What case design do you want to see made?

You don't understand, there's no problem with voltage, but with current.

The problem with external PSUs is that you need a power brick strong enough to support both a 65W Processor (thin mITX limit, I think) and a 200W GPU because that's what now fits into ITX length. So, you'd need a 300W power brick, maybe 350W, something that's not readily available. You can get them, but it's hard, so not viable unless you want to manufacture your own. Or you'd need two external bricks, which is more than inconvenient.

The problem with an internal PSU (where you wouldn't need an HD-Plex DCDC) is that you'd either have to run the PSU all the time or turn it on with seperate circuitry (refer to my experiment for the latter issue).
If you were to run it all the time, it would constantly power the GPU, which would up the "standby" power consumption of your PC way over what is allowed in the EU and would maybe even make the system unable to boot in the first place as GPU and Mainboard aren't turned on at the same time.

Nice research you've got there. I wonder if you couldn't do that with some simple switch that is open when one of its inputs are up (OR gate) connected to both power switch wired to always on 5v AND the signal from motherboard. Arduino is kind of overkill, I think, unless there's a major delay between pressing the switch and motherboard first power signal coming up. Maybe would just need to press the power button for a second until motherboard kicks in but it's not a neat solution.

Why are you so stuck on pushing 200W gpu's in such case? 145W GTX 970 is more than enough for 1080p gaming on reasonable details. add 35W cpu to this and you should be able to run it off single brick on 250W HD-Plex.

At this point I'd also be closer to the idea of using standard itx with HD-Plex because I'd rather use more standard parts if possible.
 
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Nice research you've got there. I wonder if you couldn't do that with some simple switch that is open when one of its inputs are up (AND gate) connected to both power switch wired to always on 5v AND the signal from motherboard. Arduino is kind of overkill, I think, unless there's a major delay between pressing the switch and motherboard first power signal coming up. Maybe would just need to press the power button for a second until motherboard kicks in but it's not a neat solution.

Why are you so stuck on pushing 200W gpu's in such case? 145W GTX 970 is more than enough for 1080p gaming on reasonable details. add 35W cpu to this and you should be able to run it off single brick on 250W HD-Plex.

At this point I'd also be closer to the idea of using standard itx with HD-Plex because I'd rather use more standard parts if possible.

Thanks!

A switch like that could maybe work, but logic gates like that have to be hardwired to a PCB, and depending on the complexity that is required, you might as well have a small microcontroller that does it for you. What you're describing is an OR gate, by the way.
You wouldn't have an arduino in the final product, you'd just use a similar micro on a custom front panel PCB where the button and front USB ports are wired to anyway.
A problem you'd have in both cases: what happens when you enter sleep mode? The behaviour of the power lines coming from the mainboard isn't standardised, so it's hard to check whether the user has shut the PC down or just put it in sleep.
The micro solution also allows to have different configurations for different boards to help with that issue.

The thing is, having a micro also allows other interesting applications, you could for example turn the PC on with a IR remote or, if you were really going through with it, with a controller like a console.
You could also have very cool power button light animations, for example the power button is normally lit at 20% and lights up to 100% as an HDD indicator. Or it could have a breathing animation when the PC is in sleep mode, all sorts of stuff.

I'm pushing that because the user can do that. The R9 Nano pulls way more power than the GTX970 does and you need to make sure that everything works how the user expects it to. The only other option would be to put a huge fat sticker on the board that says 35W TDP CPU MAX! and one to the graphics card slot that says 150W TDP GPU MAX!
Even then, you'll have to factor in efficiency.
Luckily the HD-PLEX 250W converter has >94% according to their site so you'd only need ~10W of headroom for that, but you see what I'm getting at.
Unless you sell this as a pre-assembled system, you'll have to make sure that everything that fits will work.
 
Oh yeah, my bad, it's obviously OR not AND :D

As for the hard wiring - I'd use some atmel AVR that'd work on those 5V if there's no simple OR gate premade fitting the needs.

Sleep would be another problem but at this point if you're using SSD you can simply go to hibernate always.

