Building the smallest, yet most powerful gaming PC possible

[osl]

I think it could be interesting to build the smallest, yet most powerfull gaming PC possible.

It would include a Commell LV-677 Intel Core 2 Duo (Merom) Mini-ITX express Motherboard (170 x 170 mm) with an Intel Core 2 Duo T7X00 (Merom - power consumption 34 W). This is the only Core 2 Duo Mini-ITX motherboard I could find that has a PCI-Express x16 slot, that could be used with a powerfull graphics card i.e. 7900GT (power consumption 40 W). Adding a picoPSU, a PCI-E x16 angle extender and a 2.5" HD the whole thing would only measure 270 x 200 x 40 mm or possibly 170 x 200 x 60 mm.

http://www.commell.com.tw/product/SBC/LV-677.HTM



Or maybe I should just buy a PS3 ...

[Aris]

Just a bit of warning for you. I tried this with the previous generation from commell, the LV-673NS which is basically the same board but for a pentium M processor. I put it in a Casetronic C138(black) (8x8x4 inches), with a low speed undervolted 80mm fan modified into the front of the case blowing cool air over the CPU/NB and GPU.

The motherboard will not work with certain pci-express video cards. It would work with my older 6600gt, but would not work with 2 different 7600gs' made by 2 different companies. It would work with my seagate 7200.7 3.5" Sata 120gb hard drive, but would not work with my new samsung 2.5" 5400rpm sata 40gb drive.

I contacted commell, they told me to update the firmware from 1.3 to 1.4. I did and it still didnt work right. I tried a different known good PSU which didnt solve any issue's.

Right now its sitting in the corner of the room not working, because the case i chose to put it in wont allow me to use a 3.5" hard drive AND an optical drive at the same time, and it wont work with my 2.5" hard drive. Also i cant find a 6600gt video card with a passive single slot cooling solution like on the 7600gs, and there isnt enough space to fit any aftermarket passive cooling solutions.

So yes, other people have thought about it, and i've tried it, and now i wish i hadnt. I waisted over 2,000 bucks on this project and its just a footstool in the corner after about 6 months of work on it. I wish i had just build a micro-atx socket 939, or AM2 or Core2duo system now instead.

Commell tech support has been less helpfull than i would expect for a motherboard that cost me almost $400. I may have to end up RMA'ing it back, but now i'm being deployed to korea for a year and wont be able to, so it looks like i may just be SOL, and out a big wad of cash too.

[peerke]

Apart from the compatibility issues, won't a 7900gt card be too long? I think it will extend over the edge of the motherboard, defeating the purpose of it's small size at least in one direction. This is assuming the firts set of dimensions you mention, 270 x 200 x 40, is a typo and should have read 170 x 200 x 40.
If you angle the card towards the cpu socket how will you cool the cpu? If you angle it away from the cpu socket the footprint would still be quite big.
A mATX board, measuring 245 x 245, won't be that much bigger and an awfull lot cheaper and much more easy to implement.
As an afterthought; making a PC that small but with a high-end GPU would make it very hard to cool quietly (this is SilentPCR... )

[peerke]

I think it could be interesting to build the smallest, yet most powerfull gaming PC possible.
Or maybe I should just buy a PS3 ...

BTW I think it would be a very interesting project and buying a PS3 would be a cop-out.
Let's put some more thought into it. Maybe people can post about the smallest gaming PC they know of.

[jaganath]

Maybe people can post about the smallest gaming PC they know of.

http://slipperyskip.com/page14.html

Pentium M mini-ITX, X800 Pro, looks stunning as well.

[osl]

Thanks Aris and Peerke, I think you are absolutely spot on with your observations.

Having tried this earlier (with XP-M and Turion), I would like to add that I think that the main problem is that you have to do custom work/adjustments to pretty much everything, you can only use certain parts and you have to fix the weirdest problems when you want to go this small. You are pretty much on your own (which is probably also the charm of it)

However this is very time consuming and by the time you finally have a working system (if you are lucky) the system is outdated (most likely by some new fast notebook PC that can outperform your system). With the speed of PC technology development this is a race you can not win. It is like chasing the impossible dream or trying to beat the system.

Well, then you start planning for your next version and the problems start all over again. And you are hooked like an addict. On the positive side at least you get to learn a hell of a lot about the latest PC technology, keeping up to date and building a standard PC becomes a walk in the park.

I still haven't given completely up on the Turion MT-40 project and at least socket 754 mATX motherboards are very cheap now if I burn one.

