Build It: Half-Height Gaming PCs For The Living Room

[rwpritchett]

Something I noticed is that the power brick for the Xbox is external and huge. Now I am not sure if this is the same as a PCs power supply, but if they are the same, are external power supplies available? And if not, I'm going to need a capitol investor. : )

Already available... they're called picoPSU's.

Actually, that was my first thought when reading the article when the HD5750 wouldn't fit because of the power supply: Replace it with a 160W picoPSU! But, after seeing the power consumption figures that probably wouldn't be a good idea. I wonder if the HD5750 would work within the 160W envelope if an atom board was used instead of the AM3 board... even though it would introduce a CPU bottleneck.

I really liked this article. It's nice to see a build article with a little twist to add a challenge. As said before, anyone can build a gamer in a mid tower. More like this, please.

 

[cadder]

You guys have different thought process than I have. If I couldn't fit my cpu, dvd, gpu and power supply, I would either get a different case or get the saw out and start modifying that one. And an external DVD drive? I don't think so.

As for half height cards vs. standard cards, aren't cables available that let you attach a video card without plugging it into a motherboard slot? You could use a normal full height card and turn it sideways in the half height case.

 

[Aragorn]

Thanks tgo some imbicile added a full page add for each page of the article I am going to have to skip everything after page 3. I don't know how anyone can put up with so many of these things. Get back to real life Tom's I understand Ads are what keeps you in bussiness and don't even mind a few that cover the whole window but the constant pile of Lenovo manure is just too much. Ads only work if people look at them, driving away readers won't help your ad revenue. And the same add multiple times in a row isn't any good for anyone (including the advertiser, I'm far lewss likely to click on the the third showing inside of 5 minutes than I was to click on the second and the odds get worse from there.)

 

[rohitbaran]

That I think isn't as low. Take a case like Lian Li Q8 or Silverstone Sugo SG07, both mini ITX cases and you can fit full sized cards like GTX580 and Radeon 6970. They are really small cases.

 

[rohitbaran]

[citation][nom]TommySch[/nom]Whats the point, I have a HAF-932 in my living room and I couldnt be more happier with it. For those who dont know its a huge full-tower. The smaller the case is the harder it is to keep it cool, so you have to crank the fans. Pushing the fans becomes noisy, fast. For the living room Silent powerful full-tower > Noisy underpowered cube.[/citation]
Noisy underpowered cube? Lian Li Q8 and Silverstone SG07. Ever saw those? Small cases are good for carrying around. In addition, they save desk space, so one can keep say paperwork and other stuff they want to keep on their desks.

 

[cleeve]

And an external DVD drive? I don't think so.

It looks like you missed the part where I mentioned that an internal slimline drive would have fit.
We had the external onhand so i mentioned it, but the case has space for an internal optical slim drive.

 

[cleeve]

Tom's really needs a modder on staff. Are you all afraid of dremel's and wiring your own plugs or something?

I hear you bro, but it's not about fear - it's about time. We have a full schedule of stories to work on and if it doesn't work out of the box, we have to move on.

Sometimes we can put aside time for special projects, but the point of this build was to show people what they can put together off the shelf, not to show what a modder can do.

 

[CptTripps]

[citation][nom]Poisoner[/nom]This is an interesting article and goes a direction where nVidia has no way to compete.[/citation]

Just curious on how they have no way to compete? Half height cards? Just capable enough for 1080p gaming? What direction are we talking about?

 

[Guest]

There's also a typo in the Paragraph describing the Motherboard, it says it supports AM3+

 

[cadder]

It looks like you missed the part where I mentioned that an internal slimline drive would have fit

I did miss it, therefore ignore that part of my comment.

 

[omgitswes]

that's actually pretty cool.
I was thinking about gutting my orginal Xbox and using that as a case for a cheap little build one day.

 

[juncture]

[citation][nom]carlhenry[/nom]that's weird, a 160w power supply powering up a 5570? (and you also intended to slap in the 5750 there?) did i miss something?[/citation]
Read second page, third paragraph down.

