So own up, who has a small one?

wedmonds

wedmonds

wedmonds

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13 Nov 2007
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Hi People!,

I am starting my investigation into putting together a small, quiet, gaming pc.
Ideally with a 2080ti (if there is one small enough) or better and enough ports that would allow the usual army of ports we all need. Before, i dig deep and keep putting questions up on here, i wondered if anyone already had a 'small one' that they would like to share the images or specs of so that I can check it out.

Budget of 2k? dont need monitor or anything

I would really appreciate if you have the time to respond, thank you!

wedmonds
 
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How small is small, you talking MATX/ITX?

300 watts is a heat to shift and IMO the only way your going to get a quiet 2080ti while under load and at a reasonable temperature is to put under water and if you go that route you may as well do the whole system.
 
Hiya Freddie1980,
Thats exactly the input i was hoping for, thanks for reply.
Anything that is bigger than your usual tower size because I am fed up of kicking mine. I like the idea of one sitting on the desk that runs cool underload without making a racket. You think water-cooled is the only route? I dont think i can be a*sed with water due to headaches it would bring so what would be your thoughts on other suggestions?
 
I've made a couple of quiet air cooled boxes. They're never gonna *quiet" under heavy load though.

You can make them pretty silent when not with the right fans and airflow and relatively quiet all round.

Lots of big fans, positive pressure and a top vent. Let the heat do the work.
 
 
inogen said:
I've made a couple of quiet air cooled boxes. They're never gonna *quiet" under heavy load though.

You can make them pretty silent when not with the right fans and airflow and relatively quiet all round.

Lots of big fans, positive pressure and a top vent. Let the heat do the work.
Click to expand...

Do you still have one or did you move away for a particular reason? I was really hoping for a quite running box :(
 
 
wedmonds said:
Do you still have one or did you move away for a particular reason? I was really hoping for a quite running box :(
Click to expand...

yep. My current box is air cooled. Only running an old 7850 in it though, but I only game at 1980x1080 so it’s fine.

It’s quiet unless I run it flat out. It’s very near silent when idling. It’s only just audible 2ft or so away.
 

That video gives a pretty good overview of the best small ITX cases on the market. Since it was published, there's a few new ones worth considering:




The Silverstone SG05 linked above, and the slightly larger SG13 are good for the money. I've owned both. Quite basic by today's norms though; cheaply made, not much scope for cable management, no window, etc. Decent cooling performance for the size though.

With small builds, so much depends on case choice so you need to sort that first really.
 
wedmonds said:
I like the idea of one sitting on the desk that runs cool underload without making a racket. You think water-cooled is the only route? I dont think i can be a*sed with water due to headaches it would bring so what would be your thoughts on other suggestions?
Click to expand...
Having waterpipes in place of heatpipes doesn't make heat disappear magically anywhere.
While water's high heat capacity can minimize temperature rise in short load spikes, in long term load all produced heat has to be dissipated into air at rate of heat production.
And beating high end heatpipe heatsinks in continuous cooling per noise needs really big radiators.
Which of course have challenges fitting into small cases, just like big heatsinks.

So the smaller the case you want, the lower power consumption parts you'll want to put there.
Especially smaller Mini-ITX cases are very challenging for fitting any more powerfull coolers.

It's just like in cars.
You can't expect to get capacity/power of some Hummer in size of Morris Mini.
So first thing would be deciding what size case you want.
 
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