Tower considerations

[CHiLL]

Over the coming months I plan on building a replacement gaming PC. I'm pretty much decided on the specifications, but I'm not sure about the type of case to use.

At the moment, I have an Antec 900 case, which is huge, cumbersome and weighs a tonne, so I'd like to replace it. However I don't want a case as large, even if they may be better for cooling.

I don't plan on having any other expansion cards other than a GTX 970/980 so a smaller case would be ideal...but how small?!

I like the idea of having the case as small as possible, but the room the PC is in can get quite warm. I do plan on having a Corsair water-cooler for the CPU, but keeping the GPU air-cooled.

I've seen the mATX/iATX cases...they solve the heigh issues, but they trade height for width it appears...and I think the case would then be too wide to fit comfortably on the underneath/foot shelf of the desk.

I was hoping to go smaller than a standard ATX case, but short of going down the whole console/steam machine sized casing (which I assume isn't going to be great for cooling), I'm a little stuck!

Any help would be appreciated!

[PorcupineTime]

There's lots of Mini ITX form factor cases out there. I particularly enjoy the cases from Silverstone, particularly the Raven range. However some of them may be too small for you.

[EndlessWaves]

How warm is quite warm? Are we talking 40-50°C here or just a few degrees above normal?

What sort of width do you have to work with?

Graphics cards at the moment put out several times the heat of a CPU so that should probably be your priority for an improved cooler. Although air cooling tends to work better in small cases as mounting points for 120mm radiators are scarce.

[scaryjim]

Hmmm, interesting

Firstly, have you considered a smaller ("ITX") graphics card? There are short versions of the 970 out there, or if you can stretch the budget AMD's R9 Nano has been price hacked to around £400 and out-performs the GTX 980. One of those really opens up the options.

As to the cases themselves, that largely depends on what you personally want. If you prefer towers there are some mATX towers out there that are shorter and slightly narrower than conventional towers. Cube cases are a nice option; slightly wider than a tower but smaller overall. Problem is, everything is a compromise, so without knowing your priorities and the space you need to fit your case into, it's hard to make any good recommendations...

[shaithis]

I still think ITX is a tad too small for a high-end gaming rig.....maybe in 12 months time it will be more viable.

I'd still favour mATX for now personally and would lean towards the Fractal Define Mini.

[CHiLL]

Thanks for all the replies!

How warm is quite warm? Are we talking 40-50°C here or just a few degrees above normal?

What sort of width do you have to work with?

Graphics cards at the moment put out several times the heat of a CPU so that should probably be your priority for an improved cooler. Although air cooling tends to work better in small cases as mounting points for 120mm radiators are scarce.

The room is often within the 30-40°C range during summer.

The desk shelf is approximately 20cm deep. (The case would be side on as you look at it to fit on the desk.

Hmmm, interesting

Firstly, have you considered a smaller ("ITX") graphics card? There are short versions of the 970 out there, or if you can stretch the budget AMD's R9 Nano has been price hacked to around £400 and out-performs the GTX 980. One of those really opens up the options.

As to the cases themselves, that largely depends on what you personally want. If you prefer towers there are some mATX towers out there that are shorter and slightly narrower than conventional towers. Cube cases are a nice option; slightly wider than a tower but smaller overall. Problem is, everything is a compromise, so without knowing your priorities and the space you need to fit your case into, it's hard to make any good recommendations...

I didn't know smaller graphics cards existed actually, so I may have a look into that. However, I think £300 on a graphics card is currently my budget, and I'd ideally like to stick Nvidia...yes I'm a stickler, I've used Nvidia cards for as long as I've been building PCs.

I still think ITX is a tad too small for a high-end gaming rig.....maybe in 12 months time it will be more viable.

I'd still favour mATX for now personally and would lean towards the Fractal Define Mini.

If it's too small now, what would change in the future to become more viable?

[shaithis]

If it's too small now, what would change in the future to become more viable?

Lower voltages and HBM RAM

[scaryjim]

Lower voltages and HBM RAM

And also 14nm production for GPUs, which will enable higher performance in smaller cards. If AMD are to be believed (and they've been pretty good on their claims in the last couple of years) nextthis year's new cards will be 2x - 4x faster than their current equivalents - or perhaps more to the point they will use 20% - 50% of the power for the same performance. It means a mid to high end card like the R9 380 will be replaced by a card more like the R7 360, which will mean much smaller PCBs and coolers, and less heat given off generally. That makes it easier to get that level of performance into a small computer.

Personally I reckon that the time for ITX gaming arrived with Nano, but it does require being willing to invest in workstation/server class components.

[EndlessWaves]

The desk shelf is approximately 20cm deep. (The case would be side on as you look at it to fit on the desk.

That's not too bad.

What about something like Lian-li's new PC-Q04? 19.4cm wide with a profile the same size as a sheet of A4 paper. The 140mm fan blowing directly onto the graphics card should keep that plenty cool enough, although you'd have to forgo your closed loop CPU cooler and you'd probably not want to overvolt the CPU.