What case design do you want to see made?

The point with having a larger cooler was to be able to make a more silent machine with fewer larger fans on slower speed.
Yeah, I understand that. My point is that the GPU riser serves no purpose once you've made the case wide enough for a full tower cooler.
 
Yeah, I understand that. My point is that the GPU riser serves no purpose once you've made the case wide enough for a full tower cooler.

Indeed. Once you hit the width of a GPU you might as well skip the riser. But I don't quite understand the need to cool a cpu that much. If you need huge CPU performance, you are better served by more threads xeon rather than overclock. This also means the cooling requirements don't need a huge cpu cooler to remain quiet.
 
My point is that the GPU riser serves no purpose once you've made the case wide enough for a full tower cooler.
Indeed. Once you hit the width of a GPU you might as well skip the riser.
The riser used the way Findecanor does serve the purpose of allowing the GPU and PSU to not block each other's fan intake, the PSU fan facing left, the GPU fan facing right. Of course you can move the PSU in Necere's render to the top of case to achieve that goal without a riser, but Findecanor wants to consider an option of using this case with a fanless CPU tower cooler and I suppose he doesn't want a top-mounted PSU fan facing downward to assist the fanless CPU cooler. Or you might say one can make a sufficiently large gap between the regularly mounted GPU and bottom-mounted PSU, but this is still probably against his ideal of letting the GPU fan suck fresh air in directly through the case vent. But one thing Findecanor may not be realizing is the case width required to allow a decent tower cooler isn't as thin as he is thinking.
 
The riser used the way Findecanor does serve the purpose of allowing the GPU and PSU to not block each other's fan intake, the PSU fan facing left, the GPU fan facing right. Of course you can move the PSU in Necere's render to the top of case to achieve that goal without a riser, but Findecanor wants to consider an option of using this case with a fanless CPU tower cooler and I suppose he doesn't want a top-mounted PSU fan facing downward to assist the fanless CPU cooler. Or you might say one can make a sufficiently large gap between the regularly mounted GPU and bottom-mounted PSU, but this is still probably against his ideal of letting the GPU fan suck fresh air in directly through the case vent. But one thing Findecanor may not be realizing is the case width required to allow a decent tower cooler isn't as thin as he is thinking.

He can always face the psu outward. But it wouldn't make sense to have an active GPU and a passive CPU, since the GPU will be noisy and make it moot.
 
The riser used the way Findecanor does serve the purpose of allowing the GPU and PSU to not block each other's fan intake, the PSU fan facing left, the GPU fan facing right. Of course you can move the PSU in Necere's render to the top of case to achieve that goal without a riser, but Findecanor wants to consider an option of using this case with a fanless CPU tower cooler and I suppose he doesn't want a top-mounted PSU fan facing downward to assist the fanless CPU cooler. Or you might say one can make a sufficiently large gap between the regularly mounted GPU and bottom-mounted PSU, but this is still probably against his ideal of letting the GPU fan suck fresh air in directly through the case vent. But one thing Findecanor may not be realizing is the case width required to allow a decent tower cooler isn't as thin as he is thinking.
The problem I have with the GPU drawing air directly through a vent, in general, is that GPU fans are thin, and consequently have low static pressure ratings. This means that they don't do very well in restricted airflow scenarios, like through vents and especially dust filters. The same is true of the slim fans in SFX power supplies. There might be fewer fans in the case overall, but if those fans have to struggle extra hard to move air through vents/filters, you're not actually accomplishing anything worthwhile. Better to have a couple of 120/140mm case fans doing that job, and keeping the GPU and PSU intakes clear out to 10-20mm.
 
What I'd like to see is a motherboard shaped like a PCIe card / GPU. Put that back-to-back with (or with an air gap to) an actual GPU, with all the outputs on the blanking plates, an external PSU, and you've got yourself a really tiny PC. Of course, that would be going back to the 70s and 80s.
 
Like this?

Could you please render and measure the smallest possible build when making a layout similar to the osmi? And then the possible different fan locations? Perhaps even with 120 aio support?

I get the feeling many users like to see an itx case with sfx psu and 170mm gpu. But I think it is worth adding atx psu support with an included sfx adapter plate (similar to the early M1 renders ft-03 style).

