Project SFF gamer

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Soldato
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17 Jun 2012
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I've always like SFF PCs, but I feel just recently the game has moved on a bit with some nice new cases and nicely featured affordable motherboards available so I thought I'd give one a go.

Current PC does everything, web, gaming, media etc so it's replacement will have to do all of that plus be as quiet as I can get within reason and budget.

Just a heads up, it wont be some uber spec gaming rig as I just simply don't have the money for it, so don't expect the latest top spec parts, but it should be decent mid range build able to manage most stuff at 1080p on good settings.

Bits acquired and bits to be reused:

Lian Li PCQ25
MSI Z77IA-E53
i52500K
EVGA GTX 660 SC
Zalman CNPS20LQ

Bits I've not decided on are the PSU as I have two I could use or if I need to buy one I could go that way.

Drives will be reused, Crucial CS300 64GB SSD and WD green 2TB.

Hopefully the Zalman will let me get a decent overclock on the 2500K, I also have tons of fans I can swap and play with for best cooling/noise ratio.

Case will require some internal modding, nothing major but getting rid of the HDD tray is the main one. Pics of build to start next week.

Stuff ready to go:

wsoflw.jpg
 
Been sick as a dog first half of the week so I've actually only just managed to make a start today.

I chose this case because I'm a massive fan of minimalist design, I've no need for an optical drive nor any front panel connectors, plus it matches other equipment that it will be sat next to so, winning.

Apologies in advance, this isn't some epic build with custom hand painted parts and mods that require DIY milling, one day maybe! It's just a log of my first proper decent spec build.

First things first, I knew the drive bay would need to come out as that's where the rad is going attached to the fan, unfortunately Lian Li have riveted most of the fixings and the space is very small so I set to work with a small saw and very short strokes, extremely boring and tedious but needs must.

Before:







After:




I like how they've made the fan mountings, the included fans (140mm front, 120mm top) have a dust cover that slides onto the fan screws and then with rubber bushings they slot into the case through elongated holes, no faff and easy to mount.

I'm not 100% decided on rad/fan set up, I have loads of fans and options so I will start with the easiest and see how performance and temps go before deciding if a change is needed.

First set up is an alpenfohn 140mm wingboost, it looks extremely well made and has the bonus of 140mm and 120mm holes and a second pwm fan connector piggy backed off it's own. i know 140mm fans aren't renown for working well on a 120mm rad, which is why i have the option of sticking a gt on the inside for push pull if i need it.

alpenfohn and zalman fitted:






Next was just to mock fit the mobo and gfx card to check for space and potential alignment of hoses/cables etc. PSU is in my current PC so I couldn't drop that in, but space looks ample, I kinda knew it would all fit in my mind but it's nice to see it all by eye for a better idea.




My only potential headache will be the hard drives- you can see the removable tray in the floor of the case, this has loads of cut outs for various orientation of drives, I could probably get my SSD on it but the space between the tray and the gfx looks too tight for my 2TB WD green. Also this tray covers the floor intake vent which is directly in line with the GFX card fan, so removing it would give the gfx card more breathing space and probably allow me to attach both drives to the floor of the case somehow.

That's it for now, unfortunately to finish it I need to cannibalise my current PC for the drives and PSU, so I won't be able to see how it all fits without pulling this apart first, so I need to be sure I have all I need stored correctly and any drivers or software I need.
 
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