What do you want in an ITX GPU case?

[Boil]

I would LOVE to see an ITX chassis designed around the following:

ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Impact mini ITX motherboard
Intel Core i7 6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core CPU
32GB DDR4 RAM (2@16GB DIMMs)
Intel 750-Series 1.2TB NVMe 2.5" SSD (connected to the U.2 on the M8I)
ASUS R9 Nano GPU

Silverstone 700w SFX-L PSU (as yet unreleased, but 700 watts in a SFX-L form factor AND a Platinum rating?!? Yes, please!)

Now, ideally, this would be configured as small as possible, and I feel water-cooling would be the way to go here to maximize cooling while minimizing space. I think that air-cooling needs too much space to work properly, and do not mind something a little larger if it allows the system to run at proper temps while under full load.

I choose the M8I because EKWB has an excellent Monoblock available for it (okay, they have not released their block for the new M8I yet, but they have said it is in the works. I can only assume it will be very similar to the previous MxI-series mono blocks that have come before it.) This mono block covers not only the CPU, but the VRM & system chip as well.

EKWB also makes an excellent water block for the R9 Nano, one that actually makes it into a single slot card! If the M8I could only do PCI bifurcation, one could do a wicked CrossFire set-up in a totally water-cooled mini ITX chassis!

I am looking REALLY hard at the Osmi ITX chassis (from HG Computers) right now, obviously for an air-cooled build with less demanding components (Gigabyte H170 MB, non-K series i5 CPU w/65w power usage, 16GB of RAM & 256GB Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD); but I would LOVE to see a slightly larger version of the same designed towards water-cooling. I feel this basic design, with a 180mm radiator up top, should work well. Hardest thing is figuring out how to shoehorn a pump/reservoir combo into it. I like the EKWB combo that has a single 5 1/2" drive bay high unit with the single DDC pump integrated. This could be mounted at the very bottom of the case, place the 'front' to the back the chassis so it is not immediately recognized as a water-cooled chassis. There should be room enough for a pair of 80mm to 95mm fans in the bottom of the chassis, pushing air upwards thru the chassis and towards the 180mm radiator up top with its own 180mm fan pulling air out of the chassis/thru the radiator and exhausting at the very top of the chassis.

Again, I see this as a slightly larger version of the Osmi chassis, but without the wasted space that the 'extra' components would take up better utilized towards making room for the water-cooling. The Osmi has space inside for an ODD, a single 2.5" SSD, and a single 3.5" HDD; I would cut out the ODD & SDD area, and place the U.2 2.5" SSD where the 3.5" HDD was intended to go.

But this is what I would like in an ITX / ITX GPU-specific chassis…!

 

[jeshikat]

Doing some rough math, you'd be looking at something 11-13L depending on the specifics (like single-slot only and/or space for that 5.25 reservoir).

An interesting layout though why not an M1 with a 240mm rad?

 

[Boil]

Doing some rough math, you'd be looking at something 11-13L depending on the specifics (like single-slot only and/or space for that 5.25 reservoir).

An interesting layout though why not an M1 with a 240mm rad?

I like the idea of a Cube design, even if it is not a true cube, but more of a cubish micro-tower.

A single 1.180mm rad provides more surface area than a 2.120mm rad.

I feel that the current Osmi chassis could be modded to do this, an extension frame for the top to remount the exhaust fan & mount the rad would be needed; as well as a new outer 'skin'. But otherwise, it would look like the existing Osmi chassis, just about 60mm taller.

It would not have an actual reservoir, just a single DDC pump squeezed into the chassis. This would be kind of like an AIO, where there is no res except for the radiator itself. The real issue is finding space for the pump, as the EK DDC model I am thinking of (the one with the barbs integrated into the top) is 37mm tall, and I do not know if there is enough space under a single slot (after water block is installed) R9 Nano for the pump to fit. For minimal air bubbles in the system, I feel the pump (or pump/res combo if you have room for it) should be at the lowest point in the system. I could be wrong…

As for a single rad system in a taller Osmi chassis, that would mean one could use a 140mm radiator. Now, the Hardware Labs Nemesis 140GTX is supposedly rated to be good for removal of up to 550w worth of 'heat', but how much of that is marketing hyperbole, I do not know. I question if the same rough heat-handling capacity could be dealt with by similar 140mm radiators, namely the EK 1.140mm rad. Yes, if possible, I would like to keep all water-cooling parts to a single vendor.

