Concept Project: The Smallest (gaming PC that theHACK can design and build)

Rumpkin

Cable Smoosher
Mar 24, 2019
10
1
I've been lurking around all your projects. Was too slow for the original Pure, but am very excited to see where this concept goes. I am planning a gaming build for my living room this year to pair with HDMI 2.1/4K TV. So what you have been describing sounds potentially perfect for what I am looking for. Looking forward to this for sure.
 

Questl

Chassis Packer
Nov 12, 2019
13
5
Really keen on this, had conceptualized a similar build (down to the same CPU) but found no cases that quite fit the profile. Internal PSU, full profile GPU, sandwich style, lowest total volume. Keeping an eye on this thread!
 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
SFFn Staff
May 9, 2015
5,836
4,906
I've wanted to build a project for a while with a GPU and CPU sharing one massive heatsink with a singular fan in a tunnel model. Much like the Mac Pro 2013 but with a square or rectangular heatsink. Look at it as an inside-out passive case with a fan. Yes, my user icon is a to-do list.

Considering it's a one-off, it's doable with stuff from HDPlex (GPU heatsink). The VRMs are also on the inside when the motherboard and GPU are sandwiching a heatsink, so it's not even required to change heatsinks on these. A DC-DC PSU with a seperate AC-DC will also allow flexibility in layout. Also no need for watercooling so minimized extra components needed.

A variation on this could be to use CPU heatsinks on both CPU and GPU. Something like single or dual towers but this will probably require an offset (very flexible PCIe extender needed) and pressure optimized fans. 140mm fans or larger recommended. This concept would use standard hardware but requires more component dependence: the location of the GPU core and CPU socket must remain within tolerances between different hardware.