Looking to shrink my full tower build - need advice!

[sejm]

Hi all,

The time has come for me to finally address the grossly oversized case I have for my PC build and I'm looking to make some changes.

Overall my current build looks like this:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor
• CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i v2 70.69 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
• Motherboard: Asus ROG MAXIMUS X HERO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory
• Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive
• Storage: Western Digital Caviar Green 2 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
• Storage: Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
• Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
• Storage: Seagate BarraCuda Pro 10 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB Founders Edition Video Card
• Case: Cooler Master Storm Trooper ATX Full Tower Case
• Power Supply: Corsair AX1500i 1500 W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
• Optical Drive: LG BH10LS38 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit

What I want to do is reduce down to a compact system (Micro ATX/Mini ITX) and move my spinning drives to a NAS (Synology DS418 most likely) to allow me to reclaim some space. I'll swap the drives in the NAS over time to proper NAS drives.

What I'm not sure of is what is the smallest form factor I can reduce to without throwing away too many components. I want to keep the SSD, add a 4TB SSD and Thunderbolt 3 ports to the refreshed PC build and I also want to retain the 64GB RAM I have in the build but would be good if anyone knows the best MoBo, PSU and Case combinations for this style of build?

Ideally looking for a stylish finish - brushed metal or some such - as I want to be able to put it on top of my desk. PC gets less use for gaming these days so also open to putting the GPU in an enclosure over a Thunderbolt 3 port.

Anybody able to advise on a similar down-sizing journey?


Thanks so much!

 

[sejm]

Ah. So to truly scale down I'll need to pick up 2x32GB DIMMs? So that's about £300 I'll need to factor in.

I'm not too concerned if I need to swap out components as what I will probably do is create another system out of what I have left to give to my brother - he likes to churn through relatively memory-hungry tasks with databases and whatnot.

Thanks for the insight Minibiker! Have just read a couple of other threads and looks like there is some love for the Node 202 case as being the next great thing in small form factor.

 

[sejm]

@sejm Yeah the RAM will cost a fair few £££ for just the 2x32gb Sticks... A decent sized Nvme storage will go along side this well for sort of stuff it will be used for, Fast read and write times for data input etc you won't see much difference between Nvme and SSD if the system is for gaming though..

As for the case you've mentioned, I'd highly recommend anything from Fractal Design, they are great quality cases and I've never had any issues with any of their products

My worry about NVMe is only that I'm sure I read somewhere it uses PCIe bus capacity and I don't want to throttle the GPU. Admittedly I have not done enough reading on the topic to properly understand if this is a real limitation or if I have somehow created it in my mind without realising. If it isn't going to limit the PCIe bus then I'll definitely look at putting one in as the boot drive.

 

[sejm]

That is very comprehensive! Thank you!

I don't think that I want to go smaller than the Node 202 - that looks like a nice small form factor.

In terms of that list, the footprint looks best for how I see my desk going in terms of these 3:
Silverstone SG13 (Mini ITX) - 11.5L
Lazer3D LZ7 XTD (Mini ITX) - 10.4L
Fractal Design Node 202 (Mini ITX) - 10.2L

The LZ7 configuration would be a big question though as I'm not sure what I would need/want. Seems to offer the best ventilation options though?

Interesting that there still aren't really cases including front USB-C ports.

 

[sejm]

Doing more reading it is looking very much like the SG13 or LZ7 XTD is the direction I need to go in terms of the footprint on my desk.

Considering an H80i V2 for the CPU cooling although am now wondering, with the number of components I need to change, if there is a better option.

Trying to find a MoBo with Thunderbolt 3 seems very limited and for whatever reason, it seems AMD chipsets are more up to date on Intel features?!
Case in point: X570 PHANTOM GAMING-ITX/TB3

It has TB3 as well as WiFi 6 on board. Presumably, a 3700X would give comparable or better performance than my 8700K. This is the danger with me and trying to upgrade... I end up building another machine.

 

[sejm]

Since this, I think I've reached the conclusion of a full new system! The time feels right to make a move to AMD!

After many months of watching YouTube videos of SFF builds and configurations, I concluded that I was trying to get too much out of 1 machine and I would be stuck without an upgrade path!

X570 and 3900X / 3950X very tempting!