View Full Version : Project Mini ITX
After nearly a year at uni, I've come to realise the inpracticalities of having a fairly large desktop. Regular sized tables don't have a lot of workable space once a desktop, monitor, keyboard and mouse are on it so I've had to sacrifice my bedside table and relocate it to place the base unit. Further, with 4-6 months of holidays I have to bring it back home again and despite having an excellent Virgin Train service out of the capital back home, I have to be picked up if I want to bring my desktop back... :|
I couldn't stand the idea of having to lose performance and MUCH more money on buying a performance laptop so I looked into downsizing my machine. Micro ATX was a nice start and there's plenty of options to choose from. Unfortunately due to Micro ATX still covering a fairly large area, cases are still either tall or rather wide, which defeats the purpose of building such a machine. Mini ITX was on the back of my mind for a while but knew that cramming relatively high end components into a Mini ITX chassis would be nigh on impossible. That is until I saw one of these... :D
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_contents.php?pno=sg05&area=usa
A case just 17cm tall, 22cm wide and 27cm in depth. It supports graphics cards up to 9" in length and comes with an 80PLUS certified 300W PSU made by Fortron Source. Perfect!
I was toying with the idea for a while and also happened to find a couple of interesting ITX boards with one PCI-E 16x slot. The only factor stopping me was that the only Socket AM2+ ITX Motherboard with a PCI-E 16x slot is the J&W 780G ITX. Looks great and they're a good brand but so far there is no BIOS support for Phenom II. This meant the move to ITX would also mean parting with my new AMD CPU and Motherboard. The closest Intel performers are the E8400 and E8500, both of which are priced rather high.
Nothing became of the idea until browsing a well known auction site for bargains revealed an OEM Core 2 Duo E8400 for auction and just 10minutes left. The current bid was £80 and with these CPU's costing £140 delivered and up from retailers, I thought I had to look. At about 50 seconds left I placed a bid of £82 but was immediately outbid by some automated function. It was £84 now. With just a few moments left, I offered a £6 raise on that, to £90 and what do you know, I won it :P
With the CPU arriving in the mail tomorrow, I bit my tongue and dropped precious funds on
1 x Silverstone Sugo SG05 in Black
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_contents.php?pno=sg05&area=usa
1 x Zotac GeForce 9300 ITX WiFi Motherboard
http://www.zotac.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=483
http://www.techpowerup.com/img/09-01-09/121c.jpg
1 x Samsung 8x Slimline DVD+/-RW (Case only takes slimline opticals)
-------------------------
And tomorrow I shall be ordering these
1 x Coolermaster GeminII for the CPU
http://www.coolermaster.com/products/product.php?act=detail&id=140
1 x Akasa Vortexx Neo GPU Cooler
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=604&pageid=1
To go along with
XpertVision GeForce 8800GT 512mb GDDR3
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB SATA II HDD
2GB Patriot PC2-6400 RAM
Everything should arrive on Friday and photos will follow. I shall be leaving the packaging behind and taking the half built setup back to university on Monday where the build log will be completed. :)
I'm liking that motherboard. I got really into the Mini ITX stuff a few years ago, when I build my first HTPC, but havent really looked much in the last coupla years. Looks like things have really moved on, in a good way :)
Indeed. Now it's possible to build a small form factor the size of barebone kits of propreitory design (Shuttle XPC's and Aopen XC Cubes for example) but retain the ability to swap out any component! :)
On another note I would've preferred to have used a meatier Thermalright T-Rad2 GPU Cooler. It'll fit fine without fans in the SG05 but any clues as to whether I might just be able to squeeze one in with a low profile 12mm fan perhaps?
I'm actually in the middle of speccing up a PC for someone. They weren't sure if they wanted a 2nd laptop, or a full desktop. The thing that put them off the desktop was the space.. Seeing that the Mini-ITX stuff has come on so much, I may well include something from that site in there!