 

[Guest]

I probably would have enjoyed reading this article if I didn't get a full screen popup ad for Lenovo notebooks between EVERY PAGE. I'm not normally one to complain about this stuff, I know you guys need ad revenue to stay in business, and I'm perfectly willing to put up with these types of ads once or twice, but this is friggin ridiculous. I shouldn't have to click 'continue to article' after every time I try to go to the next page. It was so annoying I couldn't even finish the article. I like tom's hardware, it's the first site I check out when I get up in the morning(late afternoon), but this really makes me think about looking elsewhere.

 

[Onus]

Use Firefox with AdBlock+ and NoScript. Works wonders, and Tom's advertisers don't need to worry that they'll lose my business for using an obnoxious delivery method for their ads.

 

[megamanx00]

Too bad they didn't use a 5670 instead for the slim case.

 

[superflykicks03]

[citation][nom]TommySch[/nom]Whats the point, I have a HAF-932 in my living room and I couldnt be more happier with it. For those who dont know its a huge full-tower. The smaller the case is the harder it is to keep it cool, so you have to crank the fans. Pushing the fans becomes noisy, fast. For the living room Silent powerful full-tower > Noisy underpowered cube.[/citation]

Once you reach your mid 20's (or get married) the allure of a bulky, ugly, piece of plastic with HAF stamped across the side loses its appeal as it looks quite poor in the context of a clean, modern home theater setup. I don't want guests to feel like they are walking into a LAN party when they come over to watch a movie. The whole point of this article is to see how far you can push small hardware to fit into the context of your living room. Granted, I don't particularly like the look of that In Win case either, but at least it would fit behind a closed door much like a ps3 or Xbox would. I like the direction of this article, getting away from the cubes that have dominated small form factor since the end of the 90's (think original Shuttle boxes). I have mused about building a box that would serve as both a HTPC and a gaming platform while maintaining a small footprint and blending with existing home theater hardware; this article helps illuminate the options (as well as the pitfalls).

 

[vaughn2k]

There is this J&W Minix 890GX available, which I guess more powerful than the ITX mobo reviewed here.

 

[cleeve]

There is this J&W Minix 890GX available, which I guess more powerful than the ITX mobo reviewed here.

Won't be any difference at all if you're using a discrete graphics card.

 

[dertechie]

[citation][nom]jtt283[/nom]Use Firefox with AdBlock+ and NoScript. Works wonders, and Tom's advertisers don't need to worry that they'll lose my business for using an obnoxious delivery method for their ads.[/citation]

Don't even need the NoScript, I haven't noticed any ads with just AdBlock+. I honestly don't know how people surf without an ad blacklist. I like NoScript personally, but I can see how most people would find it annoying to build the whitelist.

 

[drealar]

In many review sites that writes about small PC build, I never see a GTR's GT3 case included. Is it because of its price/value?
Or is it hard to get hold of one?
Other than that, I found it to be very small and stylish

 

[Guest]

Maybe it's time for manufacturers to look into external power supplies for desktop and HTPC type builds. It certainly makes for a fun design exercise. And its easy to see the benefits of such a setup.

 

[rolli59]

It is a good solution for people that want to do some casual gaming on their HTPC and 1080P TV with out the limitation of the low end GPU´s.

 

[Guest]

These ITX cubes (except of really small HTPC cases) seem not to be very useful if at least 5770-power is necessary. Neither have they small footprint, nor can they be hidden as shelf-devices or put below the monitor.

 

[cleeve]

There's also a typo in the Paragraph describing the Motherboard, it says it supports AM3+

Ah! Thanks for catching that, fixed.

 

[hixbot]

I always thought they should make a mobo with the PCI-e slot perpendicular to the main board on some sort of expansion, so that the video card would be totally parallel to the main board. Possibly with the CPU and GPU sandwiching the same heatsink (side mount fan).