Micro-ATX Gaming Rig?

MTWest

MTWest

MTWest

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Joined
27 Sep 2007
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367
Hey guys,

I really want to migrate to a small case, and as I'm due for an upgrade soon I figure I may as well make the change to something smaller, but still packs a bit of punch for gaming.

I intend to use the Silverstone SG01 evolution case, continue using my current Corsair 620W PSU and an ATI 5870 for my graphics. But aside from that, my micro-ATX knowledge is very limited so I could really use a bit of advice here.

What motherboard should I go for? Looking around it would seem they support 1366 so I'm looking to grab a i7 930 with it. I don't mind using the stock cooler but if there are any low profile ones you could suggest that work well with it that would be great also (Scythe Shuriken perhaps?)

Cheers :)
 
i'd go i7 860 myself, you will save a fortune on the 1156 motherboard compared to a 1366 one and get similar performance.

the scythe big shuriken would be your best bet for the cooler but i don't think it will give you a lot of headroom for overclocking temp wise.

one bad thing about the sgo1 is that the psu sits right above the cpu cooler and the psu fan fights the cpu fan for air to the detriment of cpu cooling.

i have an alpenfhon panorama (very similar to the shuriken but not as good) in mine and when i changed from a normal 120mm fan psu to the antec basiq power with the 80mm fan at the rear i noticed a drop of a few degrees on the cpu. maybe turning the fan upside down so it sucks the air upwards would help but i never tried it. if you aren't overclocking you may even get away without a fan on a shuriken and just let the psu fan pull the hot air of it

and if you are fitting something as long as the 5870 you will lose the hard drive cage from the front i think so will have to mount your drives in the 5 1/4 bays or get creative elsewhere.

hope this helps.
 
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I use a Scythe Shuriken with the fan flipped over in my 720BE Sugo SG01 setup. You'll have at the most a centimetre, clearance between the skinny fan and the PSU. Other than that I feel this setup works very well. Ample cool air is sucked in through the ventilation holes, up through the heatsink and straight out via the PSU fan.

You shouldn't have any problems with the GFX card either. There numerous pics of people using huge mutha graphics cards in these cases and as long don't mind wrestling with sata cables there won't be a problem. My dinky little 5770 doesn't make it past the edge of the mobo though.
 
i woudl say go with an 5850 in a small case, i have had problems with the 5870 i have and the lian li V351 due to temp problems and airflow issues. i used a gene 3 motherboard and i am very happy with it.
 
Duesix said:
i woudl say go with an 5850 in a small case, i have had problems with the 5870 i have and the lian li V351 due to temp problems and airflow issues. i used a gene 3 motherboard and i am very happy with it.
Click to expand...

Do you think that size of machine could handle a dual card setup with adequate airflow to keep all the components cool still?
 
i think you would be pushing it to be honest, even if it did work you would need case fans going overtime... compromise might be the order of the day here.

sorry it would work but would be fairly warm
 
I just got an Asus Maximus III Gene (1156), very good motherboard indeed, plenty of features & OC's well, would happily recomend it.
There is the Rampage III Gene (1366) if its anything like the Maximus it should perform quite well id imagine

as for the case, my diminutive uATX machine is in an Antec P180 mini, which is bigger than some of the full ATX cases i've had in the past lol but plenty of room for cooling and a SLI or CrossFire setup if you need it :-)
 
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