It's worth a shot! If they don't need a dedicated graphics card, have a look for boards with a single PCI-e 1x slot as they're around for half the price of the one I bought :)
Looks good, waits for the build log n pics :)
Just buy a bigger desk? :p
How much is the system costing you in total?
Considering I have a new DFI LanParty Jr P45 mATX to be rid off (RMA replacement) as well as Biostar TForce I45 P45, Core 2 Duo E6300, Biostar TA790GX3 and Phenom II X3 720 black to sell, I pretty much break even.
Cost in parts for the new stuff is £360.
pics of the build requested :)
Update-
Cooling equipment now ordered. While it would've been great to have used the giant Coolermaster GeminII for passive operation and "epic lolz", I've played it safe and bought the smaller Scythe Shuriken Heatpipe cooler :)
http://www.scythe-eu.com/en/products/cpu-cooler/shuriken.html
Ordered the Akasa Vortexx Neo GPU cooler as planned.
Also, the Core 2 Duo E8400 arrived just now :D
Everything set to arrive on Friday :)
How long have you been planning this for? moving fast with it LOL :)
Since early this week, but I had my eye on that case since it was released about a week or so ago.
Considering I have a new DFI LanParty Jr P45 mATX to be rid off (RMA replacement) as well as Biostar TForce I45 P45, Core 2 Duo E6300, Biostar TA790GX3 and Phenom II X3 720 black to sell, I pretty much break even.
Cost in parts for the new stuff is £360.
How much for everything? Just out of interest.
How much for everything? Just out of interest.
£360 :P
i know what you meant really :lol:
£360 :P
i know what you meant really :lol:
To clarify. How much is your mITX system to buy and build from new? Sigh...
The entire breakdown is as follows
Silverstone SG05 Case - £89
Core 2 Duo E8400 - £90
Zotac GeForce 9300 ITX WiFi - £125
Scythe Shuriken CPU Cooler - £25
Akasa Vortexx Neo GPU Cooler - £13
Slimline DVDRW - £26
Total Expense - £368
Then I suppose the cost of new components that I've recycled
HDD of choice up to 320GB - £40
9800GT - £75
2GB RAM - £20
So the whole thing can be built for just over £500 excluding OS. Unfortunately there's a giant price premium on ITX boards with a PCI-E 16x slot. The same board with a PCI-E 1x slot is nearer £60 =/
Cool, looks good. If I had the money I would put something together like this for LAN Party purposes. Lugging an Antec 1200 around is no joke!
You should get the Gemini 2 cpu cooler, looks amaising :P
Should be quick enough too - just a shame most newer GPUs are longer :-(
Yep. The GTX 260/280's are pretty much as long as my silverstone case :D
Monkey - I was going to get the GeminII and actually it fits. Just seemed a bit OTT and the Scythe Shuriken was cheaper!
The only part that I have is the E8400, the rest arrives tomorrow!
Cant wait to see it all coming together, does look like a very nice case and a pretty decent spec too
EDIT: Hold on a minute, who changed my sig with that poorly stamped image :P
Well the CPU and GPU cooler has arrived. Now I'm eagerly awaiting the Case, Motherboard and DVD drive O.o
Case and motherboard - you can start building without an optical drive ;-)
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/mac124/smilies/worthless.gif
Right, to summarise the good news and bad news
Good news
- Everything arrived
- It all looks fantastic
- It's alive! Ish
Bad news
- The rest of my parts are in my halls of residence so I can't do a thing till then
- I need a Mini SATA to SATA adapter to connect the slimline optical drive
- I need an appropriate screwdriver to fit the slimline optical drive (tiny screws!)
And photos as promised.
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4320/case1f.jpg
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5976/case2m.jpg
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/6833/case4.jpg
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/5463/mb1m.jpg
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/7839/mb2k.jpg
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/7337/mb3a.jpg
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2015/mb4k.jpg
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8475/mb5d.jpg
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/2058/cas3g.jpg
So yeah it's all looking good so far. The Front fan, PSU fan and the Scythe Fan are all very quiet although I'm unable to comment on temperatures. BIOS seems to be pretty loaded for a board of this size, offering
- CPU FSB up to 625FSB
- Memory Linked/Unlinked
- CPU VCore up to +0.3
- Memory VDimm up to +0.3 V
- NB VCore up to +0.3V
- Overclock support for integrated GPU.