I just got a jonsbo v3+ and LOVE the looks, but it is a little big, even though it will be packed once i've finished the build. (140mm fan at bottom, cryorig c1 on cpu)
 
I'd like to see a NAS design based on Antec's ISK-600M. There are no small mATX cases designed for storage. Fractal's 804 is larger than an ATX case.

Particular to the Antec, the upward-facing motherboard mount makes for easy build. The bottom section could hold 9-12 3.5" drives, ideally mounted to integrated backplanes. SFX PSU would be ideal.
 
Could you please render and measure the smallest possible build when making a layout similar to the osmi? And then the possible different fan locations? Perhaps even with 120 aio support?

I get the feeling many users like to see an itx case with sfx psu and 170mm gpu. But I think it is worth adding atx psu support with an included sfx adapter plate (similar to the early M1 renders ft-03 style).

I just got a jonsbo v3+ and LOVE the looks, but it is a little big, even though it will be packed once i've finished the build. (140mm fan at bottom, cryorig c1 on cpu)
I think the Osmi is almost as small as you can get already with that layout, at 250 x 180 x 180mm. The only ways I could see to save space are 1) eliminating the drive space behind the motherboard, bringing the width down to ~160mm, and 2) relocating the fan to the front as an intake, to eliminate part of the ground clearance needed for the bottom intake.

Throwing an AIO into the mix is going to push the volume up a decent amount, and about the best you could manage there is something like a slightly smaller SG05.
 
I'd like to see a NAS design based on Antec's ISK-600M. There are no small mATX cases designed for storage. Fractal's 804 is larger than an ATX case.

Particular to the Antec, the upward-facing motherboard mount makes for easy build. The bottom section could hold 9-12 3.5" drives, ideally mounted to integrated backplanes. SFX PSU would be ideal.
Do you need mATX for storage/NAS when this exists?
SilverStone DS380B Black Aluminum front door, SECC body NAS chassis Premium 8-bay Small Form Factor NAS Chassis SFX PSU (sold separately) Power Supply - Newegg.com

Toss the ASRock C2750 in there and you have a perfect NAS box...

-- Dave
 
Do you need mATX for storage/NAS when this exists?
SilverStone DS380B Black Aluminum front door, SECC body NAS chassis Premium 8-bay Small Form Factor NAS Chassis SFX PSU (sold separately) Power Supply - Newegg.com

Toss the ASRock C2750 in there and you have a perfect NAS box...

-- Dave

I considered that board when I was putting together my current NAS. It's underpowered for the price. DDR3 memory. Marvell add-on controllers. Supermicro's X10SDV series is much more compelling, except that it needs an HBA for more than 6 SATA ports. If you want 10GBe, you therefore need to buy it out of the gate as part of the board, which brings the price up to $500 for the board alone.

To me, the whole point of building a NAS (as opposed to just buying a Synology) is to have some room to grow (ideally with plentiful used parts). Thanks to soldered chips and limited expansion slots, these ITX boards don't really qualify. The ISK-600M is one of the few enclosures that takes advantage of the mATX size reduction. I think a similar design would be a great basis for a NAS.
 
I would love to see an Ultra SFF case built for custom watercooling. I know it would probably never happen, but even allowing a 2x80mm radiator to be mounted with room for a small res+pump would be awesome.
 
I would like to see something like the silverstone Fortress FT03 Mini, but smaller, with less space wasted and without the back panel (instead using a mesh filter, for better gpu ventilation). Basically like the first M1 concept:
kr7Z5.jpg

I'd love to see a mitx/matx case like this that has the io panel at the top with a single 140/120mm fan at the bottom.
 
FT03-mini isn't "mini" at all, imo. It is needlessly big and with poor GPU ventilation.

Do they really have a patent for this vertical setup? A shame really, if it's true.
 
FT03-mini isn't "mini" at all, imo. It is needlessly big and with poor GPU ventilation.

Do they really have a patent for this vertical setup? A shame really, if it's true.

They don't, at least not in America. The representative for Silverstone can provide more information if he's lurking here. Ideally something like the ft03 mini should have vents near the GPU as well as a 140mm to provide it with air
 
I think the Osmi is almost as small as you can get already with that layout, at 250 x 180 x 180mm. The only ways I could see to save space are 1) eliminating the drive space behind the motherboard, bringing the width down to ~160mm, and 2) relocating the fan to the front as an intake, to eliminate part of the ground clearance needed for the bottom intake.