By the way here is a picture of my first small XP-M system:

[peerke]

http://slipperyskip.com/page14.html

Pentium M mini-ITX, X800 Pro, looks stunning as well.

The Silverstone LC-06 has a footprint of 320 x 260. That is almost the size of a full ATX motherboard. Although it looks good I don't see a reason for using a mini-ITX board in such a big case. It must be easy to improve upon that size using a mATX board.
With a height of 12 cm (that is the height of the LC-06) I think, but am not sure, it should be just possible to place the GPU card vertically wich would make it easily possible to build the complete assembly within the footprint of the board (240 x 240).Extending the height to 12,5 or 13 cm would even make it possible to use a 12 cm casefan.
The above setup won't be too difficult to build but I wouldn't call it very small. It must be possible to make it smaller.

[peerke]

Encountering al sorts of (self created or otherwise) problems is where the fun is in these projects. If it wasn't we would all simply use earplugs when working nearby our computers in stead of trying desperately to silence them!

By the way here is a picture of my first small XP-M system:

osl: What are the dimensions of your XP-M system? It looks to have the footprint about the size of an ATX board. Am I right? What is the height?

[osl]

Hi Peerke. Yes, it is about the size of ATX, 320 x 220 x 60 mm.
Here is an idea for another approach in the very early stage (300 x 250 x 45 mm).

Folding the long PCI-E*16 flex cable will be a neat Origami trick ...

[peerke]

Osl, that's an interesting idea but can you tell me what I'm looking at in the picture? I recognize the harddisk placed over the expansion slots but the rest is a bit of a mystery.
What motherboard is used? I see a fairly large copper heatsink but which one is it? In the bottom right of the case I see what looks like a graphics card but how is it attached to the motherboard as the expansion slots are in the top left of the case? What heatsink is on the, presumably, graphics card and how can it take it's air in?

[Mats]

What motherboard is used? I see a fairly large copper heatsink but which one is it?

Since the HS have 2 holes and it says "DDR400" and only 2 RAM slots it must be a Asrock K8NF4G.The HS is a passive 1U server model, Nexus and Akasa makes such heatsinks.

[jamesavery22]

Nexus and AFAIK Akasa just rebandage them. Dynatron/cooljag are the actual manufacturers.

That one is either the A7* with the fan taken off:
http://www.directron.com/a71.html

Or a weird angle in the pic and the fins are actually 1U
http://www.directron.com/a51.html

And just from my personal experience those suck as passive/low airflow coolers. They are designed to be put in a 1U box and oriented so the fins are parallel with the airflow in the case. Hence why they sell 90degree and 180degree versions of all their 1U coolers. They really aren't designed for low airflow at all.

[ronrem]

Tiny-Silent and Powerful somewhat work against each other. Cram stuff in a tight space-then pump up the power-and heat management gets difficult. However if one does not go TOO extreme,a pretty compact,high power machine can be quiet and not too high cost. What will you sacrafice for a few cubic inches?

[dragmor]

Smallest and fasted gaming PC is probably the "SN26P" from Shuttle

Its 939 AMD (which with dual core is still enough), OC able and its SLI. All that in a toaster.

[Mats]

osl: I don't understand why you want to use that Commell board with a Pico PSU. I mean, it already have a 8 - 21 V DC input in the version (LV-677DC) you have a picture of, that's why there's no 20/24 pin ATX connector (meaning that you CAN'T use the Pico PSU), and that's why theres a 4-pin power output at the top left corner for HDs and graphics card. The only problem is that I haven't found out how much power it can give...

Power Requirement:
- Standard 24-pin BTX power supply for LV-677. ( 20-pin ATX is compatible)

- 8 V ~ 21 V full range DC input for LV-677DC.

The MS-9642 is an alternative, lower price and S478 mounting holes but only one RAM slot.

[Mats]

Smallest and fasted gaming PC is probably the "SN26P" from Shuttle

Its 939 AMD (which with dual core is still enough), OC able and its SLI. All that in a toaster.

No, that one is old. I think SD37P2 (775, CF) is faster.

[Mats]

Apart from the compatibility issues, won't a 7900gt card be too long? I think it will extend over the edge of the motherboard, defeating the purpose of it's small size at least in one direction.

The 7900GT is only 200 mm, and a mini-ITX would still make it smaller than with a bigger mobo.

This is assuming the firts set of dimensions you mention, 270 x 200 x 40, is a typo and should have read 170 x 200 x 40.

