Printable View
Hey i had some q's about building an SFF gaming rig. I wanted to know what the heat looks like on a general level, is it worth it? I have no idea. Ive built computers into low profile cases, but nothing outside of ATX. I know most Micro cases tend to overheat, but my experience with them has never been with a custom built one. If anyone could give me some info that would be great! Even if it just points me to some other articles!
Thanks in advance!
It really depends on a number of factors. The case you use, the types of fans, the types of heat sinks, the electrical components themselves.
But I know people build them, so there must be a realistic solution there somewhere.
The Nzxt Rogue, albiet somewhat on the large size, cool's pretty well and can fit most parts. But, like I said, it's a bit big, like probably the biggest SFF case out there. lol
I just recently built a an Ultra SFF gaming PC for my friend. It has a Zotac Mini-ITX motherboard, slim-line disc drive, 500GB 2.5" hard drive, HD-5770, Core i3 and 4GB DDR3 RAM all packed into a Silverstone SG-05. Even with all that packed in there the temps are very cool.
Hope that helps,
Indybird
My bro built one too. Runs pretty cool. I'll post some pics
Have never run an atx case. Never encountered any real heat issues (had only one fan in a micro with a watercooled 8800ultra, 850w psu, 4 gigs, and all oced, then started to get heat issues, added a second fan no problems). Micro is the way to go.
As long as you keep everything properly cooled and keep airflow through the case you shouldn't have any problems. If you check out my mightyMite mod or craigbru's Rogue, you can see some of the limits of SFF cooling. The problem I ran into that ended up prompting me to moving to a larger case was that my NB wasn't getting properly cooled because it was still on air and I wasn't getting enough airflow through that part of the case.