I've been toying with the idea of a PC-in-a-console for a long time and finally decided the time was right to build something super compact that could also be used on a regular basis. Having weighed up the options, I think the Xbox One S is the smallest I could get away with.
- Xbox One S All Digital case
- ASRock X300M-STX Motherboard - I was hoping an updated one would be released by the time I started, but nothing concrete so far
- Ryzen 7 5700G - was intending to use the 35W 5700GE and may still need to, but the standard G variants are a LOT easier to find
- MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 2X OC - going to be trying to use the Alphacool 4070Ti Ventus 3X GPU waterblock, as the designs look virtually identical, although I may have to end up modifying it
- SAVAGO 330W GAN power supply 19V, which will be converted to 12V for the GPU
- Alphacool ST20 120mm radiator
- Alphacool Eisstation 40 DC-LT/DC-LT 2600 res/pump combo. No idea if this'll fit yet, but I think I should be able to squeeze it in
Still need to decide on which NVME to PCIe riser I'm going to use - if anyone has some suitable suggestions, I'm all ears!
This is how the motherboard and 120mm fan look inside the case for reference. I want to keep the vast majority of the original metal housing for structural rigidity and in order to retain all the original I/O, which gives me very little space to play with. The grey cutout in the picture is the footprint of the GAN power supply removed from the outer housing, it will need to come forward a little to provide room for the SPDIF/IR connectors, but the whole motherboard has to be moved forward a bit anyway to provide clearance for the graphics card which I'm hoping will sit above it. Next to the power supply I'm hoping to fit the 19V to 12V circuitry and then have the Alphacool res/pump between the HDMI ports and 120mm rad.
I'm going to make a PCB to use as a tray that everything can be mounted to, including the original I/O from the Xbox, which I plan on connecting to the underside of the motherboard with custom flex cables. I've started drawing up the tray in Inkscape (luckily someone was nice enough to leak the Xbox schematics) and will 3D print it to make sure everything lines up nicely before creating a PCB version. As you can see, I've moved the STX motherboard as far forward as I possibly can on this design and the area where it juts out will need to be trimmed from the metal shell of the case.
I've also been tinkering with the layout so far in Fusion 360, partly to visualise everything and partly because I'm doubting I can get a slim enough combination of existing CPU and GPU waterblocks to fit, so I'm getting to grips with it before potentially having to design my own. With the motherboard facing this direction it means the RAM shouldn't get in the way of the graphics card, which at around 170mm x 100mm should sit above the motherboard in the far corner (from this view) of the case, haven't given any consideration to how exactly it'll be mounted yet. The motherboard's VRM heatsink and VGA port will definitely have to go, and some of the other I/O might need removing, as there's very little clearance.
- Xbox One S All Digital case
- ASRock X300M-STX Motherboard - I was hoping an updated one would be released by the time I started, but nothing concrete so far
- Ryzen 7 5700G - was intending to use the 35W 5700GE and may still need to, but the standard G variants are a LOT easier to find
- MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 2X OC - going to be trying to use the Alphacool 4070Ti Ventus 3X GPU waterblock, as the designs look virtually identical, although I may have to end up modifying it
- SAVAGO 330W GAN power supply 19V, which will be converted to 12V for the GPU
- Alphacool ST20 120mm radiator
- Alphacool Eisstation 40 DC-LT/DC-LT 2600 res/pump combo. No idea if this'll fit yet, but I think I should be able to squeeze it in
Still need to decide on which NVME to PCIe riser I'm going to use - if anyone has some suitable suggestions, I'm all ears!
This is how the motherboard and 120mm fan look inside the case for reference. I want to keep the vast majority of the original metal housing for structural rigidity and in order to retain all the original I/O, which gives me very little space to play with. The grey cutout in the picture is the footprint of the GAN power supply removed from the outer housing, it will need to come forward a little to provide room for the SPDIF/IR connectors, but the whole motherboard has to be moved forward a bit anyway to provide clearance for the graphics card which I'm hoping will sit above it. Next to the power supply I'm hoping to fit the 19V to 12V circuitry and then have the Alphacool res/pump between the HDMI ports and 120mm rad.
I'm going to make a PCB to use as a tray that everything can be mounted to, including the original I/O from the Xbox, which I plan on connecting to the underside of the motherboard with custom flex cables. I've started drawing up the tray in Inkscape (luckily someone was nice enough to leak the Xbox schematics) and will 3D print it to make sure everything lines up nicely before creating a PCB version. As you can see, I've moved the STX motherboard as far forward as I possibly can on this design and the area where it juts out will need to be trimmed from the metal shell of the case.
I've also been tinkering with the layout so far in Fusion 360, partly to visualise everything and partly because I'm doubting I can get a slim enough combination of existing CPU and GPU waterblocks to fit, so I'm getting to grips with it before potentially having to design my own. With the motherboard facing this direction it means the RAM shouldn't get in the way of the graphics card, which at around 170mm x 100mm should sit above the motherboard in the far corner (from this view) of the case, haven't given any consideration to how exactly it'll be mounted yet. The motherboard's VRM heatsink and VGA port will definitely have to go, and some of the other I/O might need removing, as there's very little clearance.
