Joining the SFF bandwagon

SPARC

SPARC

SPARC

Soldato
Joined
7 Jun 2010
Posts
2,843
Location
Scotland
None of that Bitfenix nonsense mind you :p :D (I do love the look of it but it's not small enough)

I took the plunge 2 days ago and ordered some SFF bits (case, m/b, h/sink etc) and some of it has arrived today. I'll get some pics up when I get home later tonight, I'm just quite excited to move from what I consider to be a mahoosive case - TJ07 - to something very small - CM Elite 120.

Can't wait to get home to see exactly what has arrived.

CM Elite 120
Asus P8H77-I
i5-3570K
Prolimatech Samuel 17
Corsair AF120 QE
Scythe Slip Stream Slim fan
 
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While I've never been sold on the 120's looks, it is small, probably a pain to work with and will no doubt be very cramped once everything's stuffed inside.

I approve. :D Welcome to the club.
 
Lunatic Dreyfus said:
While I've never been sold on the 120's looks, it is small, probably a pain to work with and will no doubt be very cramped once everything's stuffed inside.

I approve. :D Welcome to the club.
Click to expand...

You make it sound terrible :p Well what can you expect for £40 I guess ;)

Looking forward to the pics:cool:
 
I'll be watching this with interest as I've just got that case for my lad and was wondering what to stick in there especially in regards to cooling.
 
Well everything is in and I must say that you have to be mental or a sadist to work with an SFF case, pretty sure I swore like 8-9 times :D

I pushed the power button and the fans spin but I have no output to the monitor so maybe I haven't pushed down the 12v feed to the mobo correctly :rolleyes: need to take it all out again. Typical.

DJS5xWI.jpg


Size comparison

fO5XkBi.jpg

P9Gin2i.jpg


Close between the pipes and RAM but it fits no problem
oJuZ2x3.jpg


About a fingers width of space between heatsink and PSU.
8jiaCrZ.jpg


GPU fits snugly in this space here
QeQcpXu.jpg
 
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I've been playing Battlefield for most of the morning and the highest temp recorder on the CPU by Core Temp was only 77 Degrees with an AMD5850 right beside the heat sink. The fans are running full speed with the loudest fan as you can imagine being the little Scythe slim at 2000 rpm, it's quite loud. Before I started everything up this morning I changed the 80mm side fan around to being an exhaust and my goodness it kicks out some amount of heat. I also left off the I/O shield to allow for some extra venting around the CPU area to aid cooling a little.

I bought the Bitfenix Hydra fan controller for when I'm not gaming so I can turn all the fans down and chill at night while watching a TV show. It's a really nice product, rubbery type surface with very smooth sliding buttons and a white (very dull which is a +ve for me) LED power indicator.

I'm not sure on GPU temps yet as there is a nice big vent for the fan to suck in air from so it shouldn't be too bad, I'll be watching afterburner later to see what I get.

Overall though it's exactly what I was looking for. Small, light and mobile gaming rig which I can chuck under my desk out of sight. It's loud when gaming (headphones are on blasting out the pew pew's anyway) and with the fans all on minimum power it becomes completely silent for when I'm watching a movie/TV show. Love it :)
 
Playing some more battlefield tonight and the GPU only gets to 53 Degrees and the CPU seen a maximum of 73, must be cold tonight. I'm really really happy with that :)
 
Prolimatech Samuel 17 with a Scythe slim on top. It was the only combination I knew that 100% worked with the Asus P8H77-I and let me use the PCI-e slot as other coolers would fit but block the PCI-e.
 
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adriancal said:
Was reading a review on the pcpro website this morning
of a system using the little fractal design case.
Very nice indeed.
Click to expand...

I assume you are speaking of the Fractal Node ? I did actually think about that case at first but ultimately decided that it would have been a waste as I only have 1 SSD for my build. The Node looks pretty though :)
 
I've got a build with the Fractal Node 304 and it's a pretty nice case. I chose it partly because I didn't want an ugly and wasteful 5.25" bay on the front.

If you want it tidy it's important to pick a mobo with the right layout though due to the PSU location. If the main power socket is on the opposite side from the PCI-E socket it is also very far away from the PSU and cabling will be a nightmare.

Also don't try and fit a 7950 Ice-Q. It's more than 2 slots wide and doesn't fit :(
 
Baboonanza said:
I've got a build with the Fractal Node 304 and it's a pretty nice case. I chose it partly because I didn't want an ugly and wasteful 5.25" bay on the front.

If you want it tidy it's important to pick a mobo with the right layout though due to the PSU location. If the main power socket is on the opposite side from the PCI-E socket it is also very far away from the PSU and cabling will be a nightmare.

Also don't try and fit a 7950 Ice-Q. It's more than 2 slots wide and doesn't fit :(
Click to expand...

Any chance you could list the system specs and maybe include some
internal pics? I was hoping to build a system using this case with a similar
spec to the one in the propro review.
 
All hail the mighty SG05 - easily the best ITX case on the market.

Still, love the 120 build though - always good to see so much stuff crammed into a small space (Prodigy = cheating lol)
 
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