SPCR

My son wanted a gaming computer but is in school on the other side of the US. So I was looking for a way to build a capable little machine that would be small enough to pass the stringent carry-on requirements for air travel. I also wanted it to be silent.

I stumbled across the Cooler Master Elite 360 case because Fry's was blowing them out for only $25. This is a very clever design that manages to pack a mini-ATX motherboard into a very small case. The obvious trade-off is assembly complexity, but here is a comparison with the Antec Solo:



Here are the left and right sides:



The Thermalright AXP-140 and 140mm SilentX fan handle most of the cooling, with help from a simple foam duct made from the AXP-140 packaging and toothpicks.




Overall this works *extremely* well. The only problem I initially had was that I let the motherboard throttle the CPU fan, which then did not pump enough air to the rest of the case. But at a steady 900 RPM, the CPU & GPU temps stay well below stock, even with OCCT &/or FurMark test runs.

The main HDD is a WD640 Blue, but I also included two small laptop drives for built-in backup targets, in combination with SyncBack SE. This seems prudent for a case that is going to get moved a fair bit.

Getting the cooler on the HD5770 was actually the hardest part. See this thread:
viewtopic.php?p=489435#489435

Looks good .. and im a tad envious of that rig, so small, yet more powerful than my P182 rig..

Nice rig dude! Congrats.

Have you made any temp. measures?
I'm planning to buy that same case for my new htpc, but my PSU has back fan. I wonder how hot does it gets inside.

Thank you!

CPU temps are ridiculously low. The AXP-140 is an excellent cooler (except for the PITA installation). OCCT maximum is never more than 53C:



To reliably keep the GPU temps under 80C after long hours of heavy gaming we needed to ramp the small Arctic Cooling fans to 12V. This was definitely not silent...
So I changed the GPU fan configuration to replace the Arctic Cooling fans/shroud with an 800 RPM S-Flex, zip-tied to the heat-pipes at the bottom of the cooler:



Now the S-Flex GPU temps never exceed 72C, even with FurMark in Xtreme Burning Mode.
The 800 RPM fan is obviously very quiet, and if I had used a standard S1 and bent the extra fins over the S-Flex, the temps would be even lower.
Modding the cooler would also have been much easier without trying to retain the Arctic Cooling shroud.

This is an awesome case. Very little is posted about it on SPCR.

So far I've built two machines with this case.

I moved a home machine from an Antec Solo to this. The motherboard is an ATX GA-P35-DS3R. It is so nice to fit a full ATX sized board in such a small case!

I was able to fit an ATI 3850 video card as long as I plugged the PCI Express power cable into the card first. PSU power cabling was in the way at first - the PCI-E slot was lined up with the PSU cables, but I was able to route the cables better. It fit perfectly - video cards any longer will not fit.

Storage is handled with an SSD - a Kingston 64GB (a jMicron drive but with much improved firmware). It boots Windows 7 really fast and never stutters.

I am tempted to move my gear from my huge P182 case to one of these. I'd only have to reduce the number of optical drives and change to a different CPU cooler...

Yes, the space between the video card and power supply is quite small!

While Fry's was blowing them out I bought an extra one of the CM Elite 360 cases to eventually make a smaller HTPC. The NSK2480 is easy to work with, but it takes so much room in our TV cabinet that I have a hard time managing the various cables.

OTOH, if space wasn't a premium, I don't think I would use the CM Elite 360. The cooling runs every direction, there is no easy way to soft-mount a HDD (though obviously an SSD makes this moot), and making changes is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle. I *definitely* would not use it without a modular power supply. Next time I will use one of the new Seasonic designs.

What I like is it is different, and a lot of creative thought went into getting it right. Its nice that it enables a ducted PSU simply by choosing one with a 120 mm fan.

If anyone is considering the airline transport angle, this build survived the cross-country connecting flights with no hassles from the TSA. Security just ran it through the X-Ray like any other piece of luggage, and it fit easily in JetBlue's overhead bins.

There is appropriate luggage for you CPU. You can find them by searching in the net or your online store. If you find a good luggage for your CPU, you must compare the size before going to purchase it.

Assuming you mean appropriate luggage for sending a complete PC in checked-in luggage, I am afraid I refuse to believe there is any luggage available that will reliably let a PC survive being thrown 10-15 feet to land smack on tarmac.

dam, i like this case, full atx case + a proper psu in a case this size is amazing!!

now i need to find and excuse to build a pc using this case, maybe i can talk my sister in to getting a new pc that i can build for her

Nice job