For myself, this would be a system that is NOT overclocked or anything (this would actually be a Hackintosh, as I prefer OS X), so no worries about needing more headroom to handle overclocking. With that in mind, the 65w versions of the new Skylake CPUs could be used, thereby reducing the cooling load.

Just my thoughts on it all…!

 

[jeshikat]

I checked a couple 180mm radiators and the dimensions are about 180mm x 220mm.

So for modding Osmi you'd be limited to 140mm. I'm skeptical of a 550W rating too but the 295X2 uses a 120mm and does just fine so a Nano plus Skylake CPU on a 140mm should work. CPU temps probably won't be fantastic but should be adequate.

 

[Boil]

I checked a couple 180mm radiators and the dimensions are about 180mm x 220mm.

So for modding Osmi you'd be limited to 140mm. I'm skeptical of a 550W rating too but the 295X2 uses a 120mm and does just fine so a Nano plus Skylake CPU on a 140mm should work. CPU temps probably won't be fantastic but should be adequate.

I am aware of the limitations of the current Osmi chassis towards water-cooling, specifically radiator size. I was looking towards a 180mm radiator for usage in a theoretical scaled up Osmi-style chassis.

Even with using a 140mm radiator in the current chassis, one would need to check the specs closely, as the EK 140mm radiator is 180mm on the longest side (the extra being the tank end with the G 1/4 fitting holes), so it would not fit within the chassis.

For now, I plan on going with an Osmi chassis built for air-cooling. Love the overall design, but HATE the fact that the space for the ODD & 2.5" SSD will basically be useless to me, as I only plan on using a single M.2 SSD as my system drive. Just trying to keep the cables to an absolute minimum.

With the mini ITX form factor, it really is just a game of Tetris to fit all the parts into the smallest package as possible. The real trick is in providing enough air movement thru the chassis to keep everything properly cooled, whether via air or water methods…

 

[XeaLouS]

I looked around on the internet and someone has already designed a case for 170mm gpu's:
http://caspar.panwagen.ee/?cat=10

I think its around 6L internal volume. The inclusions are:
SFX psu (SFX-L looks like it will fit as well)
66~ high cpu cooler
140mm fan that feeds into the 170mm gpu and the cpu cooler. If you have a 180mm gpu, you can just use a 15mm thick fan instead of 25mm thick fan.
Not sure about ssds - i'm sure if you had high enough mobo standoffs you could put 2.5" ssds and m.2. under the motherboard. Alternatively, have a recessed motherboard tray.
6.15L volume internal

I'm guessing with a design like this you could have a case that is
200 deep (170mm gpu + 30mm for fan)
150 high (115mm gpu height + 20mm pcie + 15mm standoffs)
205 wide (170mm mobo + 30mm gpu width + 2.5mm * 2 minimum itx mobo clearance

If we add a few mm to account for margins of error:
210 deep
160 high
215 wide
= 7.2L

to maximize part compatibility the case could be widened by 15mm (mainly for noctua nh-l12 to be compatible with asrock boards), or deepened 15mm (same reason).

Do you have any pics of your draft layout? i'm quiet interested in 170mm itx builds

 

[jeshikat]

It's a similar layout to the Osmi:

http://hg-computers.eu/product/osmi-case-only/

Did that guy have plans to sell his design? It looks like he got more than one made but it's hard to tell because Google Translate doesn't do a very good job of Estonian to English.

I'm personally not that fond of this layout with the power supply above the motherboard because it limits the CPU heatsink size.

 

[XeaLouS]

It's a similar layout to the Osmi:
http://hg-computers.eu/product/osmi-case-only/

The osmi is so pretty. I'm guessing you're placing the PSU where the osmi's 140mm fan is? i guess the cpu cooler would now be a 130mm tower cooler that sucks in the front and blows out the back of the motherboard. That'd be a very cool cpu.

Did that guy have plans to sell his design? It looks like he got more than one made but it's hard to tell because Google Translate doesn't do a very good job of Estonian to English.

No idea, i just found it using google.

I'm personally not that fond of this layout with the power supply above the motherboard because it limits the CPU heatsink size.

It's true that it limits cpu heatsink size, but it saves litres. I feel like an nh-l12 with fresh 140mm air pumping straight into it should be rather quiet and cool.