EDIT:

In response to the TDP - it's obvious that if you want to make something like this with HD-PLEX then you'll have to limit yourself to its supplied power. I'd be more than happy to make such a rig for 100W TDP gpu and standard 65W cpu since it's still better than custom made steam machine with 860M you can't upgrade. Combining the thin ITX with HD-plex gives just a little more on the internal part but still you won't be able to get a 400W brick for it to work on a single brick.

this type of psu's have their limits so going for something more power hungry than 150W will need some internal psu obviously.
 
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Well most Arduinos use an AVR as their main processor, so we're on the same page there.

Hibernate would be an option, but I can already see support requests raining in from customers that reinstalled Windows and "suddenly sleep doesn't work anymore". :D

Yeah I guess with power draw it depends on what you're going for. If the system is pre-assembled and user-upgradable, you would just have to tell them what stuff it can support. If you're going for a barebones system or just the case with the PSU, you should try to keep component compatibility as high as possible.
Just my two cents though, I think you'd have to do market research to answer that question satisfactory.
 
I would like a FT03 like tall case. Sure it wouldn't be the most compact,but they use the least desk space area
 
HD-PLEX 250W can push above 400W with the right brick. I think there's a thread around here with someone who did a lot of tests.
 
And with good active cooling. I believe dondan did these tests for the original A4.
 
Officially, yeah. As I mentioned, Dan's test show that HD-PLEX 250W and a 330-350W rated brick delivers 400W.

Something like this maybe? http://accessories.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&sku=332-1432

Otherwise you would have to find Dondan's test and see which one he used.

WARNING, RESULTS MAY VARY!

Of course the brick is able to deliver a bit more than its rated for, you need some kind of overhead in the design of the circuitry. The HDPlex can deliver so much power because it's designed for passive cooling, so cooling it actively allows for a way higher load.
But with a brick, overloading it is not a good idea at all if you want your hardware to run reliably and safely.
Not telling you what to do, just be aware of the risks you're taking when doing stuff like this.
 
I want a minimalist, sub-30L ATX minitower -- something like the Daotech X10 Bellum but with more space for SSDs, better cooling and cable routing, and without its bulky-ass front bezel.

x10bellum-inside.jpg


X10-BeLLUM_700x700b.jpg



Could a slightly taller (~370mm/14.5") SG10 do the trick?



Install_03S.jpg


DSC_0420.jpg
 
While it's hideous and I think it's insane they made a case with a single 80mm fan, the Daotech X10 is probably the closet thing to what I've wanted for a while now. Really, in many ways the Silverstone SG10 is closer, but it's mATX which would require getting a new motherboard as well.

I need to look the length of my cards up again to be sure they'd even fit, though; they're some of the longest on the market.
 
I'm eagerly awaiting the thunderbolt 3 eGPX hardware to be released to have a better idea of if it would be possible to couple a NUC board with a eGPX chassis. I want a case designed with just the R9 Nano in mind to see how small we could make it. And if that's doable, extend it to support a full sized GPU.

If a custom cooling solution must be done, then I'm going to defer to the experts here. Watercooling would be the ultimate dream I suppose.
 
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 would like to see a suit case/brief case type of pc. It could be matx or mitx. Case large enough and deep enough to house full length GPUs and good size SFF or atx power supplies. The new 600w would be plenty for a single GPU build. Open the top part and have it big enough to house a 22"-24" LCD in there. Yeah , its oddball idea but certainly different although I imagine few would want one. I think it would be better than a laptop because the case would be large enough to replace and upgrade any of the components. Just a crazy thought.
 
I'm eagerly awaiting the thunderbolt 3 eGPX hardware to be released to have a better idea of if it would be possible to couple a NUC board with a eGPX chassis. I want a case designed with just the R9 Nano in mind to see how small we could make it. And if that's doable, extend it to support a full sized GPU.

If a custom cooling solution must be done, then I'm going to defer to the experts here. Watercooling would be the ultimate dream I suppose.

This is exactly what I was thinking with the release of the new NUC recently with Thunderbolt. A NUC board with a Nano, (or the equivalent tiny off the shelf Nvidia board, if and when released) in one case. Could an HD-Plex 250w power that tiny little beast?
 