Taking the PC back to halls with me where I'll then add the HDD, Graphics Card (+ new cooler), RAM and get a screwdriver to properly mount the Optical drive.
Looks good so far, silverstone cases look really cool, except the raven.
I must admit i quite like the look of it so far, sorry if you have already answered this but does the onboard gfx support hd? would make for a nice htpc if it did.
*googles*
Apparently it does, nice :D.
Indeed it does. The GeForce 9300 is nVidia's answer to the 790GX/HD3300 combo. It doesn't do too badly against it actually and the Hybrid SLI with Vista sounds quite cool. I'm writing a full review for the motherboard so I'll get round to seeing how capable this integrated graphics chipset is.
That would indeed make a very nice HTPC, I think I'd prefer it to the HTPC cases you can get now TBH.
Benchmarks, more pics! :-)
Edit: Just a thought (And yes, I checked out your log on that FSX forum :p)
"Yes the PSU fan and CPU fan are pulling against each other. Shall see if it causes an issue or not though I don't think it will. "
Why not just flip the cooler fan over soo it's pulling through the HS and straight out of the PSU? Hot air is ejected straight away and you're sucking cold air accross the motherboard rather than blowing hot air down onto it?
That cooler looks hilarious! But nice set up tho! :) I like alot!
Hmm, is that PCI-e x16 slot facing the opposite way to the IO panel?
And if I didn't know that was a uITX board I'd think it even worse xD it does look a bit like a 24cm fan or similar on an ATX board, if you don't compare the size of the components too closely :-)
I think you need your eyes tested mate ;)
The release catch is the furthest end away from the i/o panel, as per normal. :lol:
Hmmmmmmmm, *eyes new credit card*...
You're probably right mac - has been a while since my last eye test :p
It just looked a long way back, but that may be the size of the board making a fool of me! :-)
Hmmmmmmmm, *eyes new credit card*...
Or use the finance option available on most sites.
It just looked a long way back, but that may be the size of the board making a fool of me! :-)
wouldnt be the first time :lol:
Unfortunately yes, motherboards tend to single me out for abuse.
Perhaps they just don't like my jumpers.
*Groan*
Well it's up and running at a toasty 60c fully loaded with Prime95 Torture Test.
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/1733/core2itx.jpg
Pictures to follow tomorrow in daylight. Lights in the rooms at halls are ghastly!
max fsb of 405
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/9594/core2itx405.jpg
Are those load temps at 3, or 3.6?
If they're at 3.6 it should hold up fine. If thats at 100% at stock, I'd be wanting to keep an eye on them. At the same time - how often does anything force an E8400 to 100% for as long as prime95
Those were at stock. It's been running Prime95 for about 2h45m so far with load temps of around 60-65c. I haven't increased cpu volts for naturally temperatures should stay similar to stock.
On another note, let me know when you want the CPU and motherboard. I have a coursework assignment and a rescheduled lecture tomorrow but I'll get the packaging and stuff together for it.
Whenever, I've scraped the cash together so I can send you it anytime as long as Paypal's okay (I generally assume so)
<deleted to avoid spam now you have it> to get me on MSN, I'm on most of the time I'm in my room so that's the best way to get hold of me.
:-)
Edit: Do we not get any more photos from this? :-)
Mul it all looks very nice and tidy, wouldn't mind something like that myself
What res screen you gonna be running? And what remote/keyboard and whatnot?
I'm using my existing Iiyama Prolite C1900WTV 19" HDMI Monitor along with an ancient keyboard and mouse. Getting myself a Logitech Di Novo keyboard set once I can afford it. :D
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