Smallest case that supports optical drive and dual-slot low-profile GPU?

Windfall

Shrink Ray Wielder
SFFn Staff
Nov 14, 2017
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Let's see.. Based on those requirements, perhaps:


Edit: Shoot. I completely forgot the optical disc requirement. Try Chieftec BT04B U3

That chieftec case is awesome! I've got to get me one of those!
 

Vlad502

Airflow Optimizer
Nov 4, 2017
256
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Cemo 1001 with 3 LP slots and supports 1U PSU. Other option with TFX power supply is Chieftec BU-12B (looks like Dell OptiPlex case)

 
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Windfall

Shrink Ray Wielder
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RichterSnipes

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Aug 17, 2019
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Wow, this thread exploded when I was away! I'm pretty taken aback by the amount of interest in this case hunt. ?
What about the Streacom FC9 Alpha?

It's a 7,5 L chassis and it has a bonus point in being a fanless chassis. If I got it right, this building is going to be a living room media center/light-to-medium gaming machine, a fanless system could be a big plus.

I mean, I like much more the FC8/FC7 variant, but I'm understanding you don't want to go with an external brick so the FC9 should do the trick, the bigger FC10 being almost the same as your ML09.
I'm warming up to the idea of having an external power supply. I'll always prefer an internal PSU, of course.

This case seems to be bigger than the ML09. I'm looking to decrease the spatial footprint of my HTPC.
Not sure what you're trying to link to here.
If you can live without the LP gpu, this is a great option!

Having the GPU is kind of the whole point of this build...
What about the Lone L5 and a USB enclosure?
That's certainly an intriguing option. Well, this and all cases with a similar concept. I'd much prefer the ODD to be integrated into the machine, though. That being in the PC itself is more important that the power supply. I know that not many people use disc drives anymore, but I still do for ripping CDs and watching disc-based movies here or there.
 

Windfall

Shrink Ray Wielder
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Nov 14, 2017
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Wow, this thread exploded when I was away! I'm pretty taken aback by the amount of interest in this case hunt. ?

I'm warming up to the idea of having an external power supply. I'll always prefer an internal PSU, of course.

This case seems to be bigger than the ML09. I'm looking to decrease the spatial footprint of my HTPC.

Not sure what you're trying to link to here.

Having the GPU is kind of the whole point of this build...

That's certainly an intriguing option. Well, this and all cases with a similar concept. I'd much prefer the ODD to be integrated into the machine, though. That being in the PC itself is more important that the power supply. I know that not many people use disc drives anymore, but I still do for ripping CDs and watching disc-based movies here or there.

I understand, I figured that it was worth mentioning though!
 

RichterSnipes

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Aug 17, 2019
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Cemo 1001 with 3 LP slots and supports 1U PSU. Other option with TFX power supply is Chieftec BU-12B (looks like Dell OptiPlex case)
That... that actually fits the requirements pretty neatly. Less than 7L, and it even supports Micro ATX motherboards. Now that's a surprise! I presume you could sub out the Flex ATX PSU for a Pico PSU with internal power brick and use something to patch up any open space left by the smaller/fanless option.

My one hangup would be with the disc drive. If I upgrade to a 4K-friendly Blu-ray Drive, it'll most likely be a tray loading disc drive. I'm not sure if any exist that are slot-loading, so being restricted to that might limit my options in the future in terms of using 4K UHD discs.

Thank you for finding this, though! I've never heard of this case until now, and it looks like an awesome option for the gaming HTPC segment out there.
 
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RichterSnipes

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A quick google search sent me to this, not sure what your budget is though!
I actually pointed out that drive earlier in the thread. It's all I could find with a not-too in-depth search.

LOL on the idea of it being in a budget. If you get this, then budgets don't mean a thing! Beyond it being absurdly priced, I don't know if it's even compatible with 4K UHD discs. A drive being able to support BD-XL discs doesn't necessarily mean that it will be able to properly work with 4K UHD discs, which is the aim here. I haven't found anything about this drive to suggest that it absolutely will work with it. If it doesn't, then man... that's a real rough price for a very niche-use product.
 
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Windfall

Shrink Ray Wielder
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Nov 14, 2017
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I actually pointed out that drive earlier in the thread. It's all I could find with a not-too in-depth search.

LOL on the idea of it being in a budget. If you get this, then budgets don't mean a thing! Beyond it being absurdly priced, I don't know if it's even compatible with 4K UHD discs. A drive being able to support BD-XL discs doesn't necessarily mean that it will be able to properly work with 4K UHD discs, which is the aim here. I haven't found anything about this drive to suggest that it absolutely will work with it. If it doesn't, then man... that's a real rough price for a very niche-use product.

Custom case, maybe?
 

chx

Master of Cramming
May 18, 2016
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That... that actually fits the requirements pretty neatly. Less than 7L, and it even supports Micro ATX motherboards.

My one hangup would be with the disc drive. If I upgrade to a 4K-friendly Blu-ray Drive, it'll most likely be a tray loading disc drive.