He also wrote 170 x 200 x 60. It's not a typo...

If you angle it away from the cpu socket the footprint would still be quite big.

...yeah, that's what he meant with 270 x 200 x 40.

A mATX board, measuring 245 x 245, won't be that much bigger and an awfull lot cheaper and much more easy to implement.

I know exactly what you mean, but once you start thinking about making it smaller it's hard to stop, just like making things more quiet. I've had an idea about making a small case for like 3 years. Starting with ATX, then moving to µATX, and now tempted to go to mini-ITX but they seem very limited. So far there have only been thoughts, but it's the same idea every time. It should have the size of the mobos footprint x graphics card height, no riser (the mini-ITX system would of course be longer than the mobo).

[AznJason]

Looks a lot like the build I'm trying to put together.

I still have a few components left, but this is my current idea:

Hoojum Cubit 3 (147x210x210. http://www.hoojum.com/new/html/more_c3.htm)

Commell LV-677 (non-DC. I prefer to control the power limitations The AC/DC adapters top out at 150w and I'm concerned about max loads during gaming)

Ituner PW-200M (a snap-in PSU similar to the PicoPSU... a big brother if you will)

Dell DA-2 (This is the Optiplex SX280 power brick capable of 220w, 12v, 18A. I have to convert it's proprietary 8 pin power to the PW-200M's connecter).

Intel Merom T7200 (hopefully getting an Intel Employee to buy me one with their discount, still to be purchased)

Pioner DVR-K06 Slim Slot-Load DVD Burner (the eject button is slightly offset... I need to fix that somehow)

2 GB DDR2 PC2-6400 (just because that seems to be what's on sale all the time now. probably corsair XMS or OCZ gold/platinum type RAM. still needs to be purchased one RAM prices fall again)

Samsung SP2504C (typical quiet PC drive. i might throw in a 2.5" drive for additional storage though)

Albatron 7900GT (albatron because it's a shorter card that would fit in my case. other 7900GTs at 200mm are too long! or i might wait until a low power next gen card comes out that is faster and silent )

As far as the two mini-PCI slots:

MSI MP54GBT2 (combo 802.11 B/G and Bluetooth 1.2)
AOpen Part Number 90.MPC46.0310 (mini-PCI TV Tuner. requires removing the COM ports to fit.)

Did I miss any parts? Anyways, as a note the miniPCI slots are Type IIIB. The older manual claimed Type IIIA which is a few mm longer (hence I have to remove COM ports).

Let me know how your build goes. Mine's still a work in progress (I'm cheap, I have to wait for deals), so it might still be a few months before I finish. I should be in the running for smallest yet most powerful gaming PC though.

[peerke]

I'm cheap, I have to wait for deals

You might be cheap but your setup certainly isn't!!
I have been interested in the Cubit 3 case ever since I e-mailed them about some design changes to their Cubit 2 and they suggested I wait for the Cubit 3. They do a wonderful color red .
I never thought a 7900GT would fit that case. Great find about the Albatron.
Why did you choose the mobile Intel? There are mini-ITX boards with socket 775 AFAIK. That would make for a cheaper and faster setup.
I would choose a 2,5" HD for the OS and programs and use the Samsung for data/storage.

[AznJason]

Why did you choose the mobile Intel?

Power consumption and cooling purposes. It'll be easier to passively cool a mobile Core 2 Duo vs. a desktop Core 2 Duo. Its a difference of 65w TDP vs. 34w TDP. Since I'm getting an Intel employee to buy it for me, an E6600 and a T7200 will both be ~$150.

I have been interested in the Cubit 3 case ever since I e-mailed them about some design changes to their Cubit 2 and they suggested I wait for the Cubit 3. They do a wonderful color red.

To get the Cubit3, I bought it on eBay from angstrom23 (Jojo from Hoojum) and had someone studying abroad in England bring it back for me. I got it in white since they were limited on colors.

I never thought a 7900GT would fit that case. Great find about the Albatron.

As far as the Albatron goes, I'm not 100% sure about it fitting, but it was recommended since it's shorter than others. http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=5190

I would choose a 2,5" HD for the OS and programs and use the Samsung for data/storage.