 

[Ricky]

So, I'm curious. Will the case be completely air cooled, or will there be allowance for liquid cooling? I don't expect full liquid cooling, especially for an ITX, but even cases such as the one used in the Falcon NW Tiki allowed it, and it's quite small.
https://******/pWpn78

 

[jeshikat]

The layout I had in mind originally was like traditional tower cases, with the PSU at the top. Except the PSU would be SFX/SFX-L only and the case would be short, so it'd only fit ITX GPUs.

AMD is talking up SFF with Polaris, but I'm not sure if they intend to deliver more cards like the Nano or if they're aiming more at stuff like the Fury X so I've decided to hold off on finalizing this design until we see what the Polaris and Pascal cards are going to look like.

So with the original design, there'd be plenty of room to mount a 120mm radiator to the side panel. I suspect the new cards will be really short like the Nano since HBM + new process node should let both AMD and NVIDIA reduce the amount of space they need on the PCB. If so, then the design won't need any major design changes.

Also, please don't use URL shorteners. The internet is dangerous enough without obfuscating the destination of a link.

 

[Ricky]

The layout I had in mind originally was like traditional tower cases, with the PSU at the top. Except the PSU would be SFX/SFX-L only and the case would be short, so it'd only fit ITX GPUs.

AMD is talking up SFF with Polaris, but I'm not sure if they intend to deliver more cards like the Nano or if they're aiming more at stuff like the Fury X so I've decided to hold off on finalizing this design until we see what the Polaris and Pascal cards are going to look like.

So with the original design, there'd be plenty of room to mount a 120mm radiator to the side panel. I suspect the new cards will be really short like the Nano since HBM + new process node should let both AMD and NVIDIA reduce the amount of space they need on the PCB. If so, then the design won't need any major design changes.

Also, please don't use URL shorteners. The internet is dangerous enough without obfuscating the destination of a link.

Ok. Seems interesting. I've been planning a build for some time, it won't kill me to wait to see what you've got planned. Sorry about the URL shortening, the original URL was obnoxiously long and it bothered me.

 

[jeshikat]

Yeah, Google search results generate these super obnoxiously long URLs due to their analytics tracking.

 

[CC Ricers]

My ideal case would be what XeaLouS proposed, and vertically laid out like the Osmi. Also, the Osmi has a ODD tray slot but I don't like how the ODD is mounted on the right side of the case, behind the motherboard. This picture is a tad misleading because if it were not for the small power button shown, you'd think the slot is at the front.

So, Osmi-like case, made a little narrower but at the same time a little taller. This allows the possibility to install a 120mm or 140mm AIO liquid cooler for the CPU, supporting ~50mm thickness including the radiator and one fan.

Diagram is to scale, 2px = 1mm

With a 130mm case thickness, the capacity is just under 6.2 L. Yes, it will be a tight fit for CPU air coolers but only because it is optimized for a AIO liquid cooler instead, which is just my personal preference. While it's been shown that they don't offer any performance advantage over large air coolers, what I like about AIOs is that they are less hassle to set up around the CPU mounting area compared to big air coolers, and leave a smaller footprint around the motherboard. That makes the intake and exhaust easier to direct to the top, farther away from the PSU and GPU.

You could mount up to two 2.5" hard drives side by side in the bottom front. An optional slim ODD tray for the top. I think front IO would be a challenge here and I may have to make the case a bit longer just to accommodate it, so then the size would be closer to 6.5 L.

 

[Minefoxi]

I also like the idea of an AIO cooler taking care of the quite common "small CPU cooler right behind PSU" problem of many vertically layed out SFF cases. I think the additional height is worth it because you also get better cooling performance.

 

[iFreilicht]

It does certainly make a lot of sense, as opposed to a lot of watercooling solutions, this would actually solve an existing problem.
The issue I'm seeing here, though, is whether this would actually allow the case to be much smaller. For a design like the Osmi, the GPU is what drives the width of the case, so it can't really be made any smaller in that direction.
You would be able to fit an ATX PSU instead of an SFX one, which might improve the usability for people that want to downsize but reuse their old PSU or that are sensitive to noise, though.

Sidenote on the Osmi: It was actually sold in a small batches after it caught the attention of some users on [H], but only about 50 or so were made. That was last year, so maybe there's a chance to convince him to produce more.

 

[CC Ricers]

Well, two things drive the width of the Osmi- the GPU as you mentioned, but the square shape base is probably intentional too, so it had to match at least the size of the motherboard. I'm not planning on buying an Osmi though, unless there is a redesign in the works to allow more cooling options.

Fitting an ATX PSU might be possible when using a closed loop liquid cooler. The cables will just be pretty snug in there