Planning future Mini ITX Build

[MIRTAZAPINE]

It is too long for me to type what my thoughts in the title. So it is like this currently I have Biostar Z97 with Pentium G3258, my pc spec is as listed in profile. During the start when I started building this PC it was my first pc build in years since the Lga775. I went with an Atx build and smallest atx case I could find which is about the size of a micro atx tower. I wanted something small that is keep around with limited space. I went with an atx as I thought there I can expand more with it without feeling restrictive.

I was waiting for the Broadwell i7-5775c by holding out with the the pentium but I don't see them for sale around me and also I don't have a bios update for my board. I am kind of regretting my decision now as I thought I would use that build for the long-term with future upgrades. I even have an overkill 1000w psu in it for the upgrade room there.

I would need a small pc soon in the future that I can carry around and travel with as small as possible but still having the horsepower. Though my current Atx pc is small it is not exactly portable. Right now I can't decide whether I should upgrade my pentium to a 4790k or go with a mini itx build rather than spending on a cpu. I am not in a rush, I could still make do with an old laptop if portability is my concern.

So my question is, is there mini itx boards that support 32GB of ram or preferably have 4 ram slot? The only one with 4 rams slots I could find is the xeon-D.

 

[micropage7]

if you looking for 4 slot ram, you wont get it, since the form factor is small and theres only limited space, all you can have is 2 ram slot

so what is your point with 32gb ram onboard? gaming? design or something
personally for mini its i prefer more sata ports than just ram, since you may have raid and you have another ports for optical or other

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

if you looking for 4 slot ram, you wont get it, since the form factor is small and theres only limited space, all you can have is 2 ram slot

so what is your point with 32gb ram onboard? gaming? design or something
personally for mini its i prefer more sata ports than just ram, since you may have raid and you have another ports for optical or other

Yes for design stuff like using photoshop. Frankly I just prefer the additional headroom as I always touch 16GB for the things I do.

Thinking hard about this. I would just stick to my existing pc for a long time to come and just find a luggage bag that can fit it safely to take it anywhere. It is more cost effective that way without compromising going to a mini-itx. I opened up my pc today to clean it up and I realised I invested alot in it already.

 

[micropage7]

Yes for design stuff like using photoshop. Frankly I just prefer the additional headroom as I always touch 16GB for the things I do.

Thinking hard about this. I would just stick to my existing pc for a long time to come and just find a luggage bag that can fit it safely to take it anywhere. It is more cost effective that way without compromising going to a mini-itx. I opened up my pc today to clean it up and I realised I invested alot in it already.

yeah, on mini itx there many things that need to be compromised, for some people its ok but some need more than that
or you just need smaller case so you can take it easily

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

You are right that was why I decided to go atx the first time. I really need the ram space and I hate it when there is a disk swap.

I have been eyeing on this case . Not sure if it is sold locally around my area. It is the smallest atx case that I know that fit full size components. It would save another good 10 litre from my existing case. The only bad thing about the case is cooling that case cpu cooler height is limited to 90mm high. I would have to go liquid cooling by drilling holes at the side of the case to mount a radiator. I have no experience about liquid cooling so far. Any good air coolers below 90mm height?

 

[newtekie1]

Your best option is probably going to be either mITX with 16GB and the swap file on an SSD or a mATX build.

 

[tabascosauz]

It is too long for me to type what my thoughts in the title. So it is like this currently I have Biostar Z97 with Pentium G3258, my pc spec is as listed in profile. During the start when I started building this PC it was my first pc build in years since the Lga775. I went with an Atx build and smallest atx case I could find which is about the size of a micro atx tower. I wanted something small that is keep around with limited space. I went with an atx as I thought there I can expand more with it without feeling restrictive.

I was waiting for the Broadwell i7-5775c by holding out with the the pentium but I don't see them for sale around me and also I don't have a bios update for my board. I am kind of regretting my decision now as I thought I would use that build for the long-term with future upgrades. I even have an overkill 1000w psu in it for the upgrade room there.