Throwing an AIO into the mix is going to push the volume up a decent amount, and about the best you could manage there is something like a slightly smaller SG05.

I wouldnt ever use a AIO myself anyway :)

What would you consider to be the best fan location for such a case? Bottom, front or top?

Have you considered such a build for ncase?
 
I'd love this design with was originally made by Saper as a consideration for the Sentry. IMO squeezing it in 8L seems a bit too optimistic, but a 10L-ish case with ATX support (SFX PSU and 1 GPU) would be an awesome idea for those who need more motherboard options or memory. Behind the SFX PSU there would also be space for an 120 AIO or optical/3.5" drives. What I like even more is that cooling vents are only necessary on one panel side because CPU and GPU are facing the same direction.
image.png
 
As much as I'd like to do this, you can see in the image, there's no space for riser above the first pci-e slot and also there need to be some space to bend it to go under the gpu etc.

While I'd like to make mATX or even full ATX chassis within 8 or 10 litre, there's one reason not to do that - not many will care for such a product because there's not going to be much use of that since you're going to have only one gpu and DDR4 sticks have up to 16 gigs now. At the same time someone who could spend the money on such custom unit can just buy high-end x99 itx board or some skylake i7 and still be okay with that.

The only thing you can do with mATX is to couple it with standard short SFX and ITX sized gpu. It can be put together within round 8 liters but it gets really big with 380 of width.
 
I would love to see an Ultra SFF case built for custom watercooling. I know it would probably never happen, but even allowing a 2x80mm radiator to be mounted with room for a small res+pump would be awesome.

uSFF is everything below 7L, watercooling in that space is only really viable with either custom watercooling components, 100% requirement for watercooling, or APU builds. I'd love someone to prove me wrong, though.
I guess with external PSU it would be possible, but only if the power brick doesn't count towards the volume.
 
FT03-mini isn't "mini" at all, imo. It is needlessly big and with poor GPU ventilation.
The FT03-mini is based on the same internal chassis as the SG05/SG06, which, for the hardware it supports, you can't get very much smaller than. The things that make the FT03-mini larger have to do with its vertical orientation; namely, the extended top area and cover for cables, and the bottom clearance for the intake fan.

I wouldnt ever use a AIO myself anyway :)

What would you consider to be the best fan location for such a case? Bottom, front or top?
Front if you wanted to keep it as small as possible and still have dust control.
 
The FT03-mini is based on the same internal chassis as the SG05/SG06, which, for the hardware it supports, you can't get very much smaller than. The things that make the FT03-mini larger have to do with its vertical orientation; namely, the extended top area and cover for cables, and the bottom clearance for the intake fan.

Front if you wanted to keep it as small as possible and still have dust control.

Have you considered such an osmi style build for NCase? :)
 
Have you considered such an osmi style build for NCase? :)
I've experimented with concepts based on that type of layout, sure. It results in more of a cubic design though, which doesn't lend itself to one of the big draws of SFF: portability. For an easily transportable case, something more like the Dan A4 is probably ideal.
 
The FT03-mini is based on the same internal chassis as the SG05/SG06, which, for the hardware it supports, you can't get very much smaller than. The things that make the FT03-mini larger have to do with its vertical orientation; namely, the extended top area and cover for cables, and the bottom clearance for the intake fan.
I can see that, but i also can't help to notice that the bottom fan arrangement is too large; in the sketchup drawing i've posted (and it's made by you, if i'm not mistaken), that fan sits inside the case, with intake on the sides of the case. That alone cuts on the height of the case. Not to mention the top shroud could be lower, since many (most?) video cards today use hdmi outputs, that are less bulky than dvi ones and for the PSU cable a 90 degree bent cable could be used. The width could also be trimmed a bit, from 19 cm to 15-16 cm, imo. Basically the smallest you can get in that form factor, compromises and all. I think something like 16 x 22 x 32 cm could be possible. For the record, the FT03 mini is ~19 x 24 x 40 cm. Approximately 11 l vs 18 l.
 
