Is there a small pc case that can contain pro desktop components?

L

lachdanan

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 3, 2012
Messages
240
Hi,

Not sure if the title makes sense but basically a case that can contain a GFX card like 970/980 or titan, with 64GB ram, one M2 ssd and some processor like i7 5930k with corsair H cooler etc. No other HDD etc. Of course PSU.

Is there a case that can contain these while being easy to carry or is it futile to look for this kind of stuff. I was thinking of finding a case good for travelling but not laptops.


Thanks :)
 
Hundreds of cases will do that job, your main limitation will be the motherboard in the selection of a case because actually there's couple of good Micro ATX X99 boards and even ITX so, put a budget and what motherboard are you going to use so we can recommend anything for you.
 
Yeah, mini-ITX and SFF gaming cases are all the rage now (I'm planning on building one myself for my next build). Most I've seen either look like toasters or like a Xbox one. The Silverstone RVZ-series cases look pretty cool.
 
You can go mini ITX if you are willing to go with 2ch ram and one pcie slot, or micro-atx you get possibility for multi gpu plus all 4 channels of ram. Then just pick a case, I mean, you have tons of options.
 
Small Form Factor Systems

;)

Check out the Cerberus for mATX, you can fit some real power in there (Multi GPU, 4 RAM Slots). For mITX, some cases that stand out to me are the Ncase M1, Silverstone SG13, or Cougar QBX Mini
 
Cerberus looks like exactly what I want but I need 8 slots for sure because I work in vfx and 64-128GB ram is ordinary.
 
It seems like these cases do not take regular sized mobos, any slim/mini case that does?
 
lachdanan said:
It seems like these cases do not take regular sized mobos, any slim/mini case that does?
Click to expand...

Define: "Slim/Mini"...
Mini-ITX is basically only ever going to have the two RAM slots. Micro ATX usually has two but some can be found with four. Anything more than four will need a full ATX board and that's not going to be "Slim/Mini"

Realistically though you're best option would be just to head to newegg and do some window shopping for cases, just select micro atx and start looking.
 
The "slimness" is going to be dictated by the height of the graphics card, so expect at least 150-160mm at least just for that. With a riser it's possible to make something much thinner, but there are no cases (AFAIK) that use a riser and also support ATX motherboards. The smallest cases that accept full ATX motherboards tend to be HTPC cases - a good example of which is the Fractal Design Node 605, which comes in at a relatively svelte 25.5 liters.
 
Thanks guys. Basically all I need is a good desktop CPU with some cooler like corsair H series, and 64GB but ability to upgrade to 128GB would be nice. Because in this field, you don't need to upgrade the cpu as often as your GFX card or RAM foremost so you could basically have this system for 2 years and then upgrade your RAM and GFX card and have another 2 years before it becomes less usable.

There is also mac pro case, and then now dune case:
DUNE CASE: Mini-ITX PC Case w/ Superior Thermal Dynamics

and msi vortex case:
CES 2016: MSI’s Vortex Gaming PC on Display and It Looks Almost Like a Mac Pro

I actually think these cases are pretty good but putting 2 GFX cards into the design makes the whole thing bigger than I need. I know it's for gamers but still 2 GFX card is not good for me.

How do the above 3 round cases I mentioned achieve high performance components though? Do they make their own board, etc? I don't wanna buy their system (except dune) because they sell it as a whole, not empty. But AFAIK mac pro for example can squeeze in some very powerful parts inside and it's super small.
 
lachdanan said:
Thanks guys. Basically all I need is a good desktop CPU with some cooler like corsair H series, and 64GB but ability to upgrade to 128GB would be nice. Because in this field, you don't need to upgrade the cpu as often as your GFX card or RAM foremost so you could basically have this system for 2 years and then upgrade your RAM and GFX card and have another 2 years before it becomes less usable.

There is also mac pro case, and then now dune case:
DUNE CASE: Mini-ITX PC Case w/ Superior Thermal Dynamics

and msi vortex case:
CES 2016: MSI’s Vortex Gaming PC on Display and It Looks Almost Like a Mac Pro

I actually think these cases are pretty good but putting 2 GFX cards into the design makes the whole thing bigger than I need. I know it's for gamers but still 2 GFX card is not good for me.

How do the above 3 round cases I mentioned achieve high performance components though? Do they make their own board, etc? I don't wanna buy their system (except dune) because they sell it as a whole, not empty. But AFAIK mac pro for example can squeeze in some very powerful parts inside and it's super small.
Click to expand...
The Mac Pro and MSI Vortex use totally proprietary parts inside to achieve their compact dimensions. The latter uses MXM cards for the GPUs, which are normally only used in notebooks. This is the Vortex inside:



The Dune case is actually designed around off-the-shelf parts - mini-ITX motherboard, short-ish dual slot GPU, SFX PSU - but because of that it can't support the same level of hardware the other two can (e.g., more than 32GB of RAM, SLI/Crossfire).
 
Thanks man that makes a lot of sense. Btw do you know if cerberus can support a corsair cooler like H series H100 or so? It seems like it wouldn't be able to.
 
lachdanan said:
Thanks man that makes a lot of sense. Btw do you know if cerberus can support a corsair cooler like H series H100 or so? It seems like it wouldn't be able to.
Click to expand...

This one? If so, looks like there's not enough room to support 240rad AIO coolers from this photo. 120mm and 140mm AIO coolers seems to be the only options.
 
I was thinking more like h100 corsair, etc. I will only have an SSD and 1 GFX card so they should give me more space for the cooler?
 
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