It's not micro ATX , careful, it says "mini atx" which is not a thing, it says 170 * 210mm max which is weird because that's not enough for three slots. The three slot compendium is at https://hardforum.com/threads/3-slot-matx-motherboard-in-ncase-m1.1812629/ alas it seems the spreadsheet is gone :(

And obviously there are slot loading blurays, it's what they use(d) in laptops. eBay is your friend. If you don't want to write BluRay disks only write DVDs and read BluRay, they are very cheap, too. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Lapto...-Slot-Load-SATA-05CTFV-CN-05CTFV/263837204350
 
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RichterSnipes

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Original poster
Aug 17, 2019
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It's not micro ATX , careful, it says "mini atx" which is not a thing, it says 170 * 210mm max which is weird because that's not enough for three slots. The three slot compendium is at https://hardforum.com/threads/3-slot-matx-motherboard-in-ncase-m1.1812629/ alas it seems the spreadsheet is gone :(

And obviously there are slot loading blurays, it's what they use(d) in laptops. eBay is your friend. If you don't want to write BluRay disks only write DVDs and read BluRay, they are very cheap, too. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Lapto...-Slot-Load-SATA-05CTFV-CN-05CTFV/263837204350
The listed dimensions for motherboard support are kind of odd. The specs sheet in the article about it says Micro ATX, although the listed size seems quite a bit smaller than what a board of that kind would be. I think it'd be best to say that the case supports Mini DTX motherboards (as uncommon as those are).

I'm well aware that there are slot-loading Blu-ray drives. What I'm saying is that I don't know if there are any that recognize or are friendly to 4K UHD discs. I'm not in need of a drive that does that, it'd just be nice to know if one surely exists.
 

LeChuck81

SFF Lingo Aficionado
May 6, 2019
129
36
Wow, this thread exploded when I was away! I'm pretty taken aback by the amount of interest in this case hunt. ?

I'm warming up to the idea of having an external power supply. I'll always prefer an internal PSU, of course.

This case seems to be bigger than the ML09. I'm looking to decrease the spatial footprint of my HTPC.

The FC9 is a 10 L on the outside and a 7.5 L on the inside. I pointed it out because that all that extra external space is used for fanless thermal cooling, which could be really cool (pun intended) for an HTPC with gaming ambitions. When you don't use the GPU, the PC is totally quiet (with some passive SFX PSU?) and, when gaming, the sound effects will cover the GPU's fan(s). Watch out for TDP though, I wouldn't risk anything over 65W, even if it could dissipate a 95W CPU.
Luckily, the Ryzen 3000 series has some interesting CPUs in the 65W range.

As for the FC7/8, they sport around 6 L/5,25 L external/internal space, with the 8 having a little less internal space (4,4 L) but being fanless like the FC9.
Too bad they don't make an active version of the FC9, could be exacly what you were looking for.
 

RichterSnipes

Trash Compacter
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Aug 17, 2019
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Well, that now makes three times that this drive has been linked in this thread! ?

Again, it working with BD-XL discs doesn't assure that it will work nicely with copyrighted, studio-released 4K Ultra HD movie discs. I haven't found anything confirming that it does.
The FC9 is a 10 L on the outside and a 7.5 L on the inside. I pointed it out because that all that extra external space is used for fanless thermal cooling, which could be really cool (pun intended) for an HTPC with gaming ambitions. When you don't use the GPU, the PC is totally quiet (with some passive SFX PSU?) and, when gaming, the sound effects will cover the GPU's fan(s). Watch out for TDP though, I wouldn't risk anything over 65W, even if it could dissipate a 95W CPU.
Luckily, the Ryzen 3000 series has some interesting CPUs in the 65W range.

As for the FC7/8, they sport around 6 L/5,25 L external/internal space, with the 8 having a little less internal space (4,4 L) but being fanless like the FC9.
Too bad they don't make an active version of the FC9, could be exacly what you were looking for.
Very cool, indeed. It is a neat option for people looking for that. But it's not at all what I'm trying to do here. Even if they did make an active version of the FC9, it'd still be larger than the ML09. The FC9's internals, as you said, are 7.5 L. The ML09 clocks in at just over 7 L, I'd say roughly 7.1 L.

If the FC7 or FC8 were just a tiny bit wider, it could support dual-slot low-profile GPUs and have room for an internal PSU cutout, even if it's just the port and not the full rear of a power supply. If its front also supported all slim disc drive options and not just slot-loading ones would also be great, but I don't know if that would require the case to be a bit taller, too.

Oh, and that part about sound effects masking the GPU sounds? Nuh uh. Not with my graphics card, at least. The Zotac GTX 1650 LP sounds like a jet engine when it's at load. Reminds me of when I played games on the PS3.
 

LeChuck81

SFF Lingo Aficionado
May 6, 2019
129
36
Very cool, indeed. It is a neat option for people looking for that. But it's not at all what I'm trying to do here. Even if they did make an active version of the FC9, it'd still be larger than the ML09. The FC9's internals, as you said, are 7.5 L. The ML09 clocks in at just over 7 L, I'd say roughly 7.1 L.
You won't go bigger, right? 'Cause there's a Silverstone matching all your criteria but it's 11 L in a cubic(-ish) shape. SG-06 and it's variants, if interested. I particularly like the LITE variant.
 

RichterSnipes

Trash Compacter
Original poster
Aug 17, 2019
39
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You won't go bigger, right? 'Cause there's a Silverstone matching all your criteria but it's 11 L in a cubic(-ish) shape. SG-06 and it's variants, if interested. I particularly like the LITE variant.
Correct. I'd like to use the smallest case possible for my gaming HTPC. The current case I'm using has everything I need (and then some). The purpose of this thread is to see if there's something out there that's smaller than what I've got now that can fulfill all its duties similarly.