Any experience here? I am thinking of building a mini ITX sized motherboard and case, but am worried about heat as it will be for gaming (more heat) and home theatre (not worried). Thinking i5 8400 chip (no need to overclock I don’t think), GTX 1060 6gb video card and 16 mb ram. One SSD drive for now. I should think that a small case can handle this and heat will be manageable with normal fans. Rather not start spending on elaborate water cooling.
Building computer - small form factor
- Thread starter Caspertheghost
- Start date
If you’re using a i5 8400 and a GTX 1060, there’s nothing to worry about regarding heat. My 14”, less then 1 inch thin laptop is more powerful than that...
Only thing to double check is the graphics card length. Make sure it isn’t too big for your case. But on a 1060, this also shouldn’t be a problem.
You may want to check prebuild ones, its not as cost effective as it use to be to build you're own.
The GPU mining craze has settled. Profitability has plummeted compared to a few months ago. GPU prices have more-less normalized. But still do check out some pre-built systems, they may be cheaper if on sale.
Here's a good mini-ITX GTX 1060, it's on sale too: https://www.amazon.ca/EVGA-GeForce-...&qid=1526682466&sr=1-3&keywords=gtx+1060&th=1
I highly recommend you only buy the 6GB card for gaming.
Hey Casper,
I haven't done a lot of smaller builds, only one full WC setup in Bitfenix Prodigy M (wish I could insert images). I do some heavy OCing on my main rig which is also WC but I plan my cooling pretty well even if on air. Maybe I can help you out with this project.
Looking at what you're planning the CPU I don't think will be a problem and the double height vid cards tend to vent (poorly) out the back. Probably minimal case air flow will be good enough. Typically CPU's care about temps for stability but since you are not OCing you have some breathing room here since you won't care about every last °C, and vid cards can get warm enough to lose finger prints on and still be happy. Do you have a chassis in mind yet?
I haven't done a lot of smaller builds, only one full WC setup in Bitfenix Prodigy M (wish I could insert images). I do some heavy OCing on my main rig which is also WC but I plan my cooling pretty well even if on air. Maybe I can help you out with this project.
Looking at what you're planning the CPU I don't think will be a problem and the double height vid cards tend to vent (poorly) out the back. Probably minimal case air flow will be good enough. Typically CPU's care about temps for stability but since you are not OCing you have some breathing room here since you won't care about every last °C, and vid cards can get warm enough to lose finger prints on and still be happy. Do you have a chassis in mind yet?
Gee I have that 1060 card bought in February for a new build I did but with an i7-8700K and a mid tower to replace an 8 year old system in a heavy huge case that could hold 8 drives. I don't even game so was a bit overkill and with 32 gigs memory and two m2 drives.
As others have said if your getting the single fan 1060 size should not be a problem. As I recall from all my researh the version with the double fan is longer.
Airflow usually not an issue unless you overclock - you can always add a fan gets too hot - or the case may have fans built in. I have 3 fans in the midsize case but totally silent. Am also amazed how little heat is coming out vs my old big case with dual video cards felt like a furnace. I am driving five 28" minitors but only I believe 3 from the 1060.
As others have said if your getting the single fan 1060 size should not be a problem. As I recall from all my researh the version with the double fan is longer.
Airflow usually not an issue unless you overclock - you can always add a fan gets too hot - or the case may have fans built in. I have 3 fans in the midsize case but totally silent. Am also amazed how little heat is coming out vs my old big case with dual video cards felt like a furnace. I am driving five 28" minitors but only I believe 3 from the 1060.
Thanks everyone. I bought the stuff in the afternoon and was up and running three hours later. Used NZXT h200i case. M2 NVME SSD. Good places to hide cables. Everything looks good. Some anxiety when first using it as the wifi and video are were not recognized and I did not have internet via LAN near the build location. Took it to the router and hooked it up. Ran Windows update and GEFORCE driver updates and presto....everything works like a charm. Nice to have a fresh build with no preinstalled garbage. Was fragging people in PUBG late into the night on ultra settings (mostly) and the computer as super quiet and no heat noticed. Will add a larger hard drive soon so as to move games, movies and documents off of the older computer.
I got its mid-tower brother - NZXT S340 Elite ATX Mid Tower. I spent more time researching the zillions of case options than any of the componets. Its very nice as is your smaler version. I have two m2 NVME SSD's and a 2TB hard drive and it has lots of vacant unused space so probably could have used your h200i
Surprised you went with an NVME SSD. If this computer is primarily for gaming it would have been much better to get a regular SATA SSD and use the rest of the money on a better GPU.
Excellent comment and point. However, I only “needed” a 1060 GPU since my large monitor is not being replaced anytime soon and it is 1080p and 60 Hz refresh rate. So the 1070 was about 220 more and not necessary. Besides, new GPUs coming in another 8-12 months and if I ever want to upgrade I can move the 1060 GPU to another computer that I have. As for M2 SSD I liked the fact this one can go right onto motherboard and results in one less set of wires.
And also don`t forget about good internet connection. I know that PC configuration is more imortant but you will not have a good feeling from gaming without good router and config of it. Anyway I can recommend you this site which will help you in this question https://www.router-reset.com