I was thinking the same thing for the 2.5" drive. My issue right now is that my DVD burner takes up the PATA. The Samsung takes SATA, so that leaves a single SATA left, so the 2.5" drive has to be SATA. Ideally I'd like it to be of a 160 GB (120 is fine too) and 7200 RPM (this is where the trouble comes in). 7200 RPM + 160 GB + SATA doesn't seem to exist. The largest 7200 RPM SATA drive for notebooks is 80 GB. I should probably look up the performance difference of 7200 RPM vs 5400 RPM, but I think for OS and programs it should make a bit of difference. I prefer 160 GB since I'm coming from desktop that has 440 GB total storage. The two externals (200GB and 300 GB) will migrate to the new mini PC.

Grand total of the set up will likely exceed $1000 since a Commell LV-677 is over $300, RAM prices have gone up a good amount, and all the parts in general are pretty specialized.

Then again, when I say I'm cheap, I could spend much more to build the same PC immediately without waiting (I'm saving by waiting on the CPU, RAM, and possibly video card. Cubit too since I had someone lug it back vs pay >$100 USD to ship it to California).

[peerke]

I was thinking the same thing for the 2.5" drive. My issue right now is that my DVD burner takes up the PATA. The Samsung takes SATA, so that leaves a single SATA left, so the 2.5" drive has to be SATA. Ideally I'd like it to be of a 160 GB (120 is fine too) and 7200 RPM (this is where the trouble comes in). 7200 RPM + 160 GB + SATA doesn't seem to exist. The largest 7200 RPM SATA drive for notebooks is 80 GB. I should probably look up the performance difference of 7200 RPM vs 5400 RPM, but I think for OS and programs it should make a bit of difference. I prefer 160 GB since I'm coming from desktop that has 440 GB total storage. The two externals (200GB and 300 GB) will migrate to the new mini PC.

I missed an important detail about your initial post; it's your first! So here it goes:
Welcome to SPCR !

On to the harddisk issue:
I think you're trying to increase your storage capacity by choosing your 2,5" harddisk as big as possible. I think this is not necessary.
By substituting your SP2504 disk for a Samsung Spinpoint T Series HD400LJ or a Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000KS you will lose nothing in quietness and will gain a lot in performance and capacity.
For the 2,5" drive, the biggest 7200rpm drives I found for sale are 100 GB although I did find 160 GB drives on the manufacturers websites of Hitachi, Samsung and Seagate. Maybe the bigger drives haven't reached the retail market yet. I would choose a Hitachi TravelStar 7K100 series because, again, you would lose nothing in quietness compared to a 5400rpm drive and will gain noticably in performance. I would choose the smallest available for cost reasons. The bigger drive should have slightly higher performance but the difference will not be noticeable, only measurable with a benchmark program.

[Mats]

MSI MP54GBT2 (combo 802.11 B/G and Bluetooth 1.2)

MSI says that it only works with their products AFAIK, you'd better double check that.

[Mats]

I never thought a 7900GT would fit that case. Great find about the Albatron.

As far as the Albatron goes, I'm not 100% sure about it fitting, but it was recommended since it's shorter than others. http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=5190

I think you're about to make a BIG mistake. The pictures sows a regular 7900GT, they're all the same.

Albatron is now touting the 7900GT as the highest performing VGA solution for BareBone systems, Cube PCs and other small form factor systems. The 7900GT is at least 3 cm shorter than its big brother 7900GTX and half as thick.

They're comparing it to the bigger GTX version, which is 23 cm. I guess you have to buy a 7600GT (17.5 cm).

[AznJason]

I missed an important detail about your initial post; it's your first! So here it goes:
Welcome to SPCR !

Thanks. As far as the HDD choices, I already have the SP2504 (it was on sale ). The HD4000LJ and WD5000KS is still on the expensive side even when it's on sale (typically >$140 and >$150). For the 2.5" drive, I probably will ultimately go with a smaller drive (probably the 120GB area). They have the best price/gig. If I need more storage, I'll probably pack on more externals. 370 GB on a mini PC like that should be way more than enough.

They're comparing it to the bigger GTX version, which is 23 cm. I guess you have to buy a 7600GT (17.5 cm).

I tried looking for info on the actual dimensions and never found any. Someone had recommended the Albatron in a Hoojum thread somewhere and I was never able to validate it. I guess I should've just looked at the pictures . Just loading pictures of the boards from Newegg shows it's no shorter.

MSI says that it only works with their products AFAIK, you'd better double check that.

I don't always put a lot into those claims. Always seems like a way to lock you in to their line of products. Also, I can't see how if it's supposed to be following standards that it shouldn't work with a Commell board.