I would need a small pc soon in the future that I can carry around and travel with as small as possible but still having the horsepower. Though my current Atx pc is small it is not exactly portable. Right now I can't decide whether I should upgrade my pentium to a 4790k or go with a mini itx build rather than spending on a cpu. I am not in a rush, I could still make do with an old laptop if portability is my concern.

So my question is, is there mini itx boards that support 32GB of ram or preferably have 4 ram slot? The only one with 4 rams slots I could find is the xeon-D.

Travel around? As in carry around with your hands like you would a Prodigy, or hardcore like what I am doing?

I have 860GB of SSD storage and carry my hackintosh around in a Pelican 1510. And I don't know about you, but Photoshop works fine for me on my i7-4790K and 8GB of 1600, just working with the RAW editor and saving 4-6MB JPEGs and pretty big PSDs too.

 

[HWTactics]

If OP is utilizing 16GB let them have their 32GB This is TPU, where we can always find a solution! It just might not be easy...

A) Skylake processors (Socket 1151) support 16GB DDR4 RAM per slot. Skylake CPUs, LGA 1151 ITX motherboards, and 2x16GB DDR4 kits are all still very expensive though. We're talking ~$800 just for those three right now.

B) Buy a compact mATX case and any Micro ATX motherboard of your choice with four RAM slots.

Here are the three smallest mATX cases I could find. All three are $90-110,
Silverstone Sugo - 1396 cubic inches
Rosewill Legacy - 1225 cubic inches (OOS temporarily on Newegg, but available on Rakuten.com)

And if you won't be adding a video card or other full-height expansion cards,
Antec Minuet350 - 817 cubic inches (slim case bundled with 350W 80+ bronze TFX PSU)

The official dimensions of a carry-on bag are 9x14x22" for any commercial flights. All three of these cases would fit inside your carry-on bag with room to spare, so you could carry it yourself the whole way without your PC being man-handled or thrown around like a checked bag.

 

[tabascosauz]

If OP is utilizing 16GB let them have their 32GB This is TPU, where we can always find a solution! It just might not be easy...

A) Skylake processors (Socket 1151) support 16GB DDR4 RAM per slot. Skylake CPUs, LGA 1151 ITX motherboards, and 16GB DDR4 sticks are all still very expensive though. We're talking ~$800 just for those three right now.

B) Buy a compact mATX case and any Micro ATX motherboard of your choice with four RAM slots.

Here are three of the smallest mATX cases I could find. All three are $90-110,
Silverstone Sugo - 1396 cubic inches
Rosewill Legacy - 1225 cubic inches (OOS temporarily on Newegg, but available on Rakuten.com)

And if you won't be adding a video card or other full-height expansion cards,
Antec Minuet350 - 817 cubic inches (slim case bundled with 350W 80+ bronze TFX PSU)

The official dimensions of a carry-on bag are 9x14x22" for any commercial flights. All three of these cases would fit inside your carry-on bag with room to spare, so you could transport it yourself the whole way without your PC being man-handled or thrown around in a checked bag.

The 1510 is basically the FAA specified maximum and even is 0.5" wider than Air Canada allows. Carry-on basically means Ncase M1, SG05/SG06, SG07/SG08, and those half-height cases that look similar to the Antec ISK310. Even carry-on PCs require plenty of protection from bumps and scrapes; AFAIK, the Pelican 1510 and the limited-edition Ncase M1 carrying bag are the only eligible enclosures in this regard. Plus, @MIRTAZAPINE if you do go with a SG08 you get extra love from me and a little more peace of mind since someone I know from another forum does the SG08/1510 every few months, and as of the end of this week I'll be doing it as well (flying to England). Also, an extra incentive to go for something smaller like an SG05 is that while most airlines adhere to FAA guidelines, the weight limitations are different. For example, BA lets you bring 50+ lb while Lufthansa basically only allows you to bring a graphics card with their stupid weight limitations.

