Smallest Steam Box possible for non-FPS games

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Prizm4

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Hi guys, I'm looking at building a small Steam Box for the lounge room to use with less GPU-intensive games. For FPS games I'll just use my PC, so the Steam Box will just be for platformers and other casual games (The Swapper, Ducktales, Joe Danger, Sonic, etc) that can be utilized with a controller.

The Silverstone SG05 case is an option, but I'm trying to go smaller if feasible. The BitFenix Prodigy is too big and wastes a lot of space with that outer shell.

- Only one HD is needed, can be 2.5". All these mini-itx cases with 57x drive bays are just wasted space imo.
- No optical needed.
- 2x front USB 3.0 required, but no doors on the case that cover the front inputs.
- Prefer steel case over aluminum, as aluminum can scratch easily and has poor sound-proofing (noise from GPU/CPU fans, etc). Although a less-powerful build likely won't make much sound.
- Am looking at a GPU that is a little less than mid-range, but still a bit of room to move. Perhaps a HD7770. Thoughts? Money is not an issue, but if I don't need the power, then a smaller card makes my build more energy efficient and quieter.
- I'd be open to a low-profile GPU if the case was worth it. There is a low-profile HD7850 available which is not too expensive.

As somewhat of a side note, I really like this Streacom F7C Evo case, but it only supports nanoPSU so I just don't think it'll work with anything but android games. Great for HTPC though.

thanks for any feedback!
 
nice system ellroy
Prizm I would say go AMD at least an FX6 but if want Intel then go i5 not i3 for performance reasons period. there is many cases to choose from, you could opt for a Asus 670 or similar as they are quite short.

The mentioned low pro is powercolor 7850 passive which is a great card for what it does, tack on 2 very quiet fans to help its cooling and it is a great card, however for the spacing, http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121768 this is probably the most performance you are going to get in a very small space, be interesting to see the 2 face off though as they are both definitely nice I am AMD all the way, but is worth pointing out other options of course.

Silverstone Sugo SG05/SG07, there is the Fractal node 304, Li PC-V354R, Silverstone FT03, NZXT Vulcan, this one I found neat nMedia HTPC 7000B SFF case http://www.missingremote.com/review/nmediapc-htpc-7000b-micro-atx-mini-itx-htpc-case.

A Small tower vs a cramped SFF to me is the way to go, you can still keep stuff nice and cool, have more room to work with, a lower overall price for a higher selection of usable parts etc, but its your coin and patience :p
 
The thread that ellroy linked to is about as small as you can go. Or maybe you can sweet talk CMadki4 out of his Steam Box if you want to go a tiny bit smaller. I have a Lian Li PC-Q12, which has similar dimensions to that case, except that it is taller (or wider depending on how you set it up). It has front USB 3.0 ports. The only problem is that it doesn't have an expansion slot cutout on the back, you have to do it yourself. It's not difficult to do if you have the right tools; a dremel cuts right through the 1mm aluminum, but it can be an issue.

The other issue is the GPU. For most of the really small ITX cases you will be limited to low profile cards. Which means you are basically stuck with the HD7750. You are right that the HD7850 exists, but good luck finding it. And even if you can get your hands on one it probably won't fit in many cases. It has a two-slot cooler and is very long, around 220mm, or 9 inches.

I'm hoping that AMD comes up with something better this fall, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
 
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the 670 asus one is short but dual slot, the nmedia case I linked can use gpu up to 11 inch and dual slot capable not sure the height allowance of coolers, ATX power supply capable. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811204042

Suppose its just it, when you start to get really small size then things get to be a nightmare for wiring, space constraints, cooling, and just overall compatibility only so much can be done in such a small area afterall, MATX still seems best route for smaller builds, one more coolermaster elite 120 advanced, Silverstone TJ08B-E Temjin Evolution, http://www.overclock.net/t/1230219/fractal-design-arc-mini-is-a-liquid-coolers-dream

So, many choices either way, space constraints, size, cooling capabilities etc. Anyways, wish I could point 1 out and say "get this" but I think unless you make your own there will always be some niggle points.
 