This is exactly what I was thinking with the release of the new NUC recently with Thunderbolt. A NUC board with a Nano, (or the equivalent tiny off the shelf Nvidia board, if and when released) in one case. Could an HD-Plex 250w power that tiny little beast?
yes, 250W is enough for a NUC and a Nano. The Nano doesn't take in more than 200W. The NUC could be powered by the same power supply, but I don't know how we would be able to connect that. The skull canyon i7 NUC is 45W.

Right now I'm waiting for a tear down cause I want to know about the cooling. The case is big to house greater cooling. We must figure out a cooling solution if we intend on going Nano. Or else it'll probably not be much different in size than the Razer Core.

Intel’s high-end quad-core NUC ships in May for $650

It would be really interesting to see if internal onboard power 2PIN makes a return; a 4PIN would be especially awesome.
 
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I personally want a full-size ATX motherboard case that is no wider than the PCI-e cards are tall.... I have a Lian-Li A05FNB variant right now, but it's still 2-3in thicker than necessary.

CA266LL_38987_800x800.jpg


They don't need a 120mm fan in the back above the motherboard like that... it could sit on the side case panel instead... plenty of room on the top for two 120mm fans vs the single 140mm hole they put up there... a smaller form factor PSU could be used and the 5.25 bays could be rotated 90deg to slim things down...

I've been real disappointed at full ATX desktop-sized cases... I really wish someone built an extremely space-optimized version.

The PC-C60 is close, but they put the PSU in the back again, adding to a dimension that is not needed.
lian-lipc-c60-htpc-pc-6-case-0-b.jpg

Lian-Li Global | PC-C60
 
Reaching back to the OP, what I personally would really like to see is an SFF case with a high-powered integrated cooling solution.

In the space between tiny NUC-ish machines and mATX, where a lot of the really interesting SFF action is, we seem to be settling on a basic formula: ITX mobo, SFX(-L) PSU, full-size dual-slot GPU, and a 2.5" SSD. These components are easy enough to select and install, but the cooling is always a challenge. You can buy lower-TDP parts and eschew overclocking thereby letting you get away with smaller air coolers, you can cram an AIO liquid cooler into the case which may only cool one high-powered component (and noisily, at that), or you can live with the noise of a blower-style card running at full tilt. In all three scenarios, you're making compromises, and you have to play a careul numbers game. The only solution to squeezing the real potential out of high-powered components is still a full custom loop, which is fun for some of us, but expensive and difficult for many.

It's only a nebulous wish, and I have no idea how technically or economically feasible it would be, but I'd like to see someone take a stab at designing a high-quality SFF case that takes care of the cooling for you. Maybe something with an integrated large AIO, with hookups for both a CPU and a GPU. Or maybe something more Mac Pro-like with a giant wind tunnel design. It could also have an integrated PSU, so that all of the hoses and cables were sized correctly and could be routed easily. If I could have something like this and just toss my components in and let 'er rip, that would be great.

Taking the difficulty of the cooling solution out of the equation seems like it would open it up to more people, but I don't know. It might actually alienate both the Steam machine crowd, who might find it too expensive or difficult to use, and hard-core enthusiasts, who would want something more flexible. It's probably not feasible for a small boutique designer as well, as it seems like you'd need the expertise and quality assurance of a larger company to make it work effectively with the complicated integrated components. Just a thought.
 
You mean like this?



It would be a 6L cube with dimensions of 210 x 190 x 150 mm

Quartz-1 - I think the problem with making such small case collides with the idea of putting huge fan and ATX psu. And even for those with SFX on the market they still are just too big of a cube.

Yeah, I was thinking about such a layout as well. But then, maybe it would be better to sacrifice ca. 1.2 l of volume and move the PSU to the right side? You get a lot more flexibility and better cooling. The front fan could be removed (clean front panel) and replaced by e. g. SSDs, the PSU would draw cool air from right panel and then you could have an intake fan on top or a bigger CPU cooler or maybe even a 120 mm AIO cooling the CPU. And the volume of the whole case would be around 7 l. But the general idea to use only standard parts (no risers etc.) is I think great.
 
Yeah, I was thinking about such a layout as well. But then, maybe it would be better to sacrifice ca. 1.2 l of volume and move the PSU to the right side? You get a lot more flexibility and better cooling. The front fan could be removed (clean front panel) and replaced by e. g. SSDs, the PSU would draw cool air from right panel and then you could have an intake fan on top or a bigger CPU cooler or maybe even a 120 mm AIO cooling the CPU. And the volume of the whole case would be around 7 l. But the general idea to use only standard parts (no risers etc.) is I think great.

