Im planning on building a Mini Itx based tower (in the next few days). I need to know if there are any problems with my layout so far? I havent really decided on how the outside will look/i dont have the skill on sketchup to design it. will there be enough cooling, is the air flow in a good direction. the PSU fan will be blowing out the side of the case as will the gpu (obviously). The fan above the motherboard on the back is an 92mm fan, and the one in the front is a 120mm fan. the components are: CPU: Intel Core i5 2500k Mobo: Asus P8H61-I, Mini ITX RAM: Corsair DDR3 XMS3 2x4GB GPU: EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 SuperClocked Graphics Card - 1GB PSU: Antec 520W High current Gamer and a 1TB hard drive. (i know the picture may show some different components, but i have made sure they all measure out the same as the ones i am goign to be using. (My GPU is actually slightly shorter, than the one shown in the picture)
19L is pretty big for an ITX rig, especially with on 1 HDD. You should use 2.5" HDD / SSD and laptop slimline optical drive to reduce the size. I would recommand the Silverstone ST50F-P if you do not already have the PSU. This is a short length 500W modular PSU (140mm vs 160 for the High Current Gamer). http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=274&area=en Did you plan the cable management ? EDIT : The GPU won't blow the air outside the case as this EVGA is not an external exhaust one. In this configuration, it will take the air from outside (this is good), but it will dump it inside the case. The 92mm will have to spin pretty quickly to exhaust the hot air, since both the GPU and the front fan will dump air inside the case. EDIT2 : Here are examples of some designs of mine. I did them for losias.net and they are both between 8L and 10L. This one uses 1x 140mm front fan and 2x 70mm back fans : This one uses 2x 120mm front fans and 2x 70mm back fans : The PSU is a 450W mATX (SFX) power supply.
I do understand matey . I can try to help if you want, I love monolithic case design. Just one question : why the i5-2500k with an H61 mobo ? The h61 does not provide OC feature.
Thanks, any help is appreciated, first time ill being doing anything like this, especially on such a short time scale. Im not actually planning to ever OC the i5 2500K. at stock its good enough for me tbh, for anything i could really ever need to do with this PC. EDIT: also, height isnt really of any issue, its more on minimization of the footprint of the table Ive come up with this sketch, from some of your ideas: Thoughts?
okay, so I have decided on this as my final layout. height is not an issue with me and the taller case allows me to have more room for the PSU cables which i am currently not intending to shorten as i wouldnt really have the skill. It also allows more room at the bottom incase i want to add more HDD/SSD's later on:
There's room on that last design to go even thinner. You could move the optical on top and chop the whole thing down to the width of the optical.
I had realised that, however I'm afraid if it's too thin and tall it may have a tendency to all over, even though the psu is at the bottom to give the most weight. But I'm actually quite happy with that layout. I think I'm going to stick with it and start collecting materials tomorrow for my build
Thats really good modeling. I keep wondering HOW you and other people do it so well and make it look so good. I've been using sketchup to try and model things here and there for a good year and I still cant get anywhere remotely close to that. Could you give me some tips? I feel like theres a few things that make it easier to handle and make stuff, and I'm just not using them Also: Sorry I know this is offtopic, SORRY. EDIT: Like for instance: the fan blades, the frames and the random transparency appearing to be acrylic, I have no clue how you did all those.
Thanks for the kind words. SU is a nightmare with curved surfaces. I draw them triangle per triangle when it is too complexe. You can also use the "follow me" tools to build a shape allong a line / curve (for pipes, wires, etc). As mentioned, use the SU components collection, it saves time .