As Drown Babies has already said, my L1 case (loneindustries.com) is about as small as you can get (among others), but if you're not in North America, then it'll be quite expensive to ship. I'm only using a single hard drive and fan in my setup, and wiring is extremely easy and clean. With a second fan you could use a y-connector to clean things up a bit. There's a nice spot in the case at the back behind the fans that I like to hide my fan wires. My Noctua 80mm fan has extremely long wires, and they tucked away neatly. It's definitely not the case for everyone though.

My setup:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1040112656&postcount=139

Full thread:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1744487

EDIT: You could use onboard mSATA for storage and reduce wires even more. :)
 
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I like the look of that case, and can see making one out of inexpensive materials(even fiberglass which I have a concept to do so just the epoxy mind you and not the fiber just need the molds to make the flat sheets)

a small case that can use 120m fans for intake, exhaust, have the harddrives on back side of tray these would have own intake side mount, a full size atx power supply that has plenty of room for wire ties at front now that hard drives are at side, full GPU length and wide enough to allow a good size cooler maybe even extend the back a bit to allow a good size AIO type cooler without worrying about interference with the mobo.

Anyways, there is many possibilities, if you look to make them happen, though L1 case looks very nice but without gpu you are only going to get so much gaming happen(for now till next gen APU come out I think) maybe even provide 3 slot for expansion and double space them and just provide an adapter to make sure user has enough room for say a good video card and even an audio card without running into space/cooling issues.
 
Lone's case is small and exciting for a steam box. Mine's on its way to me right now for an i3/7750 build.

Edit: the case I and others have referenced is aluminum (rather than your requested steel) and does not have USB on the front. If you can still deal with this its one of the smallest options with a dedicated video card.
 
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Thanks a lot for the replies, there's some interesting builds there.

For what I'm after, it seems I'm still better off with something like the SG05. I thought maybe there might be a case that was a little smaller without compromising too much. I don't want to do any mods or have to install special cooling/HSF.
The picoPSU side of things is interesting, but surely these things would struggle with a semi-decent video card?

There is also the Lian-Li Q16. It's got a very similar size to the SG05. Which of the two would you go with and why? One does not have ODD, but that doesn't bother me.
The Lian-Li Q02 is a great size as well, but unfortunately no room for expansion slot.

EDIT:
dragonstongue said:
Prizm I would say go AMD at least an FX6 but if want Intel then go i5 not i3 for performance reasons period.
Click to expand...
Would you guys say go for AMD in general for builds of this size? Or does it just boil down to price/preference?
 
well math is not my strong suite, but take all the components you would like to use and total up their max wattage(be careful with Intel cpu as they now rate using an average not max)
I think Pico unless the highest wattage units available would not be leaving all that much left over for any decent gpu this is why I stated maybe think on going AMD APU as you can easily game modern games at decent resolution on them, if you are dead set has to be Intel, then I would say second or first gen i3 with the card, or a lower i5 for performance/price/heat reasons. 7750 are well underpowered :p, 7770 or better would be best but this is something I am sure you can look into.
 
If you aren't playing intensive games, go with an AMD APU setup. No need to worry about a discrete graphics card means you can go smaller.
 
What res do you want to play at?? I game at 1920x1080 with my machine, the PicoPSU powers it just fine. I think it pulls only something like 110W from the wall. The 7750 is going to be more powerful than an APU setup.
 
APU benefit from higher memory speeds as well so this does boost them, yes a 7750 is more powerful BUT an APU say such as is used in the 5800k or 6800k is good enough for ~1050p just the same as the 7750 as pure spec wise there is not a huge difference between them.
110w with the highest end one only giving 190w delivered does not leave all that much breathing room for a choice of good components, especially given if something is loaded for extended periods or for that matter used for quite awhile it will not output the same power over time(and may outright fail) I don't know that does not appear to be much a buffer room in my books.

A10-6800k with fast ram at tight timings and a nice cooler to go along with it will run just fine for a steam box type thing. If def want a CPU/GPU then I still don't think i3 is the best bet to go with a dedicated GPU. Best to ramp to an i5 and ~7770 performance level, yes means a bit more power, but at least you know it will be ok vs sometimes not being near enough(almost a waste of cost)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)
the ones that really stick out to me i5 2390T cause only 35w 2 core 4 thread with turbo and i3 3250T for ivy.

