Small, powerful gaming mini-ITX system, possible?

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CHAoS_NiNJA

[H]ard|Gawd
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May 26, 2005
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I've been pondering the idea of of a small powerhouse, I was looking to mATX, but was pondering if Mini-ITX was possible, with all the things you'd find in a full sized PC, such as heavy overclocking, high end parts, and a ton of the line performance. Is this possible, or simply a pipe dream? This is my first possible venture into ITX, so let me know if I'm simply dreaming to big.

The parts are:

Core i5-3750k
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe Mini-ITX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131840

Antex 620 or Corsair H60 (Undecided)

LIAN LI PC-Q08B
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112265

G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB 1600MHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231544

eVGA GTX570 (Already owned/on its way)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130593

Corsair 650TX 650W (Already owned)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005

WD VelociRaptor 150GB (Already owned)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236248 (refurb link)

Generic SATA CD Drive

My main questions are:
1) Will I see any performance loss using this (seemly beefy) mITX board over the mATX board I was eyeballing already (Maximus Gene V)? I'm not looking for 1:1 with it, but will it be something noticeable/debilitating?

2) Will my GPU and heatsink fit? I really want something huge like the Ninja, but I'm not sure it will fit with the voltage board sticking out, as well as the RAM. The card is 10.5" and the case is 13.5", but with the fan in the front and the way GPUs are installed in general, would I have the room? Theres also the question of when I take the bottom HDD cage out, if the top one will be too close and perhaps be an issue....

3) Will the motherboard be able to handle overclocking to any respectable degree? The voltage layout looks impressive, even sporting a board just for it, but I can't be sure.

4) Is it really worth it, over going mATX and using the big brother of the choice case, the PC-V354? I want something small, modern, easy to move around to LANs and different places, but something with still a tremendous amount of power under the hood. Would heat truly be my ultimate enemy, will dusting be too much of a nightmare, will the cons outway the pros for going mITX over mATX for a monster gaming system?
 
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You haven't specified a case. I really like the new Bitfenix case apart from its totally stupid (IMO) port positioning. Alternatively, you could buy a Shuttle Z68 or Z77. Either way, the all-in-one fluid coolers are your friends.

There's no performance loss with SFF. It's a full-blown PC, just short a few expansion slots which most people never use anyway.
 
If you read this review, you'll see that the very slight loss of performance compared to a full ATX P8Z88-V Deluxe is nothing to worry about. In any case it won't be debilitating. And you'll be able to overclock your CPU as well.

Given that Thermalright and Noctua monsters fit on this board without blocking the PCIe slot or hitting the VRM board, I'd say the Ninja would fit, but I would check the dimensions twice nevertheless.

I was about to use a µATX motherboard for my next build (either the P8Z77-M Pro or the Gene V), but I've changed my mind and settled on this mITX beauty. The performance improvement would barely be noticeable with a µATX system, but it would be significantly bigger.
 
Ninja and power supply will collide in that case, I think the Bitfenix Prodigy will fit all that stuff and should be the same price, not sure on the GPU or PSU though.
But you may not like the design:
http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/chassis/prodigy

EDIT:

Some of the HDD cages can be removed to allow a rather long GPU.

The PSU may be a tight fit, as Anand suggest you get a 140 mm supply and your choice is 150 mm.
 
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jamaicanpi said:
Unfortunately, the q08 places the PSU directly over the CPU. This means you need either a low-profile cooler or, and what I think you really want, is a corsair H60 or Antec 620.

This may be a helpful reference post:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1224295/pc-q08-and-h60
Click to expand...

Wow. I was actually not aware how cheap those systems had become. The Corsair H60 is certainly on my list now, but I'm worried if it will fit on the top 120mm fan port over the CPU, as I won't be able to use the front.
 
I will be doing something somewhat similar... instead of using Newegg I'm having a relative drive to Microcenter to pick up a CPU+Motherboard combo. The CPU is the same as you picked, for $189.99, and any motherboard I pick up is $50 off, so I'm getting the ASRock Z77 mini ITX board for $99.99.

If you have a Microcenter anywhere nearby (or can get someone to buy the combo for you) then definitely go this route, unless you MUST use a big cooler. The ASRock board has the processor kinda' close to the PCI-e slot, so unfortunately you can't fit a 100mm+ fan with heatsink combo on it. I'm going with the stock Intel heatsink and using good airflow.

The other nice benefit of the board is it has an mSATA port. This gives you two options... either you can use the Intel caching technology with a small SSD (i.e. a 32GB or 64GB one) or you can put a 128-256GB SSD in there and use it as your primary OS drive. I originally got my Steam+games install, complete with OS, down to about 190GB, which would've been enough to do this, but I decided to leave room for expansion and buy two 240GB SSD's and RAID-0 them.

CPU: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0388577
Mobo: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0392376
(NOTE: Just add both to cart and pick a location to see the $50 savings on the motherboard)

My build (once the Bitfenix Prodigy is listed as "Shipping" on NCIX's website I'll buy the processor/motherboard and pick it up):

CPU: Intel Core-i5 3570k (might overclock a bit)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77E-ITX
Case: Bitfenix Prodigy Black (unless someone at Bitfenix hooks me up with orange!)
PSU: Silverstone Strider Plus ST50F-P 500W Fully Modular PSU (light, and short)
SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 Low-Profile VTX3LP-25SAT3-240G (x2, RAID-0, will mount against PSU cage on Prodigy)
RAM: G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2GB (bought last week)

What I'm doing is taking my existing 2TB drive and putting it in an external SATA-3 enclosure, so I can store legacy apps and backup critical files:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182211

Then I'm using an external USB 2.0 DVD writer for those rare occasions I will actually need one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151238

The goal is to make the unit as light as is practical, while still having it be a gaming powerhouse for when I bring it to LAN parties. Right now I have an Antec 1200 and the thing is a damn tank... this new rig, without any of the external enclosures, should be lighter than JUST the Antec 1200 when I'm done building it. THAT is a win to me! :)
 
On the Asrock z77e-itx board, I've got my 2500k up to 4.8Ghz......so you'll be able to OC just fine.
 
Something you might consider is to remove the front drive tray entirely and put your H60 there. I believe you can get assemblies which fit into the 5.25" slot and hold 2x 2.5" HDD and a slimline DVD drive.
 
akg102 said:
On the Asrock z77e-itx board, I've got my 2500k up to 4.8Ghz......so you'll be able to OC just fine.
Click to expand...

What cooler are you using for this? I was having difficulty finding a heat sink+fan combo that I could fit on the ITX board since the PCI-e slot is only about 2 inches away from the center of the processor.
 
Tytalus said:
What cooler are you using for this? I was having difficulty finding a heat sink+fan combo that I could fit on the ITX board since the PCI-e slot is only about 2 inches away from the center of the processor.
Click to expand...

A number of folks on here are using axp-140's (I'm using that on my giada and will be moving it to the asrock this week).
 
Machupo said:
A number of folks on here are using axp-140's (I'm using that on my giada and will be moving it to the asrock this week).
Click to expand...

Doesn't that have a 140mm fan on top of it? I'd be surprised if that would fit on top of this unit while a PCIe card is installed on the ASRock board.

There's less than .75 inch space (that's less than 20mm) between the outside of the CPU housing and the start of the PCIe slot, per this picture:

pciecpu.jpg


According to that the CPU housing is about 40mm wide, which means the widest CPU heatsink you could squeeze on top of this thing is about 80mm wide, assuming the heat sink and fan are completely centered on the CPU and there's no additional overhang.
 
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