[naskha]

-----------

[Aris]

Just a bit of warning for you. I tried this with the previous generation from commell, the LV-673NS which is basically the same board but for a pentium M processor. I put it in a Casetronic C138(black) (8x8x4 inches), with a low speed undervolted 80mm fan modified into the front of the case blowing cool air over the CPU/NB and GPU.

The motherboard will not work with certain pci-express video cards. It would work with my older 6600gt, but would not work with 2 different 7600gs' made by 2 different companies. It would work with my seagate 7200.7 3.5" Sata 120gb hard drive, but would not work with my new samsung 2.5" 5400rpm sata 40gb drive.

I contacted commell, they told me to update the firmware from 1.3 to 1.4. I did and it still didnt work right. I tried a different known good PSU which didnt solve any issue's.

Right now its sitting in the corner of the room not working, because the case i chose to put it in wont allow me to use a 3.5" hard drive AND an optical drive at the same time, and it wont work with my 2.5" hard drive. Also i cant find a 6600gt video card with a passive single slot cooling solution like on the 7600gs, and there isnt enough space to fit any aftermarket passive cooling solutions.

So yes, other people have thought about it, and i've tried it, and now i wish i hadnt. I waisted over 2,000 bucks on this project and its just a footstool in the corner after about 6 months of work on it. I wish i had just build a micro-atx socket 939, or AM2 or Core2duo system now instead.

Commell tech support has been less helpfull than i would expect for a motherboard that cost me almost $400. I may have to end up RMA'ing it back, but now i'm being deployed to korea for a year and wont be able to, so it looks like i may just be SOL, and out a big wad of cash too.

I just wanted to give an update since ive finally resolved my hardware issue's with Commell. After many emails back n forth, i finally got them to try duplicate hardware as me on the same motherboard i was using made by them, and they could not duplicate the problem i was having. So its just a problem with my specific motherboard, not all of these motherboards.

that said, Commell DOES NOT warrenty their own products unless you buy them directly from them. well since it took me more than 30days to figure out it was the motherboard that was faulty, i no longer could return it to the website i bought it from, and commell wouldnt take it back either.

i ended up buying a pentium M, micro-atx MSI motherboard, and the Antec NSK3300 and transplanted all of the hardware from this system to it. It runs like a champ. The cpu will run completely fanless with a thermalright ultra 90 on it, but i went ahead and add'd an undervolted 92mm nexus fan to it to direct airflow over both the cpu heatsink and the video card because of the way its situated on the board. Also it would all run fine without any case fans, but went ahead and put an undervolted 120mm nexus on the back just for good measure. Both fans are hooked to the same fanmate2 and are completely inaudible, granted they push next to no airflow, but a little bit is alot better than just convection.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i will probably buy another commell board to put into my C138 case, just because they are the only manufactuere of mini-itx boards that support all the new CPU's and put pci-e1 16x slots on their boards, but i will have all my other hardware ordered and recieved first, so i can verify the board works immediately so if it doesnt i can send it back right away for a replacement.

I really wish company's like MSI and ASUS would make mini-itx boards like this.

[AznJason]

Anyone have an idea on how to flash the MB to Firmware 1.3 to run a Merom on it? I mean, aside from getting a Yonah to drop in first... It says it only supports Merom in v1.3, so I'm not sure if it'll boot at all with anything prior...

[jamesavery22]

Contact the manufacturer and see if they'll swap bios chips with you.

Asus did this for some customers when they sold mobo's, advertised them as supporting C2D's, and they didn't.

Maybe you'll talk to a nice rep. that will send you one out for free :\ slim chance in h e double hockey sticks but might as well try.

Else buy a T1200 on ebay for <$50, use it once, then sell it...

[Mats]

LV-677 thread.

[slipperyskip]

Maybe people can post about the smallest gaming PC they know of.

http://slipperyskip.com/page14.html

Pentium M mini-ITX, X800 Pro, looks stunning as well.

I appreciate that jaganeth.

Interesting thread. A few things:

I think my system is still the smallest gaming computer considering that I'm using a full size hard drive and optical drive.

The case is 9.5 liters if anyone wants to make a comparison. For the record, I built this a year and a half ago.

I have made several mods to it since. I pulled one of the two 400GB HD out to make room for an Arctic Cooling VGA cooler. The X800Pro overclocks very well. I also added a couple of analog VU meters to the front to give it more of that seventies stereo component look.

I use the system everyday and it still plays all the latest video games at the highest detail.