Suppose its a choice you have to make OP. If it were me, I would be looking at maybe a little bigger of build size so there is less screwing around to get the "right" parts instead of possibly dealing with sub-par performance for something.
If HTPC-media type I suppose that would be 1 thing, this sounds more like a "mini" gaming, so smallest size possible with best performance would tilt IMHO to slightly bigger then the standard ITX style builds which are more general media not gaming. Not saying in anyway your design choice was bad ellroy as was very well thought out, but am sure for a nudge further in size possibly could have gotten so much more with less trouble :)

done hogging thread lol, many suggestions, many cases to choose from, lot of options surely. Best current GPU performance for its size Asus DCII mini 670 for sure, low power great performance 7770, casual performance(lose fair amount of performance not much cost wise though) 7750/650 non ti or A8/A10 APU. Anything Radeon x750 range or below or Nvidia x50 non ti is really not meant (at this point) for 1080p gaming, 720p and some modern 1050p yes but 1080p is pushing their bracket, saying modern games not older ones which APU definitely have more then enough grunt to run.

of course you need to watch the amps on 12v and total watts(worst case)
55w CPU (depends on which one chosen of course)
55w GPU load on 7750(78w for 7770, 7790 ~90w, 7850 ~110w)
15w hard drive say(loading)
15w optical(burning takes more as would a Blu-ray lol)
~5w fans each
~8w SSD
=========
55+55+15+15+5+5+8=158w ~2amps

Any ways watts=volts x amps am sure you know this. Always a very good idea to have some overhead for many reasons. So, if you took a 35w cpu with 7750 then yeh pico should work just fine.

APU or many low end integrated graphics 7750 is definitely underpowered when for not much more 7770 is definitely the better choice(this is the one many review site are recommending now for its range for sub $100) for ~30w more. Anyways, best of luck, and let us know what you decide on.

~~P.S if you do go a for a low end card, MAKE SURE it is DDR5 based, even if say a DDR3 based on has an extra gb of memory it means squat in the lower end cards as they don't have enough oomph to really use it anyways, better to have the more raw speed on the memory which it can use.
 
OP, IMO, it all just depends on how small you want to go. If you want to get something like the Streacom case or the L1 from Loneindustries, you are limited by 2 things - 1) PicoPSU. This means the most power you are getting is 160W. 2) Whether you want a discrete graphics card or not. This will be dictated by the games you play. The highest performance system that you will get into one of these smaller cases, IMO, is an i3/i5 (for i5, I would get an S or T processor as they use lower power) and a Radeon 7750. Components will fit and you will be able to power them with a PicoPSU. For a lower performance system, I would get an AMD APU, probably an A10-6800k. The one drawback to this is that you will unlikely to be able to add a discrete graphics card in future, as the PicoPSU won't be able to supply enough power to a video card that will give you a good performance boost over the APU (I'm asssuming here that the A10 draws 100W).

If you decide to get a bigger case you have plenty more component options, which I'm sure you're aware of. Here's an alternative to the SG05. http://www.coolermaster.com/product/Detail/case/mini-itx/elite130.html
 
I was thinking about doing this build for someone in a Lian Li Q02

i5-4670
ASUS MAXIMUS VI IMPACT
Noctua NH-U9B SE2
Silverstone ST45SF-G
ASUS GTX670 mini
2x8GB DDR3 memory
2xSSDs
+ front hole in the case and maybe one in the bottom

not sure if it’s doable but that case is so cute

next to the Q11
Capture050.jpg



Capture049560.jpg
 
I respect the CoolerMaster brand, but I dunno...their cases always look like they belong in 2003 not 2013 :p

firas: I actually have the Lian-Li Q08 in red, which is a little smaller than the Q11 in the picture. I agree, the Q02 looks great. The only problem is no expansion slot. What's frustrating is that a lot of these smaller cases could fit an expansion slot, but they waste space on ODD slots, extra HDD bays, etc.

I was wondering why the Q02 doesn't have a reset button....but then I thought - how often do I use my reset button? I can't remember the last time I had to use it. Sounds like a good idea to me to just get rid of it.
 
firas said:
I was thinking about doing this build for someone in a Lian Li Q02

i5-4670
ASUS MAXIMUS VI IMPACT
Noctua NH-U9B SE2
Silverstone ST45SF-G
ASUS GTX670 mini
2x8GB DDR3 memory
2xSSDs
+ front hole in the case and maybe one in the bottom
Click to expand...

