• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.
  • The forums have been upgraded with support for dark mode. By default it will follow the setting on your system/browser. You may override it by scrolling to the end of the page and clicking the gears icon.

Need help finding the smallest case possible that will fit a Low Profile PCI-E card.

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder
Joined
Nov 22, 2005
Messages
28,473 (4.00/day)
Location
Indiana, USA
Processor Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory 32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s) RTX 2070 Super
Storage 500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s) Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s) Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
Software Windows 10 Pro x64
I'm usually pretty good at this stuff, but I just hit a wall here. I'm building a pfsense box and I'm putting an Intel Quad-Port NIC in it.

I already have everything except the case. The motherboard is mini-ITX and I have a DC to DC pico power supply, so I don't need a case that wastes room fitting a power supply. It seems like there just isn't anything out there that uses a pico power supply and has a spot for a PCI-E card. And I know that's a really niche market...

The best I could come up with so far is a Node 202, but that still uses a SFX power supply, which makes it bigger than I'd like. I like that style though, just a black box essentially. Any suggestions?
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I really like the GEEK A30, if only it didn't have the side window. I also like the Chieftec cases, but I can't find them anywhere in the US for a decent price.

It turns out this project is taking me down a very deep rabbit hole! Just searching for a case has now got me thinking I'm going to just build an entire new machine. I was planning on using an Athlon 5350 ITX that I already had. I just needed a different case, because the case it is in now doesn't have space for a PCI-E expansion card. But now I'm thinking, if I'm building this I should do it right and use modern hardware. I know it is just a router, but it needs to route 1Gbps(which I already tested and the 5350 is capable of). But I'll be using this for years to come, so building new now is appealing and I can just buy a motherboard(and an ITX board) that already has two Intel 1Gbps NICs so I don't need an expansion card, but re-using the 5350 is so much cheaper...argh...I can't decide!
 
just drop that no window requirement and pick smallest case with pcie you find.
with all that everything rgb trend lately you'll have very hard time to find non windowed case.
if you can geto sfx fixation into pcie card spot you can try cooltek's mini cube http://www.cooltek.de/en/discontinued-products/cases/14/coolcube-mini?c=125
it is smallest case i've found so far.
 
127846


I gave up and just built a whole new computer using a mITX motherboard that had two Intel NICs built in.

It's smaller than anything I could have gotten with the PCI-E network card.
 
Back
Top