Moving the psu to the right as you said adds 2L not 1.2L making growing the volume from 6.5 to 8.5L. Also I think that there are cases with such layout you've described from lian li, maybe slightly bigger and making such custom series wouldn't make a difference.
 
Moving the psu to the right as you said adds 2L not 1.2L making growing the volume from 6.5 to 8.5L. Also I think that there are cases with such layout you've described from lian li, maybe slightly bigger and making such custom series wouldn't make a difference.

Somehow I forgot about the vertical dimension of the case. Yeah, it would be around 8 litres. Tried to find a similar design in Lian-Li line-up, but they are all a bit different. And most of the smallest cases have PSU over CPU like in your design.
 
Yeah, I was thinking about such a layout as well. But then, maybe it would be better to sacrifice ca. 1.2 l of volume and move the PSU to the right side? You get a lot more flexibility and better cooling. The front fan could be removed (clean front panel) and replaced by e. g. SSDs, the PSU would draw cool air from right panel and then you could have an intake fan on top or a bigger CPU cooler or maybe even a 120 mm AIO cooling the CPU. And the volume of the whole case would be around 7 l. But the general idea to use only standard parts (no risers etc.) is I think great.

I think what you are looking for is something between the jonsbo u1 and jonsbo U2, basicly a jonsbo u1,5. Sunmilo makes a u1,5.

I would like to see a case like saper rendered, but with a little extra height to allow for atx psu's.
I think the extra heigth is around 20mm, so take 10mm towards the io shield and have less cpu cooler space and another 10mm add in size.
 
I think what you are looking for is something between the jonsbo u1 and jonsbo U2, basicly a jonsbo u1,5. Sunmilo makes a u1,5.

I would like to see a case like saper rendered, but with a little extra height to allow for atx psu's.
I think the extra heigth is around 20mm, so take 10mm towards the io shield and have less cpu cooler space and another 10mm add in size.

For me an ATX PSU would be an overkill for such a small case. What can you put in there that would require so much power to justify ATX PSU? I am thinking SFX could be an overkill. Probably a passive HD-Plex would be enough. Especially with low power Polaris/Pascal GPUs. As for the Jonsbo cases - they are all using only rear and bottom sides for venting. I think horizontal design with intakes on 3 sides would be better - GPU and PSU drawing fresh air from sides, CPU cooled from top. I could live with 8 litres. Although, it would be almost 2/3 of my NCase M1.
 
For me an ATX PSU would be an overkill for such a small case. What can you put in there that would require so much power to justify ATX PSU? I am thinking SFX could be an overkill. Probably a passive HD-Plex would be enough. Especially with low power Polaris/Pascal GPUs. As for the Jonsbo cases - they are all using only rear and bottom sides for venting. I think horizontal design with intakes on 3 sides would be better - GPU and PSU drawing fresh air from sides, CPU cooled from top. I could live with 8 litres. Although, it would be almost 2/3 of my NCase M1.

Atx psu are almost always more silent, they are cheaper and can fit more components to manage riple control, voltage regulation etc. And it would mean the case is more easy to sell towards mainstream users.

Also you wouldnt lose much space.. Example would be the height of the sugo13 vs sugo5.
 
I want a case for mini-iTX and short GPU with small desk footprint but with support for a full-size tower-cooler for CPU so that there could be vertical airflow for semi-fanless operation in low loads and to avoid CPU throttling in high loads.

What I have in mind is like a slim HTPC case with GPU on an angled riser card but folded in half so that it is thick instead of deep. A SFX power supply would be at the back of the GPU.
 
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What I have in mind is like a slim HTPC case with GPU on an angled riser card but folded in half so that it is thick instead of deep. A SFX power supply would be at the back of the GPU.

Can you draw that? I don't understand at all how something like that would look.
 