I'm not American, so this cubic inch business is a little mind-boggling, but a good rule to live by is that the case cannot be taller than the SG08 (SG08 only fits 1510 with top & bottom foam pads removed) and should be 15L or less. I was looking at the Raijintek Metis, for example, as a replacement for my SG08, but although it's smaller it cannot fit the 1510; it's either too wide or too tall, I think.

 

[tabascosauz]

@MIRTAZAPINE I forgot to mention, you may have to forgo CLC if the ultimate in portability is what you're looking for. Although the SG05 can easily accommodate a 120mm CLC (and the SG08 with some creative contortion), there's no guarantee that your local airport security officers will let you go for having fluids. It's not a big deal if you're upfront and honest about having a small PC that you can plug into the wall if need be and show that it turns on, but some officers may not take kindly to the amount of coolant in there.

Not to worry though, coolers like the U9S, and D9L (current bae) will fit the SG08 and Ncase M1 and top mainstream CPUs surprisingly well at stock (and maybe even a 5820K on X99E-ITX at stock). If you want to overclock, perhaps not, but I don't think a H60 will do that either. To ensure that there are no compromises in this department, however, you'd have go bigger and that means that your PC won't be going on flights anytime soon. Of course, that's not a problem if you aren't taking it very far away.

RM1 case is 22L in volume.

 

[HWTactics]

SG08 is ITX. It would be difficult to fit 32GB RAM in there without spending several hundred more than necessary. The mATX cases I linked are all 0.4 - 0.8" under the 9" limit for carry-on bags, so they should work for Air Canada flights too. To be on the safe side, go for the Rosewill or Antec cases.

I think mATX would allow for more flexibility and much lower cost as opposed to fitting 32GB in an ITX build. Unless you were really OK with settling on 16GB.

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

@tabascosauz

Haha I am not hard core like you. You lugged around a bitfenix prodigy around? I thought I was reading that haha. I mean bring around as in I could put it in a luggage. Thanks so much for the info! That is exactly what I needed!

Arghh! My dream of a tiny water cooled box is ruined! But it would not be a problem for check-in baggage right? I could put my Pc in check in baggage in is that a safe thing to do? What is the proper way to pack for that? Since baggage are not treated well.


Right now I am more towards sticking to my existing rig, I am not willing to spend that much. My current pc case is 30 liters. I'll just do a baggage check in instead. I have never pack a pc in a luggage before.

 

[HWTactics]

Packing a PC in your carry-on bag is easy. Just put some clothes around it and zip it up. When you get to the security check point, you put it on the conveyor belt just like all your other stuff and walk right through.

The benefit of putting the PC in your carry-on is that you're literally transporting the computer yourself the entire time you're at the airport. You walk it to the terminal, you put it in the plane's overhead storage, and you walk it back out of the terminal again at your destination. Much more gentle than it getting thrown around.

 

[tabascosauz]

@tabascosauz
Haha I am not hard core like you. You lugged around a bitfenix prodigy around? I thought I was reading that haha. I mean bring around as in I could put it in a luggage. Thanks so much for the info! That is exactly what I needed!
Arghh! My dream of a tiny water cooled box is ruined! But it would not be a problem for check-in baggage right? I could put my Pc in check in baggage in is that a safe thing to do? What is the proper way to pack for that? Since baggage are not treated well.
Right now I am more towards sticking to my existing rig, I am not willing to spend that much. My current pc case is 30 liters. I'll just do a baggage check in instead. I have never pack a pc in a luggage before.

Packing a PC in your carry-on bag is easy. Just put some clothes around it and zip it up. When you get to the security check point, you put it on the conveyor belt just like all your other stuff and walk right through.
The benefit of putting the PC in your carry-on is that you're literally transporting the computer yourself the entire time you're at the airport. You walk it to the terminal, you put it in the plane's overhead storage, and you walk it back out of the terminal again at your destination. Much more gentle than it getting thrown around.

