Hello all! I though you guys might appreciate my recent mini build. The project was originally posted in a non-english forum and this will be pretty much translation of the original.
I wanted to build a gaming capable HTPC for living room and I wanted to build to be as small as possible. Mini-ITX would have been too mainstream and simple, so I chose Mini-STX form factor. As there really isn't Mini-STX motherboards available separately, I chose Deskmini A300 as a organ donor. Case for the build was going to be old Nexus RX-8500 PSU case with 86x150x164,6 mm dimensions. This provides just enough added room to include dedicated GPU in the build.
A300M-STX motherboard doesn't actually have interface for the dedicated GPU, but this interface will be provided by a m.2 -> PCI-E adapter. The adapter provides PCI-E 3.0 X4 for the GPU. Usually motherboards have X16 interface, but this shouldn't be too much of a bottleneck as GTX 1080 level GPU will only loose few percent when used in a X4 link.
Deskmini's power adapter can only supply 19 V 120 W for the whole system and its missing 12V rail, so it won't be suitable for a system with dedicated GPU. Easiest way to power the system will be one powerful 12 V as A300M-STX is able to run from 12V.
Based on size, performance and efficiency I chose Palit GeForce GTX 1660 Super StormX as the GPU for the system. The graphics card is barely longer than the PCI-E X16 connector and it's mostly longer because of the cooler's lengt not actual PCB of the card.
I chose Ryzen 5 3400G as the build's CPU as it is the fastest available. Based on reviews Deskmini consumes around 100 W with this CPU and GTX 1660 Super will add another 130 W to it, so overall power consumption will be around 230 W. Egpu build often use Dell's old DA-2 power adaptors, but these are only 220 W, so it won't be enough for this. Another option I found was to use Mean Well's 252 W GST280A12, but also this might not be sufficient for the build. Finally I ended up with Phihong's 288 W power adaptor PPL300U-120 I found from Digi-Key. This power adaptor costed around 120 € with added customs duty.
I started off the build by doing STX form factor attachments for the mainboard and cutted rear of the PSU case open for io connector.
I wanted to build a gaming capable HTPC for living room and I wanted to build to be as small as possible. Mini-ITX would have been too mainstream and simple, so I chose Mini-STX form factor. As there really isn't Mini-STX motherboards available separately, I chose Deskmini A300 as a organ donor. Case for the build was going to be old Nexus RX-8500 PSU case with 86x150x164,6 mm dimensions. This provides just enough added room to include dedicated GPU in the build.
A300M-STX motherboard doesn't actually have interface for the dedicated GPU, but this interface will be provided by a m.2 -> PCI-E adapter. The adapter provides PCI-E 3.0 X4 for the GPU. Usually motherboards have X16 interface, but this shouldn't be too much of a bottleneck as GTX 1080 level GPU will only loose few percent when used in a X4 link.
Deskmini's power adapter can only supply 19 V 120 W for the whole system and its missing 12V rail, so it won't be suitable for a system with dedicated GPU. Easiest way to power the system will be one powerful 12 V as A300M-STX is able to run from 12V.
Based on size, performance and efficiency I chose Palit GeForce GTX 1660 Super StormX as the GPU for the system. The graphics card is barely longer than the PCI-E X16 connector and it's mostly longer because of the cooler's lengt not actual PCB of the card.
I chose Ryzen 5 3400G as the build's CPU as it is the fastest available. Based on reviews Deskmini consumes around 100 W with this CPU and GTX 1660 Super will add another 130 W to it, so overall power consumption will be around 230 W. Egpu build often use Dell's old DA-2 power adaptors, but these are only 220 W, so it won't be enough for this. Another option I found was to use Mean Well's 252 W GST280A12, but also this might not be sufficient for the build. Finally I ended up with Phihong's 288 W power adaptor PPL300U-120 I found from Digi-Key. This power adaptor costed around 120 € with added customs duty.
I started off the build by doing STX form factor attachments for the mainboard and cutted rear of the PSU case open for io connector.