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I've experimented with concepts based on that type of layout, sure. It results in more of a cubic design though, which doesn't lend itself to one of the big draws of SFF: portability. For an easily transportable case, something more like the Dan A4 is probably ideal.
I'm sure SFF doesnt only center around portability? Atleast not for me.
Do you have any renders you can share? :)
 
I can see that, but i also can't help to notice that the bottom fan arrangement is too large; in the sketchup drawing i've posted (and it's made by you, if i'm not mistaken), that fan sits inside the case, with intake on the sides of the case. That alone cuts on the height of the case. Not to mention the top shroud could be lower, since many (most?) video cards today use hdmi outputs, that are less bulky than dvi ones and for the PSU cable a 90 degree bent cable could be used. The width could also be trimmed a bit, from 19 cm to 15-16 cm, imo. Basically the smallest you can get in that form factor, compromises and all. I think something like 16 x 22 x 32 cm could be possible. For the record, the FT03 mini is ~19 x 24 x 40 cm. Approximately 11 l vs 18 l.
I think the extra width of the FT03-mini over the SG05/SG06 is due to the thicker aluminum panels and their fasteners, but I see what you mean about the bottom fan. I suspect they did it that way so it would be partly in front of the GPU, since the GPU indeed does not have its own ventilation otherwise.

Aside from that, your suggested reductions are generally plausible. Including an angled external AC cable is impractical though, due to the varying power connectors used worldwide. Maybe a bundled extension cable, I guess, but that feels a bit kludgy.

I'm sure SFF doesnt only center around portability? Atleast not for me.
Do you have any renders you can share? :)
The last time I did a concept like that was around the time the Mac Pro came out. I wanted to see if I could hit a similar footprint with mini-ITX and off the shelf parts. I don't have any renders to show, but it looked very much like the Osmi looks (which was first shown a few months later AFAIK).
 
Have you considered such an osmi style build for NCase? :)

I've experimented with concepts based on that type of layout, sure. It results in more of a cubic design though, which doesn't lend itself to one of the big draws of SFF: portability. For an easily transportable case, something more like the Dan A4 is probably ideal.

I could see a chassis with the MB/GPU laid out like the A4, but with the SFX PSU below. This would only allow mini ITX GPUs. Wider chassis than A4 (because of the SFX positioning) would allow another 17mm for HSF clearance? Single 15mm 2.5" SSD in front of PSU. Power button on rear & no front USB or audio. Clean & simple. Roughly about 240mm tall, 130mm wide & 180mm deep? Squeeze the clearances, reduce the dimensions a few mm here & there, maybe get it under 5.5 liters in volume…?!?

Height might need to be a little taller, to account for the radius in the bends on the riser cable. Could also have an optional top handle (like the Cerberus…?) for that portability factor…
 
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I could see a chassis with the MB/GPU laid out like the A4, but with the SFX PSU below. This would only allow mini ITX GPUs. Wider chassis than A4 (because of the SFX positioning) would allow another 17mm for HSF clearance? Single 15mm 2.5" SSD in front of PSU. Power button on rear & no front USB or audio. Clean & simple. Roughly about 240mm tall, 130mm wide & 180mm deep? Squeeze the clearances, reduce the dimensions a few mm here & there, maybe get it under 5.5 liters in volume…?!?

Height might need to be a little taller, to account for the radius in the bends on the riser cable. Could also have an optional top handle (like the Cerberus…?) for that portability factor…

Man have I good news for you: MI-6: Nano-Class mini-ITX Case
 
On the MI-6 I have ended up making it deeper than just the mb size, mainly due to the GPU sizes. I have seen some up to around 7" long with blower style exhaust with a significant outlet on the front end. I think you either have to have room for air flow in front of the GPU, or a case vent right there in the front.
 
I Looove this layout. :)
I found an existing mini-ITX case that almost has that layout: the Abee Acubic A30.
The PSU is too large and it does not support a full-height two-slot GPU ... and I am not sure that it could be modded. I'm posting it here because it would visualize my case idea better and provide inspiration for anyone would might want to build it.

BTW. Abee cases are available only in Japan and hard to come by elsewhere. Overall they have an amazing design language and surface finish, but are not so good for cooling and layout on the inside.
 
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Take the RVZ01 layout: a desktpp with SFX PSU on the right front, ITX motherboard rear right , riser card with GPU on the left hand side. Now shrink it so that the PSU is pushed against the front wall and only 11.5" video cards are supported -- front to rear you need 125mm (PSU) + 170mm = 295mm anyways. Push the GPU against the left wall.