See, I don't think I have really made my point very well. For that, I am quite sorry. Perhaps a picture will be a bit better (pictures speak a thousand words, don't they?). I don't lug a Prodigy around, and I don't intend to, because as the Prodigy M demonstrates, that's really not an ITX case.

If you check in any kind of regular PC, it's almost guaranteed to come out on the other side in shambles. Those baggage handlers basically play sports with your luggage. No Pelican case is going to save your PC there, and probably not even if you build out of your Pelican.

So here. This is what my SG08 goes in.


If this doesn't put the ol' cheap and generic suitcases to shame in terms of protection, I don't know what does. I sit on this without worrying about what might happen to my SG08. Not cheap; I'm sure that you could find some small suitcases, there was a limited production run of a padded carrying bag for the Ncase M1, and Silverstone even has the elusive Sugo carrying bag, but if this thing can protect DSLRs and expensive lenses in checked baggage, I'm confident that it can protect my rig as a carry-on.

It's not easy to find a case (computer case, not hard case) that accommodates a carry-on. That is, unless you're willing to stretch the boundaries of what carry-on limits allow, but I wouldn't recommend that you do so since you'll be spending hundreds of dollars on a PC only to get to the airport and find that the employees behind the counter were in a particularly bad mood and wouldn't let you bring your technically oversized PC on board.

That's why you shouldn't choose a case based on how its dimensions compare to that of the carry on standard. You need something considerably smaller, so that the suitcase or hardcase that it goes in, not the PC case, conforms to the carry on standard. If you base your PC case choice on 9x14x24, then the suitcase is going to be outlandishly large compared to what is allowed if you actually care about how your rig comes out on the other side.

My SG08 fits in the middle of that 1510, with a nice rectangular piece of pluck foam surrounding it and protecting it. Furthermore, as I've already mentioned, this may be TPU but 32GB may simply not be the best fit for such a usage scenario, unless MIRTAZAPINE is really really adamant on having the extra RAM for Photoshop, in which case he might have to look for Skylake boards (I dunno, maybe DDR4 achieves higher densities on a stick? dunno) or forgo the entire concept of carry-on. As said before, weight is also something to take into consideration; my 1510 may not attract a lot of suspicion with regards to violating carry-on sizes, but if they were to weigh it at the Air Canada counter, it would probably (most certainly) be over the weight limit of 10kg. The only airline that I can technically, safely fly with would be BA. So think about what a mATX system would weigh.

Perhaps you might not consider me a reliable source of information. In that case, allow me to direct you to http://goo.gl/QM89nj, on another forum which I frequent. His build is very similar, employing a SG08 and 1510, albeit with more horsepower on the GPU side, a weaker cooler, and the original SG08 (which included a 600W PSU, I chose a XFX TS550 for my SG08-Lite). This was the source of inspiration for my own build. IMO, he's also challenging the limits of safety with not removing his Titan X for travel (my R7 265 is nothing compared to it in size and weight), but if he flies a few times every year and nothing happens to his board and card, I wouldn't worry.

In addition: all that being said, I've read about SG05 builds on the interwebs, and a few of them are purposed as carry-ons. One of them in particular did not employ a 1510 (although another one did), and instead the user (who was a member of the military) elected to carry his SG05 in a military backpack. The SG05 is much smaller than the SG08 and lighter, since its front panel is plastic while the SG08's is a 10mm thick slab of aluminum; the choices for CPU cooling are definitely not as diverse as they would be for a SG08, and cooling a 4790K or 6700K could be dicey, but it is a nicer case to haul around.

EDIT: I keep on forgetting to say everything that I need to. The 1510's lid does put tiny dents in the top of the SG08, because of the small pegs inside. However, it doesn't damage the rig in any way since these dents are hardly even noticeable to the touch, it's just a bit uglier for my SG08. I reckon that you could do a custom loop, but it a) might require a lot of modding, and b) you're praying that the TSA doesn't ask you to turn your computer on to prove that it's a computer, since you'll have to drain the whole loop before you go.