TranquilPC iXL (mini-ITX with passive cooling) died - worth a re-build?

[TCabot]

Hi Folks,

Would really appreciate your advice about potentially re-building an old passive-cooled SFF box. A bit of a dinosaur here, as I haven't really touched hardware since the 90s, so apologies for daft questions.

I've been handed down a TranquilPC iXL about 7 years ago and it's been working fine as the home PC. Main use was very light: web browsing, watching films, skype, admin work (Word/Excel). Very occasional games from the 90s or early 2000s.
The only times I'd put any load on it would be with vector graphics work on Inkscape, a bit of FreeCAD modelling and audio editing in a DAW packed with VST plugins. It seemed to cope OK-ish with the latter, albeit was a bit slow.

The Tranquil's motherboard burned down a few days ago and I dug out a spare HP Elitedesk 800 G1 with Intel i5-4590S CPU (bought for peanuts on ebay a while ago for a couple data recovery jobs) to use as the home PC in the meantime. The HP seems to have more power and is less than half the size of the Tranquil.

I'm now trying to decide whether there's any point in building a new SFF in the tranquil box (looks like a well-made case). Would a very budget build (Aliexpress stuff or used parts from ebay) using modern-ish components allow to get something significanlty better in 2024 than the 2013 Elitedesk despite the passive cooling in the Tranquil? One obvious benefit that I can see is that I should be able to fit a videocard into the Tranquil, but I suspect cooling it will be an issue.

I like having a spare box as a backup & for various odd jobs & messing about, so the other options are to:
- Pick up another retired office SFF;
- Do a budget scratch build with more power & more cooling.

I guess the TLDR version is: will a budget passively-cooled build have any benefits* over a sub £50 used old SFF PC from ebay?
*Apart from the obvious joys of doing a self-build and showing the kids that PCs don't grow on shelves in Curry's.

Thanks.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

That case looks like one of those older Streacom ones. It'd be cool to still use it, but unsure if you'd be able to get a solution for the CPU cooling.

I'd probably go the option of doing a new budget build, but also possibly consider a mini-PC with a 6000/7000 series AMD.

 

[TCabot]

Thank you. It is, indeed, a Streacom!

I'm trying to get my head around the mini-itx form factor (sorry for being a bit daft).
1) I understand the mini-ITX gaming builds with tons of power and a lot of cooling - all in a fraction of the full PC tower size. Will probably build one once kids' gaming needs increase.
2) I understand usff PCs - the likes of HP elitedesk, or Dell Optiplex super minis. Even the humble G1 HP that I have seems to pack a lot of power into a tiny box when pimped out with i5-4590S - all for a literal fistful of £ coins. G5 HPs and newer Optiplexes seem quite remarkable in what they can deliver for their size, but at a somewhat higher purchase price.
3) Silent PCs I understand, but, in all honesty, can't really relate to their benefits that much - there's hardly any noise from the small fan in uSSF ones, yet, it provides better cooling than fanless or the tiny laptop jobbies, and the uSSF size is smaller than a typical heatsink box.
4) We then get into a mini-ITX category that I can't quite grasp at all. Let's say something along the lines of Metalfish Metalgear Plus case. OK, it looks stylish, it has the space for a much bigger fan than uSSF and two HDDs, but takes up twice the space and still doesn't have the space for a powerful GPU with a lot of cooling. In fact, I'm not sure there is space for a separate GPU at all. If you were spec'ing out something like this (presumably, for a powerful desktop with a little extra oomph for sound/image editing and occasional gaming), what would you put inside of it that would give it a significant edge over, say uSSF HP elitedesk G5 with a Ryzen 5 3400G or i5-9500T in it?

Thank you.

PS I guess there's a limited number of power-hungry jobs one might want to run off his desktop, like running chess engines, compiling large code, advanced sound & image editing, analysing large databases from their desktop rather than from a dedicated server and the extra cooling capacity of a non-GPU mini-ITX box comes in handy. But it's a small space/cost saver compared to a game station.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

The uSFF boxes from big manufacturers are on the limit of cooling, or may be using the 35w T or GE variants of the Intel/AMD CPUs. Buying one of the smaller cases with no room for a GPU, you could go for an 8700G with a solid Noctua low profile cooler and run your memory at higher speeds.
Basically, you'll get more performance if you wanted to build your own around that size, but it's pretty niche.
Mini-PCs are taking over too.

 

[TCabot]

Yeah, I thought about that too. Cost of 8700G alone might be bigger than my entire current budget tbf, but I was thinking about building on a 5600G (likely used off ebay).
Been giving it some though over the last few days. With 11.11 approaching, I'm looking at a very budget APU mini-ITX build.

Current gear:
HP G1 uSSF, i5-4590S CPU, 8GB ram.

Use:
Only had it running as my desktop for a few days and it's a big upgrade on the Tranquil spec.
I've installed Linux Mint with xfce and it flies (duh) for everyday use.
I haven't compiled any code on it (I sometimes fanny about with Arduino) and haven't looked into linux DAWs yet. I've thrown the biggest inkscape files I have at it and everything flies. Very basic FreeCADding that I occasionally do also seems absolutely fine.
In fact, the most CPU load appears to be coming from firefox adblockers (it's a sad world we're living in).
In terms of gaming, I simply don't have the time for it, but if I had some free time to waste, in all honesty, my immediate aspirations would be to re-play ADOM (old-school ASCII version, not the disneyfied graphical crap) and to play some Diablo II with my kids once they are a bit older for all the blood & gore. Oh, let's throw Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri into the mix. Only then I'd reach out for Half-life 2. I don't know what 4k means. You get the idea.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm about as low maintenance as it gets. HP G1 with a lightweight linux distro seems to cover all my immediate needs, but the box is old, and from my previous experience, hardware has a tendency to kick the proverbial bucket when it's approaching 15 years of age.

I've been a long-time linux fan in the past, but for the last 7 years or so I've been reasonably happy with Win 7, then Win 10. Right now I'm not really sure what's going on with Windows: afaik, 10 became a bit slow & bulky and is getting axed next year. Win11's main purpose seems to be to force a lot of old hardware into absolescence. I'm almost certain I'll be switching back to linux for good, but it would be nice to have the option of running Win11 if I must.

Anyway, my thoughts for a slightly more modern build are to check out the best deals on 11.11 and see if the following box can be built on the cheap:

- Mini-ITX case along the lines of RGEEK L80S or similar metalfish.
- Some A520M ITX motherboard
- Ryzen 5 5600G APU
- Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 OR Metalfish Z-39 fan
- 16GB DDR4 RAM (8GB+8GB)
- Have spare old but healthy 80GB SDD for the system drive and 1TB HDD for data.
- Some internal wifi card
- Some PSU. I don't think this set-up is particularly power-hungry, but there's no space for a proper PSU in a mini case, so I guess I need something along the lines of a PICO-type gismo + external PSU? Any help is appreciated!

Daft? Or reasonable for the intended use, to last me the next 10 years or so?

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

If you're going for that upgrade, I'd throw in at least a 512gb NVME drive (or 1tb).
To last 10 years, well... Who knows? It'd be very long in the tooth by then. I'm sure it would still be functioning at least.

With what you are suggesting for upgrade, I'd 100% just be looking at an AMD mini-PC.
I've got a 5700U based one running Mint, and it's pretty great. Also have a 5700G console sized PC and it's been decent for emulation.

 

[TCabot]

NVME. Wowser. Yeah, they look good.

A bit tongue in cheek about the 10 year period

Definitely not going with passive cooling and I've refined my build a bit, so will create a new thread for it. Hopefully, I can put something together.