Finished build: Star Citizen themed rig - 'They said I was dead' The number on the top is my Star Citizen ID number. Build Log Oh, I’m excited. I’m excited for this build and I’m excited for this game. I can’t quite decide which I’m *more* excited about, but the most important thing is that I am. Previously I had a main rig (see here), a cheap LAN rig (see here, I go to a LAN at least once a month and don’t have a car, so has to be small enough to fit in a backpack), and a HP Microserver as a NAS. However, there were three problems with this setup: 1. Money - I’ve just bought a house, and it turns out buying a house is pretty spenny. I needed to raise some cash. 2. Power - my LANbox was honestly fine, but I really did miss turning up the details when with friends 3. Noise and energy consumption - the N40L is a loud beast, and mine had 5x hard drives in it, so power consumption wasn’t ideal The answer it seemed, was to combine my main and LAN rigs by downsizing to ITX. This means I lose watercooling (which I LOVE), but with aftermarket GPU heatsinks and custom fan profiles I can live with that. For the NASbox I decided that I’d move to a SSD for the OS and a single large HD for storage (OMG no redundancy!). Reality is, I don’t feel the need to ‘hoard’ TV and movies in the way I once did - most things are available to stream, and net connections are fast enough nowadays to download any movie in ten minutes or so. However, finding an ITX case that fit my requirements was nigh on impossible. For me, if you are going to give up expansion slots, SLI support, huge VRM heatsinks etc, then ITX cases should damn well play to their strengths - small, light and relatively cheap.I know they are very popular but Prodigys are not for me. My must have features: Fit a full size GPU (so we are talking 10-20L) Fit in a medium sized backpack My ‘would like’ features: Be lightweight Have a window Have decent cooling Fit an SFX PSU (These are the way forward IMHO) Possible options, then, are very limited. The two real contenders were the EVGA Hadron Air and the Silverstone FT03B Mini. Lets look at the pros and cons of each for a second: FT03B Mini +Light +Small +Looks amazing +Supports SFX PSUs +Reasonably priced (£80) -Average cooling - especially for GPU -Poor cable Routing -No window (I like windows) Hadron Air +Very Small +Light +Inbuilt 500W PSU +Window -Window poorly designed and shows HDs -Inbuilt PSU has ugly cables - and on show due to window -Non existent active GPU cooling -poor overall finish for a premium case (see above + interior of side panel/psu not painted) -£170. Sorry, how much? Is that a typo. No, its £170. I was very much leaning towards the FT03 despite the lack of window and dubious GPU cooling abilities. I had no intention of paying £170 to EVGA even if the PSU was included. However, along came Parvum systems with a prototype ITX case that ticks all the boxes. Parvum are a small startup case designer, run by just two guys from a glorified shed in Essex, UK. Their debut case was a striking MATX design, made mainly with acrylic. However, there are plans afoot to move into ITX, and after pinging off an email to ask what the ETA on its release might be, they offered to run a prototype off for me at mates rates. This was very exciting because it: Supports full size GPUs Has good (though passive) GPU airflow Supports SFX PSUs only Has a seperate PSU & HD compartment for tidy cables. Is small Is light Fits a 120 AIO cooler Has a window Onto the build then! You guys love a box shot, right? The CPU and GPU are second hand, the H80 is a cheap refurb from Scan.co.uk, The Parvum welcome letter! So I begin unwrapping... Each component is wrapped in soft foam to prevent damage when shipping. Pretty cool Oh and now I've hit the motherload. My Star Citizen ID inlaid into the top panel! My SC ID Card. Lets start putting this together! Square metal blocks provide a strong surface to screw into. Everything is CNC cut, so lines up exactly! Initially I was going to use 120mm Corsair APs but unfortunately Asus haven't bothered to make these controllable via the motherboard, so in the end I had to ditch these and buy some PWM fans. Quick test fit! With the front panel on I freaking LOVE ITX and I love this motherboard. The VRM daughterboard is the coolest thing I've ever seen on a mobo, and because Parvums cases are inverted, this build really shows it off Had to get a different GPU because my old one was triple slot. Sadly doesn't match the colour scheme but you can't see the red stripes when fitted, and I'll be getting a new one when SC is finally released. Whats awesome is the case has a back section like the 540 Air where you can hide all your messy cables Nice Parvum logo cut into the front 3570k @4.2Ghz MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 8GB Crucial Ballistix 1866Mhz RAM Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD Seagate 480GB SSD Silverstone 450W SFX PSU (ver 2) Corsair H80 AIO BeQuiet Silent Wings 2 80mm fan 2x Enermax Cluster Advance 120mm PWM fans
Too much awesome in this build thread! Lovely box but not sold on the inverted design. Wouldn't that work against the way a GPU is supposed to work? Anyway it's great to see these guys do an ITX case and lucky you!
Very nice, Parge, very nice indeed! I love the inlay in the top panel - it looks superb. I know it's only a prototype, but I'm very excited for this mITX case from Parvum - any chance you could give me a quick rundown of the case's exterior dimensions?
Errr, very nice Shirty? I am hoping that they will come up with a 5 PCI slot version of the M-ATX as I want to get my current components in. But this looks good Parge.
Oh bollards! For some reason I'm always getting those two mixed up. A thousand apologies Shirty, er I mean Parge. Move along now, nothing to see here
Looking good man They really are nice to use, definitely a breath of fresh air when it comes to cases.
I really enjoyed building this, even though I can't remember doing it. Nice case Tom, will really stand out at LANs. I toyed with the idea of a Parvum but I find the designs a bit loud so went for the very Scandinavian Node instead.
Looks really nice. I am hoping that there are some good M-ATX X99 boards when they come out since I will be dropping down in size, because of Lans etc. Will then use some spare hardware to build a server for all the files storage, although looking on my desk at home I have nearly 2Tb of space in loads of pen drives and each have stuff on them.
Wow Shirty! Awesome rig, you are the best PC builder in the world. I haven’t seen any pics of you but I bet you are super good looking too! Thanks all, thoroughly recommend a Parvum case, it’s a bit more involved than a normal build but the final result is unlike anything else on the market and the design in ingenious. My favourite things are • The way the case glows due to its translucent nature • The separate PSU compartment to hide away all your messy cables and hard drives • The use of SFX PSUs which are so much better than huge ATX PSUs in terms of weight and size (and are super cute!) • Encourages you to use quieter 2.5” drives only. I’ve actually only used 2.5” drives for ages now. • The ability to easily use a AIO cooler. Some things that I think they could improve upon • The white plastic has a tendancy to mark if you scratch it with black plastic (not a problem but a heads up would be good) • Fan filters would be a nice addition to the PSU and front intakes • The cut for the USB3.0 ports could trace each port rather than just being one hole for both
Wow, I didn't know the shirty one was a photochopped shandy-drinking nancyboy! On topic: That's a tidy looking build, Tom.
What a noob Hi mate, wow... what a great project and write up. Literally about once every four weeks I say to Shaun... I wonder what ever happened to Parge's build. Stupid me checking the project logs and modding section we've only just seen this! Photos look great going to get one up on the Facebook. Thanks for taking your time to post this, the comments and build are awesome. It's funny I ended up here because someone mentioned it in the comments on our Parvum interview. Much love <3