Do you even need descrete graphics? You haven't mentioned the hardware?
I'm looking for the absolute smallest Mini-ITX case that has one expansion slot (half-height is fine).
The case is going into a MAME arcade PC build so I don't care about aesthetics or looks. Basically I'm trying to find something cheap like the
M350 Universal Mini-ITX case but with one half-height expansion slot.
I also love the new ASRock DeskMini PCs and they absolutely nearly perfect if they supported just one half-height PCIe slot.
Any suggestions?
Do you need discrete graphics? You didn’t mention what hardware you’d use?
The HD 6450 wasn’t anything special back in 2011(?) so the Ryzen APUs seem a good choice, certainly they are up to emulating PlayStation 1&2. You can get adaptors where you find you have problems with connecting to the monitor (I not so long ago bought an original Xbox and there was no way it would connect to my modern 4K TV, the adaptor cost £10 and it works fine). Then you don’t need any slots. One case I’m building into (where I wish I had a slot ironically) is a CiT copy of the In Win Chopin, unfortunately I don’t think it is currently available, I got mine of eBay for £30. The exterior diameter is about 22cm by 22.5CM (I don’t have the Chopin to fully compare but it looks very much a rip-off). Mine came with a 300W SFX CPU and the internal height is about 6.5cm.
The reason I’m not that exact about internals is because I decided to fit an embedded passive J9000 based motherboard and that runs off a brick, so I don’t need the PSU. I could however fit a FM1 ITX motherboard I have with a AMD A8 (last gen) and have the graphics off that. In which case I would need to get measuring properly but it would need low profiling cooling- I am tempted by passive and have ordered some passive cooling aluminium heat sinks off the slow boat. That said the A8 I have is still boxed and is a low power version that appears to be originally OEM only that got reboxed at the end of the run before they moved to DDR4- low power is still 35TDP though so not low power comparatively speaking compared to the Ryzen APU.
I found my case on Amazon;
https://www.amazon.co.uk/CiT-MTX-007B-Mini-ITX-Interior-Mountable/dp/B00I9XP5L4
No rear expansion slots. The front is Perspex over black metal. There’s a slot for a DVD drive (slimline) in the front. That and the SSD/HDD actually sit under the ITX base plate (which you secure the motherboard to). I’m not clear why because the supplied PSU doesn’t, it occupies one whole side of the case so I can’t see any heat saving benefit.