The only disk space would be to the right of the video card. A video card with an aftermarket cooler is typically 130mm high or so (unlike the standard 100mm) so the 102mm of a 3.5" HDD is an easy fit with the 147mm along the long edge of the video card pushed to the rear. I would imagine a cable like ********** SATA 6GB Aluminum Foil Data Cable this would be necessary. Two 2.5 HDDs on top of each other with the 100mm edge running top-to-bottom would also fit close to the front wall with the connectors facing the PSU.

So you have 295mm front to rear, 68.4mm (43mm for the video card + an inch for an 3.5" HDD, it's a little more than the 63.5mm the PSU requires anyways) left to right, 300mm top to bottom for a ~6L case which fits even a GTX 1080.

Another possible 2.5" disk placement is to the top of the PSU on the left wall. if only a 100mm SFX PSU is used, that's only 100mm long so another 70mm of the 2.5" disk fits neatly within the 170mm ITX envelope. And the 2.5" is thin enough that the PSU cabling would not collide. Even more, if an SFX PSU is used then one could exchange the two 2.5" mentioned above for a 3.5" one: from the top to the bottom, to the right of the video card along the front wall, it would leave 53mm for the cabling...

Airflow wise you are good: a non-blower video card would exhaust to the left hand side and the top, a blower would suck in air from there. The PSU gets air from the bottom and exhausts to the left hand side again. The CPU cooler height is ~50mm or so, enough for the NH-L9i.
 
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So basically a Zaber Sentry but optimised? You won't get down to 5.3L though, you have to factor in a bit of clearance and the material thickness, but 5.9 is certainly doable.
 
Take the RVZ01 layout: a desktpp with SFX PSU on the right front, ITX motherboard rear right , riser card with GPU on the left hand side. Now shrink it so that the PSU is pushed against the front wall and only 11.5" video cards are supported -- front to rear you need 125mm (PSU) + 170mm = 295mm anyways. Push the GPU against the left wall.

The only disk space would be to the right of the video card. A video card with an aftermarket cooler is typically 130mm high or so (unlike the standard 100mm) so the 102mm of a 3.5" HDD is an easy fit with the 147mm along the long edge of the video card pushed to the rear. I would imagine a cable like ********** SATA 6GB Aluminum Foil Data Cable this would be necessary. Two 2.5 HDDs on top of each other with the 100mm edge running top-to-bottom would also fit close to the front wall with the connectors facing the PSU.

So you have 295mm front to rear, 68.4mm (43mm for the video card + an inch for an 3.5" HDD, it's a little more than the 63.5mm the PSU requires anyways) left to right, 300mm top to bottom for a ~6L case which fits even a GTX 1080.
These dimensions aren't realistic, for a variety of reasons, but here's one of the bigger ones:



The PCIe power connectors need around 20mm past the edge of the GPU, putting the minimum width closer to 320mm. This is with a reference-height card (111mm tall), too, so cards 130mm+ are going to need even more room.

Realistically, the Sentry is about as small as you'll get (7L) with this layout, and I believe that only supports reference-sized cards (or only slightly larger).
 
These dimensions aren't realistic, for a variety of reasons, but here's one of the bigger ones:

The PCIe power connectors need around 20mm past the edge of the GPU, putting the minimum width closer to 320mm. This is with a reference-height card (111mm tall), too, so cards 130mm+ are going to need even more room.

Realistically, the Sentry is about as small as you'll get (7L) with this layout, and I believe that only supports reference-sized cards (or only slightly larger).

Hrm, one can find 90 degree extenders on eBay. Wouldn't those help? I see the Sentry is close...
 
I want to have a system where I can have two itx systems. So that I can have my server and personal pc in the same tower.
 
+1 To what Necere said about making something even smaller with desktop layout. The problem is that even with what Necere shown on his drawing you still have to either make some weird extension for pcb riser or bend quite tightly flex riser. With pcb riser you'll end up with gpu pci-e connector starting either exactly above pci-e slot (which would collide with motherboard IO) or 20.5mm from it (standard distance between slots).

I think that the only thing you could do to go below this is to put the gpu on the opposite side with fans facing up and pci-e slot hidden below motherboard and the motherboard would need to use low profile cpu cooler and tall standoffs. Maybe a 2.5" drive would fit under as well.
 
Maybe this? The size of it is blasphemy for SFF though sadly...

Yeah, and ugly as hell.

I could live with it not being super sff, since it's two systems.

Two itx systems in one atx case still is still smaller than the total footprint of two machines (depends ofcourse), and it would be so nice to have them both in the same enclosure.
 
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