Upgrade Time & Case Shrink

[azrael]

Hi guys wondering if you can help. Thinking of upgrading my system and at the same time making it smaller. It gets used less and less all the time adndoesn't really fit under my desk and is too big to put on the desk. Current Case Cooler Master CM Stacker 830

I'd like to know the smallest/best case that will still take an eATX mobo.

Currently have a Rampage II Extreme, thinking of changing to a Rampage III. At the same time loosing my 4x146GB U320 15K SCSI drive and swapping to SSD. I've also got a Thermaltake 1kw PSU (Keeping that but it is large) and 2 x GTX280's so need room for long cards (Would like to change GFX too) Ideally a single card that can support 3 Monitors, or just two more current card.

Any advice apreciated!

[Pob255]

well you could lift the whole lot out and put it into a HAF 912, so going from what basically a full tower case size to a mid tower losing about 1/3rd of the overall volume.
next would be to drop right down to an mATX case.

Alternately, you could keep the current unit, but somewhere else, then get a tiny ITX system and use it to remote desktop to big system, or just some long extention cables for monitor+keyboard+mouse(+DVDr/w maybe)

[planet436]

A Raven RV02 will take an EATX and is shorter than a full tower case, 212mm (W) x 503mm (H) x 643mm (D). This isn't much taller than a haf 912 (can that case take an EATX) but is obviously a lot deeper due to the rotated motherboard design. Depends on the size of your desk whether it would fit under but is bound to be smaller than your current case.

Air cooling is regarded as excellent for both CPU and GPU in reviews, but is reasonably expensive at £140

[Pob255]

Actually the HAF 912 doesn't take eATX, however neather the Rampage II Extreme or Rampage III are eATX.

But yes the Raven2 or fortress 02 would be good cases if the extra length is not a problem.

[azrael]

Thanks for the responses guys, I thought the Rampage mobo's were eATX my bad.

I think the HAF then if its shorter

Does the GTX 570/80 support 3 monitors? that way i can get down to 1 GFX card

Lossing the RAID array in favour of SSD

[planet436]

The 570/580 does support more than two monitors but unfortunately you need to SLI them. A single 570/580 cannot support three screens.

EDIT: should clarify, you need sli for nvidia surround. If you just want multiple monitors then a single card is okay.

[Pob255]

Oh yes missed that, a single card for 3 monitors would mean ATi (eyefinity) 5770 or better, nvidia gtx460 and upwards can support 3 monitors when sli'd only, (surround vision)

The gtx460 768mb is roughly the same performance as the gtx280 however the gtx460 768mb sli really suffers with surround vision, the low memory bandwidth and lack of ROP's just cannot hack it.
You could wait for the gtx560 to come out (around feb/march time) or look for a cheap gtx470 deal.