This build was made in late May 2008 and I wanted to share the pictures. A big thanks to all the advice from the SFF lurkers.
I went through all the different options for cases and ended up with this one. In retrospect I think I'm actually looking for a case that is about 25%-35% smaller, which essentially puts it in the shuttle range.
The case was very well built and everything fit together perfectly. I only ran into a few areas of difficulty...
1. The MB tray doesn't slide in with the "Ninja Mini" CPU cooler. I knew this going into the build, but it doesn't change the fact that the cooler was a bitch to install on the CPU with the tray locked into position.
2. Cable mangement. I would really like a short ATX power supply with modular cables. Barring that, the internal HDD cage and the shear size of the GPU made it difficult to get the additional power to the GPU. I ended up having to route the cables into the extra 5.25" bay to the opposite side of the MB to power-up the GPU.
3. The GPU looks great but it is a monster. Combine this fact with the location of the SATA ports on the ASUS board and you have 3 of 5 SATA ports which are completely unusable if you have the 90 elbow / low profile connector cables.
Overclocking. I didn't waste a lot of time on this. I actually just used the ASUS AI Suite and overclocked the system using the software. 2.4 GHz --> 3.0 GHz. Playing Crysis or encoding mp4 will only push my CPU temps to around 57 C.
PROs:
- looks sharp
- runs cool
- small
CONs (take this with a grain of salt-- IMO they come standard with any SFF build):
- could be smaller!
- routing cables is a bit of nightmare
Pictures...
http://picasaweb.google.com/hildbl/2008MayNewCPU#
/edit: well i guess i don't really know how to embed a picasa slideshow...
LIAN LI PC-V350B Black Aluminum MicroATX
Intel Q6600 G0 2.4 GHz
ASUS P5E-VM HDMI LGA 775 Intel G35 HDMI Micro ATX MB
EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX(G92) 512MB
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000)
Scythe SCMNJ-1000 80mm Sleeve "NINJA MINI" CPU Cooler - Retail
SILVERSTONE ST50EF-SC 500W ATX Power Supply
SAMSUNG 20X DVD±R DVD Burner
I went through all the different options for cases and ended up with this one. In retrospect I think I'm actually looking for a case that is about 25%-35% smaller, which essentially puts it in the shuttle range.
The case was very well built and everything fit together perfectly. I only ran into a few areas of difficulty...
1. The MB tray doesn't slide in with the "Ninja Mini" CPU cooler. I knew this going into the build, but it doesn't change the fact that the cooler was a bitch to install on the CPU with the tray locked into position.
2. Cable mangement. I would really like a short ATX power supply with modular cables. Barring that, the internal HDD cage and the shear size of the GPU made it difficult to get the additional power to the GPU. I ended up having to route the cables into the extra 5.25" bay to the opposite side of the MB to power-up the GPU.
3. The GPU looks great but it is a monster. Combine this fact with the location of the SATA ports on the ASUS board and you have 3 of 5 SATA ports which are completely unusable if you have the 90 elbow / low profile connector cables.
Overclocking. I didn't waste a lot of time on this. I actually just used the ASUS AI Suite and overclocked the system using the software. 2.4 GHz --> 3.0 GHz. Playing Crysis or encoding mp4 will only push my CPU temps to around 57 C.
PROs:
- looks sharp
- runs cool
- small
CONs (take this with a grain of salt-- IMO they come standard with any SFF build):
- could be smaller!
- routing cables is a bit of nightmare
Pictures...
http://picasaweb.google.com/hildbl/2008MayNewCPU#
/edit: well i guess i don't really know how to embed a picasa slideshow...