How to: Build a Mini-ITX Gaming PC

The Job:

I was tasked to build a computer with the horsepower of an extreme gaming rig but in a space less than 8x8x5 inches (think Mac mini with juevos).   

Parts/Design Considerations:

mini-itx

When looking at mother board form factors mini-ITX was the board of choice.  It is significantly smaller than even the smallest micro-ATX boards and can still be packed full of the stuff you need.  z77 motherboards can hold the latest i7 processors and benchmark relativley fast.  After some research I picked out ASUS's p8Z77-I Deluxe.  

cpu

CPU was no compromise.   I chose Intel's latest Ivey Bridge Core i7-3770 running at 3.4Ghz (3.9Ghz max). Nuff said.  

memory

The board handles 16GB of ram so that is what I gave it. Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800).

gpu

This one was the tough one.  When trying to build the beefiest computer in the smallest box you have to do some thinking in this area.  High-end GPUs are typically a full card size.  I needed something with as much or more kick than the Nvidia Quadro 4000 but in a small form factor.  The Quadro 4000m is only for proprietary mobile platforms and I couldn't see a way I was going to get this on the mini-ITX.  After some footwork and chatting with my GPU guru buddies I went with the EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB GPU. This eneded  up being the right choice as it benchmarked slightly faster than the Quadro 4000 for my application and was half the size.  

hard drive

I originally ordered a super fast SSD; however, it was soon put on back-order (and is still on back order... so much for free 2-day shipping) so I had to use something I already had laying around.  Fortunatley, I had a 600GB 2.5" WD VelociRaptor Enterprise Edition from a previous project. If you know anything about this drive you know that it is anything but slow.  

power supply

Power supply needed to be small and powerful.  No typical ATX power supply here. Luckily I had a small form factor 350 watt power supply laying around.  I was able to crack the case, cut the wires, and wire up the 24-pin EATX and 8-pin EATX-12V connectors that would power the motherboard.  I was a little nervous that 350 watts wouldn't be enough to power the CPU, GPU, hard drive, and motherboard but was pleasantly surprised that power supply handled everything quite nicely.  

 Here is everything laid out on my bench. 

 the box

Finding an 8x8x5 inch box was impossible.  So a custom box was in order.  Since this is just a feasibility build it'd didn't need to look pretty.

 

One of the biggest problems going small is heat.  When you take a suped-up rig and cram it into a small space you lose the ability to use large heat syncs and fans. I was a little worried about this.  I had a liquid cooled CPU cooler on standby if heat was going to be an issue.  I ran some heavy-duty processing for several hours and tested the heat.  Everything was suprisingly cool, mission accomplished.

Conclusion

This is a great build if you need (read: want) the speed and power to wow your friends yet compact enough to use as a mobile gaming rig or an overpowered HTPC.  

Feel free to leave comments below.

first post

an mms sent to my kids. trying to get some work done.

first post. first blog.  Yeah, I've never blogged before.  I've never really want to and in some ways I still don't.  I'm Spencer.  I am an electrical engineer for a large engineering company. As part of being an electrical engineer I get to (sometimes have to) take things apart, demo consumer tech, and play with interesting gizmos.  Without the web my designs would be tremendously under-inspired.  I've felt guilty over the years as I have benefited from posted hacks, unboxings, demos, solutions, whatever and I have given nothing back.  This is my attempt to change that.  If this is the only post you see on this blog... well, then I have failed and I guess at least I gave a meager effort. But I am hopeful that over the coming weeks we'll get a taste of things that may inspire your work.