I just want a chassis that will fit the following:

Asus Maximus VIII Impact mini ITX MB
mini ITX-length GPU (these are usually a bit taller than full-length cards, so that needs taken into consideration)
Corsair SF450/600 PSU - SFX form factor
Intel 750-series SSD (this is a 15mm thick, 2.5" form factor NVMe SSD, needs proper airflow to/around it for cooling…)

No more, no less! No ODD, no secondary HDD, just the essentials…
 
Can you draw that? I don't understand at all how something like that would look.
I don't do 3D CAD, but... The idea is very simple: Consider the Silverstone RVZ01. Place it upright so that the CPU is above the GPU. Make it twice as thick and half as deep (front to back). Now you have a tower with a 7.5" square footprint and two "floors". Upstairs is only the MB, mounted vertically facing left with several choices for airflow: three sides and the top. Downstairs is the PSU drawing air from the left, GPU drawing air from the right and both exhausting hot air out he back.

Same desk footprint as a Mac Pro but a little higher. Total volume like a NCASE M1. Better airflow and thermals and use of standard components.
 
I don't think that gpu being on the bottom and facing down is a good idea for thermals. Apart from that I think it's overcomplicated because you could do something really close in size and footprint without riser just by putting the power supply on top and card in the slot.
 
I don't think that gpu being on the bottom and facing down is a good idea for thermals. Apart from that I think it's overcomplicated because you could do something really close in size and footprint without riser just by putting the power supply on top and card in the slot.

You can easily flip it upside down for thermals, it is similar to the layout by RVZ01/RVZ02 and those are known to have good thermals. But since this is for future 14nm cards, it wouldn't run as hot, I expect 150W usage for the card so it wouldn't be as bad if it is GPU side down. The main benefit would be a slimmer profile and a little bit more space efficient and good cooling despite the small size. And yes, you can just put the damn card in the slot, but so far, no one has done that either. Doing the regular PSU on top, card in slot, would put you at about 7.5-9L depending on how wide you go. But it ends up wasting space above the motherboard. If you use that space for other components, it makes cooling pain. I'm not a fan of putting the PSU above the CPU, as that creates a tangle of wires and bad airflow.

So in short, there is a class for this. I am fan of this layout because:
1. Space to tuck cables.
2. Direct Cool Air intake = good cooling.
3. Not a pain to build in. I have an ML08B myself it is as easy to build in as full sized case.
 
This can easily be a 6L case. 180mm (D) x 120 mm (width) x 600mm (H) = ~6.5L. SOMEONE DO THIS!
I assume that was a typo and you meant 300mm high, but even so, realistically it would have to be more like 320mm. 180mm for depth is also very tight, so I would probably bump it up to 320 x 120 x 190mm, or 7.3L.
 
I assume that was a typo and you meant 300mm high, but even so, realistically it would have to be more like 320mm. 180mm for depth is also very tight, so I would probably bump it up to 320 x 120 x 190mm, or 7.3L.
I see. Still 7.3L is a good SFF size, and this one doesn't seem too compromised where it takes a lot of work to put it together, which is a pitfall of niche SFF case.
 
Like this?

Yes, but I was thinking of even larger CPU coolers.

Of course there should be a thermal shield between the motherboard and GPU. I think also that there could be an air-gap behind the motherboard tray for a M.2 drive heatsink, and for hot air from the GPU to rise.

And when the components have got too old for the latest games, remove the GPU, move the PSU to the other side and put in a full-height 5 1/4" hot-swap drive-bay to make it into a NAS. ;)
 
Yes, but I was thinking of even larger CPU coolers.

Of course there should be a thermal shield between the motherboard and GPU. I think also that there could be an air-gap behind the motherboard tray for a M.2 drive heatsink, and for hot air from the GPU to rise.

And when the components have got too old for the latest games, remove the GPU, move the PSU to the other side and put in a full-height 5 1/4" hot-swap drive-bay to make it into a NAS. ;)
If you go much taller on the CPU cooler, you may as well skip the PCIe riser altogether and make a more conventional layout like Saper suggested. Something like this:



This could be about 300 x 190 x 220mm, or 12.5L -- very close to the volume of the M1, as you said.
 
If you go much taller on the CPU cooler, you may as well skip the PCIe riser altogether and make a more conventional layout like Saper suggested.
The point with having a larger cooler was to be able to make a more silent machine with fewer larger fans on slower speed.
 
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