Couple questions...

1) Why the Impact? It IS really awesome, but I'm not convinced it is worth that much more.

2) Why modular PSU? How many cables will you not have to plug in? If you don't have anything that uses a 4-pin peripheral (AKA Molex™) then you can leave out a single cable. Nothing a cable tie can't fix. I know it is more efficient, but at lower wattages the difference may not be very much.

Prizm4 said:
firas: I actually have the Lian-Li Q08 in red, which is a little smaller than the Q11 in the picture.
Click to expand...

The Q08 is shorter, but deeper. Not sure if actually smaller in volume.
 
umm better question why the hell not on modular, less airflow restrictions, less wiring to have to worry about, less things to collect dust which they all eventually do, modular is the way to go if one has a choice IMHO.
 
Zap said:
Couple questions...

1) Why the Impact? It IS really awesome, but I'm not convinced it is worth that much more.

2) Why modular PSU? How many cables will you not have to plug in? If you don't have anything that uses a 4-pin peripheral (AKA Molex™) then you can leave out a single cable. Nothing a cable tie can't fix. I know it is more efficient, but at lower wattages the difference may not be very much.



The Q08 is shorter, but deeper. Not sure if actually smaller in volume.
Click to expand...

his original plan was more expensive (Corsair 600T etc) so the total cost is already reduced alot.

I would build him a full watercooled build in a compact splash (my personal plan) but he's a young relative and this is his first non-laptop computer.
 
dragonstongue said:
umm better question why the hell not on modular, less airflow restrictions, less wiring to have to worry about, less things to collect dust which they all eventually do, modular is the way to go if one has a choice IMHO.
Click to expand...

The non-modular ST45SF has less cable clutter than the modular ST45SF-G. There's only one cable you can leave out: the molex. But the rest of the cables are longer and introduce an extra 30-40mm effective depth of the PSU due to the connectors. The ST45SF has all the cables coming out at one convenient point on the side of the unit.

I've owned both and only advantage of the modular is to allow you to use self-crimped custom shortened (sleeved) cables.
 
WiSK said:
The non-modular ST45SF has less cable clutter than the modular ST45SF-G. There's only one cable you can leave out: the molex. But the rest of the cables are longer and introduce an extra 30-40mm effective depth of the PSU due to the connectors. The ST45SF has all the cables coming out at one convenient point on the side of the unit.

I've owned both and only advantage of the modular is to allow you to use self-crimped custom shortened (sleeved) cables.
Click to expand...

Also, the SF is $30 cheaper and I prefer the center mounted fan instead of being off to the side.
 
ahh, well I can see your point I love modular now hated dealing with rats nests and could not be bothered "modding" a power supply to make it "nice" but if the fans positioning is worse, the connectors are a good deal extended and so on, it makes sence.
 
dragonstongue said:
I love modular now hated dealing with rats nests
Click to expand...

The reason you get a "rats nest" of extra cabling is if you buy a lot more wattage than you need. Most PSU manufacturers scale up the number of connectors and cable strands based on wattage. If you "right size" your PSU wattage, usually you'll only have a single strand of connectors unused, which becomes almost invisible with some thought and a pair of cable ties.
 
umm that statement is true but can also be false, there is only so much selection that one can do and still have quality, yes generally connectors are scaled up, and yes you can mod to reduce the unused ones, but overall modular is the way to go and most times does not cost extra, whatever.

http://hexus.net/tech/news/systems/55921-cirrus7-nimbus-sff-pc-aluminium-case-doubles-heatsink/ I like this :p there was another wish I could remember the name of was also another but more HTPC style use own parts and the heatpipe mount was actually part of the case, could handle Phenom II with slight overclock and even 2500k with slight overclock though they did recommend an extra fan as it helped a lot.
 
I have seen units with the overall same specs and not a difference in cost, and many of them are no larger(beyond the cable attachments) the cost of modular now vs non-modular is moot theses days compared to when they first brought them out, but yes as you stated, whatever floats your boat(or can cause it to sink) :p
 
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