New SFF Member: Pedro

Hi Guys,

My name is Pete, but all my friends call me Pedro.

I have been browsing through the SFF Forum for a few weeks now learning a lot as I go. Currently my Rig in no where near a SFF system, running in giant Cooler Master HAF X case (Yuck). But I want to change my ways and I am hoping the SFF forum is a place to help me shrink my future build down. I look forward to getting to know everyone and learning as much as I can as I close in on my next build which will likely take place next summer (ish), money pending. I have a bit of PC building experience but have never built inside anything smaller then a mid-tower so I am a complete noob to the SFF world. In addition I have no PC modding experience so cutting & chopping inside a case is completely foreign to me, but I am willing to try new things as long as I can afford to screw up, which I will. I also have very limited overclocking experience.

My living situation has changed over the past few years and my giant full tower setup is no longer feasible, in fact I hate it with a fiery passion. It worked great back in the day when I ran a 3 & 4 way X-Fire/SLI build but with the direction CPU & GPU tech has gone in the last few years its sheer volume is no longer needed. I need a system that I can easily move between rooms in the house, take to friends house for last minute LAN parties, and haul on the road to hotels for work trips. My personal PC is used exclusively for gaming, any productivity work is done on the work laptop. I have an idea for my future build but we will address in a later thread, for now I am just here to learn.

Currently I play mostly Blizzard games (Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm & Diablo 3) but have played the Borderlands series extensively, as well as World of Tanks. For a year now I have been running a Steamlink on the TV in the family room, but due to sluggish controls I have only been playing slow paced RPG's on it like Darkest Dungeon & the South Park games.

Thank you ahead of time for all your help, I know I will need it.

Kind Regards,
Pedro

 

[Phuncz]

Hi Pedro and welcome ! The time of Crossfire and SLI does seem to have hit its peak a while ago, which I realised soon after getting a second GPU. I've since moved to a single GPU but I'm hoping this will some day start again.

 

[Biowarejak]

Welcome! I definitely feel where you're coming from about portability issues. Hauling my mid tower around is something I will not miss.

 

[Pedro]

Hi Pedro and welcome ! The time of Crossfire and SLI does seem to have hit its peak a while ago, which I realised soon after getting a second GPU. I've since moved to a single GPU but I'm hoping this will some day start again.

There was something special about having a shoebox size stack of GPU's churning away at the newest gaming titles. But I paid the price for it. Now I have a 1200 watt psu that is probably 3x as big as it needs to be and a pile of GPUs on a shelf just begging to be used a dedicated PhysX cards.

 

[AleksandarK]

Hello and welcome. You will definitely find a lot of cases to replace HUUUGE HAF.

 

[3lfk1ng]

Welcome aboard. There's plenty of fuel here to start an addiction.

 

[jtd871]

There are many small and portable cases on the market currently or under development. The cost of downsizing could be mitigated a bit if you re-used some of your current components and went to a middling but smaller case. I will assume you have a full ATX mobo and GPUs. If you went to a Silverstone SG13 case (which is fairly inexpensive), you could re-use RAM, boot drive, CPU and 1 GPU (assuming its not more than 2 slots wide). You could pick up a SFX(L) or much smaller ATX PSU, mITX mobo and smaller air cooler and have a perfectly serviceable and relatively portable rig. If you have a larger budget, then you could go all-new and get even smaller.

 

[Pedro]

Thank you all for the warm welcome!

 

[HeroXLazer]

PEDRO. I like that name. Welcome to the forum.

 

[Nightblade]

Sorry for the belated welcome, as I first saw you in my "portable desktop methods" thread. I am also fairly new here, but I enjoy discussing methods and hope we all learn something while we are here.