Midi tower setup to a mini ITX - anyone with any regrets?

pumaz said:
Ultimately it's your choice but why bother going mini-itx if your going to need a case of this size to house all your hard drives? surely you would have been better off going ATX/MATX and getting a similar size case, possibly getting extra features on a larger motherboard and saving some cash.

Sorry if this is coming across wrong (I real don't mean it to) but it bugs the hell out of me why people stick m-itx in big cases like the Prodigy as it kind of defeats the object!!!!
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Because I can house all my hard drives, and still have a nice small case. Don't need any extra features this ASUS ITX Deluxe is crammed full of them, even better than ROG boards without all the useless crap. The Prodigy is just unique it's like you get to downsize but keep all your power, air cooling, and storage space. The ITX case you use would have been fine if it could house more hard drives and didn't look like a microwave but I would love it for travelling to my girlfriends with, I ended putting my ITX build in a suitcase as a case but I just need a shoulder strap/bag to put the Prodigy inside. The Prodigy would have been fine for an MATX board but MITX is better as more room for hard drives with the layout and cooling, why stick a MATX board in when ITX is just as good, hell this board is faster than most full sized ATX boards. There isn't really any wasted space inside my Prodigy with five hard drives an SSD, full-size GPU, 650 PSU and cpu heatsink and cooling. I can just fit more inside than your case choice and it's still portable, I carry it around with me, just take some hard drives out they weigh a ton but obviously put them back once I'm home and have big case benefits. Your case is good for a true small mini PC that you can just lump around places but the Prodigy is the perfect place between doing that and having a huge dumb tower like my old Antec 1200, I just laugh when I see that now, it's freaking huge.
 
Fractal Design Node 304.

Basically it goes like this:
Want to downsize to mITX? Great! What do you need?
Lots of HDDs + Fulll size GPU + Big cooling = Node 304
Lots of HDDs + Full size GPU = Lian Li PC-Q18
Full Size GPU = SG08(for those who dont mind spending a bit of cash) or CM Elite 120(for those who do)
Lots of HDDs = Fractal Design Array R2 Mini (if you can find one else see above)
Dont mind starting from scratch going super small but still big GPU power with 1 HDD (Games) and 1 SSD (OS), so a dedicated gaming rig = SG05

All sooo much smaller than the Big Fenix, the Node even has that stupid USBs on the side layout like the big fenix. But then there is no accounting for taste and a lot of people like the look of a G5 that got sat on.
 
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Mini-ITX builds are great, lots of reasons for going that route. Mine runs cool and silent, even with the CPU/RAM/GPU overclocked.

If you don't need to expand it later (e.g SLI, lots of HDD's) why have a large mostly empty case taking up all that room. There are plenty of Mini-ITX motherboards packed full of features and overclocking potential. Contrary to popular belief a good Mini-ITX case will have very good cooling performance. Much easier to move around (good for LAN parties).

Building it can be tricky, for me the hardest part was mounting the CPU cooler on such a small board with no motherboard tray cutout.
 
TheFool said:
Mini-ITX builds are great, lots of reasons for going that route. Mine runs cool and silent, even with the CPU/RAM/GPU overclocked.

If you don't need to expand it later (e.g SLI, lots of HDD's) why have a large mostly empty case taking up all that room. There are plenty of Mini-ITX motherboards packed full of features and overclocking potential. Contrary to popular belief a good Mini-ITX case will have very good cooling performance. Much easier to move around (good for LAN parties).

Building it can be tricky, for me the hardest part was mounting the CPU cooler on such a small board with no motherboard tray cutout.
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That sounds like a very well thought out point of view - I am being pulled towards a mini ITX just to allow me the possibility !
 
Nate silvers - as long as your happy with the Prodigy that's all that matters but just two points. The Prodigy is not "a nice small case" and in no way does the SG05 look anything like a "microwave" although it might fit in one ;)

gropingmantis - great post and fully agree on your choices :)
 
PC-Q11 owner here with an expensive, but perfectly happy history of m-ITX ownership. I just got fed up with a huge and mostly empty tower case and scaled down, Even mATX became to large for me in the end.

The only minor annoyance with them is the lack of a 1xPCI express slot for a sound card. If M-iTX had included one of those I think more people would've taken the form factor on, but one has to compromise if one wants a cute little PC.
 
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When ever I look at Prodigy case I think why isn't this matx case it's the right sort of size for it maybe bitfenix should release one that way.

Pumaz points are all spot on in the pictures it looks like small case but in person it's fairly large.

I have Prodigy & Sugo 05 for me sg05 is far better mitx case.
 
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