed out great graphics to 1080p TVs and Monitors--and make THAT as small as possible. The hardware I have been using in the S3 chomps down Skyrim, Civ V, Crysis 2, Far Cry 3, and other modern titles at this resolution. The goal was not to be excessive--but find what was necessary then go over that mark.

...unfortunately the kind of people who are interested in boutique, high-quality chassis are the kind of people who demand excessive hardware. I've met with a bunch of people in 2012 who keep crushing my willingness to invest in this project because they all want huge GPUs or liquid cooling. CES was also disheartening in that regard. From everything I have heard I think I need to re-evaluate everything I have been told and work on something for longer cards and heavier duty PSUs.

people are stupid. at the maximum, all you need to support is: 10.5" titan, 3770k with aftermarket heatsink, asus z77 itx, 3.5" hard drive, 2.5" ssd, and some margin for external expansion like a usb hard drive. this covers almost all capabilities, and yet it doesn't require very much. it certainly doesn't require pointless water cooling or mutant size video cards. even the dvd drive is a luxury IMO, and I'm switching to using external USB optical drives now, because they are never used.

and even if you supported nothing but the video card, a cpu, and a 2.5" drive, you'd still cover almost everybody. extremists can make their own case... you can't please everybody. the system except the video card uses 150W max, and the video card is 250W max, and this is with margin that is 400W max and there are ways to power that in a small case. and a case that supports this will also make a good 100W system with a picopsu.

you can even get rid of all internal expansion and just add a third PCI-E slot, and let people add their SSD there with a 2.5" expansion bracket. remove all the features you want as long as it gets the job done: fast small computer, or whatever you view your requirements to be.

I hope you dont get discouraged listening to too many people.