Building a SFF gaming pc and limited to SFX psu...

Crimsonskar · Post by **Crimsonskar** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 7:56 pm

My main goal for this PC is portability and ease of transport, while still maintaining the power and performance of a well-endowed gaming system.

With that said, I've chosen the Silverstone Sugo SG05 as the case for this build. It's easily the smallest and most ideal case for the PC I'm building. I haven't bought it yet, but I will when it becomes more widely available.

This of course presents an interesting challenge, because I'll be forced to use an SFX form factor psu. The SG05 comes with a 300w psu (made by FSP) which from what I hear has a poor build quality. It will most likely get thrown out and replaced with the Seasonic SS-350SFE 350w, which is the highest wattage psu I can find in that form factor. It has 2 x 12v rails with 18A each, but no PCI-E connector, so I'll need to use an adapter. I know Seasonic is known for their good build quality and that was one reason I chose this as a replacement psu.

Now comes the question, could I run the following specs with a 350w power supply?

Q6600 (at stock, and possibly oc to 3ghz)

ZOTAC Geforce 9300-ITX WIFI

4gb (2 x 2gb) DDR2 800

Geforce GTS 250 (newly rebadged 9800GTX+ with smaller pcb, much lesser power requirements, and only 1 pci-e power plug...should have power requirements similar to the 4850)

300gb 2.5" laptop hdd

Slim style DVD burner

So, any ideas if this could possibly work at all? Would using just 2 laptop drives really help me stay under my power budget?

Thanks

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:30 pm

Coming in 2 weeks for $100

http://www.sundialmicro.com/silverstone ... _1545.html

Case-Mod already has it out for same price it seems.

http://www.case-mod.com/silverstone-sg0 ... -3996.html

Here's some pics of a guy that somehow got 4 drives in there.

http://forums.vr-zone.com/hardware-aren ... ine-6.html

Anyways...back to your question. 350watts should be enough for what you want to do.

Let us know how it goes!

Crimsonskar · Post by **Crimsonskar** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:50 pm

Ah, thanks for the quick response.

I noticed that Case-Mod had it, but I've also read some bad things about that store. Oh well...

Sundialmicro however, wow... Two weeks? Bookmarked. Thanks for the heads up man.

So you think 350w should be enough for those specs? That's definitely reassuring to hear.

I'm still in the process of ironing out another issue with this build, CPU cooling. With the Sg05, I'll have about 78mm of height to work with (maybe a few more if I want a really tight fit) so I'll definitely need to use a low profile cooler. I've eyed a few up, but I still haven't come to a concrete decision yet. Most of the coolers I've seen are of the general "blow air down through heatpipe supported fins" type. I'm not sure if this would be ideal for such a small case though.

The SG05 has a vent on the side nearest the cpu socket and I was trying to find a low profile tower cooler that I could orient to blow air through the heatsink and directly out that side vent. The only problem with that is finding a cooler that will fit snugly without hitting any of the nearby components...

This is becoming one of the funner builds I've done. I like a challenge

I'll be getting the motherboard in tomorrow. I'll take some measurements and go from there I guess...

Thanks for the help!

Post by **CA_Steve** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:50 pm

I'd expect power use in the 200-230W range while gaming.

Comments:
- Look to see if your games make use of the quad core...not many do. You might opt for the e8xxx dual core instead. Faster, lower power, cheaper than the 6600.
- why get an IGP board if you have the gts250?
- will the gts250 fit in your case?
- Hard drives consume 10W at most.

Luminair · Post by **Luminair** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:48 pm

you are making a computer a lot of people are making because it just makes good sense. the combination of right parts has been a long time coming.

that said, you should be informed that the sg05 can't fit a longer psu like that seasonic (not without modification anyway), and that this doesn't matter because the fsp psu will run the gts 250 and 9300m and intel cpu and hard drive and ssd and fan and dvd just fine.

make sure you get a gts 250 with the new small board and single 6-pin pci-e power connector. because it has the one power connector, you know it is physically incapable of drawing more than 150W from the 12V line, and the fsp psu provides more than that.

I don't think the q6600 is a smart choice in that system. It uses more idle and load power than faster alternatives. Unless you need the four slower cores, you should get two faster cores. E5300 or E5400 are cheap and can overclock (often with no tweaks) the bus from 200mhz to 266mhz for 3.5ghz clock speed, plus you can use cheap big dimms this way http://cgi.ebay.ca/NEW-8GB-2X4GB-PC2-42 ... 240%3A1308

You should also be told that the sg05 is cluttered to death with cables even with how little stuff there is in there, and since this stuff is all new, nobody is really sure just how well it will thermally perform, and under what circumstances.

As far as the cpu cooler goes, I bet a big stock intel one with the fan speed set low would be just prime. anything else would be troublesome cake, because there are a lot of circumstances that would make a lot of medium-small heatsinks not fit in that system...

If you want to know more, the vr-zone forum is the center of cutting edge mini-itx sg05 news. there are pictures and just yesterday a reseller built and reviewed the sg05, explaining roughly what I just did.

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 12:38 am

geez....SG-06 already!

http://en.expreview.com/2009/03/05/cebi ... -sg06.html

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 4:16 am

I agree that the Q6600 is pretty power hungry compared to the 45nm chips, and a dual core might suit your needs better.
I would also wait until you get the case and system before buying a replacement PSU. See how quiet the stock one is and how much room you have spare then decide if its worth upgrading.

Crimsonskar · Post by **Crimsonskar** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 4:37 am

Thanks for the replies guys.

The reason for using a Q6600 is quite simple. The one I have in my main PC is getting replaced with a Q9650 tomorrow. This Q6600 is a relatively low vid chip, and ran at 3.6ghz stable in my main PC for the longest and can run at 3ghz with stock volts easily. So you can see I don't exactly want to get rid of this gem.

Nor do I want it laying around doing nothing at all.

So I guess I'll have a fun challenge cramming this cpu into a shoebox.

@aztec SG06 looks interesting, but I don't like the fact that there's no ventilation with that front bezel on...

@Luminair I checked out that topic on Vr-Zone. Yeah, it is cramped with cables!

I was planning on shortening the cables and sleeving them anyways, so hopefully that will help with the cable clutter. Also I plan on getting rid of what plugs I won't be needing, such as the floppy drive connectors. From what I can see in the pics, shortening the cables will definitely be a must for this system.

Also, since I don't plan on using a 3.5" hdd, I can get rid of the 3.5" mounting bracket to give me even more room.

So the Seasonic won't fit the SG05? From what I can see from the pics, the rail that supports the forward mounting bracket for the psu might be able to be detached and moved forward a bit to accommodate a longer psu.

In fact, when I started this build I was expecting to have to do a few mods to get everything crammed into this case. This is my first SFF pc, and I'm loving the challenge this is presenting!

The GTS 250 I'm getting will indeed going to be the shorter board with a single 6-pin pci-e power connector.

The next thing I plan on getting will be the case, whenever it becomes available at Sundialmicro, and also the rest of the parts I need to get it up and running. I'll see if the stock 300w power supply will be enough. Any recommendations on a tool that will let me measure power draw from the outlet?

Again, thanks for the help guys.