6 Mini-ITX boards + 1 ATX in a single case

[Herc130]

Double post, forum acting very strange lol

[Herc130]

The Intel G45 was the first one I considered using. The IGP on it would work fine and I like intel cpu's better. I was going to match it up with this 35w cpu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116038 . However, a 780G like the first one I linked at the top of this page is even better and about the same price. The AMD cpu I would use for that is 10w's higher then the intel, but also much faster. I am leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow for a 3 week trip and will be checking out the computer shops there. The board I think will be ideal is the 780G and it is made by J&W, which is located right in Hong Kong. If I can get them for @$100 US a board, I will go that route because once I buy, I am stuck with it weather it works or not. Otherwise I wait till I get back to the US and buy it online off a US e-seller for $150 a pop where I can RMA if it does not work. I am hoping either Intel or AMD comes out with their low watt CPU in that time frame. Intel already has the dual core Atom's out, but it is only available soldered onto a motherboard. Unfortunately, the motherboard comes with the 945 chipset that uses GMA 950 IGP, which would work for me, but just barely.

An Nvidea GTX 280 does about 230 watts according to Nvidea. 230watts is over two of these builds total wattage. 6 of these builds will put out less heat then a single build of many peoples desktop. The hardest and hottest thing on it will be the NB and I may put an after market heatsink/fan on it or mill my own blocks from the verticle mill at my work. Have some aluminum and copper bar stock laying around anyway. If it goes in the huge case build I am doing now, I may even run some water through these boards, although it really doesn't need it. I take cooling very seriously and trust me, it will not be an issue ina box I build, even if each of the builds ran 4 times hotter then I think they will. Here is a build log of what I am doing now and what these 6 boards may go in if I can fit it...which I can if I do pico-psu's, but not sure if pico-psu's will be in the budget ($80 to $100+ a pop) and efficiency on them are below 80%. I can get a small ATX psu that does over 80% efficiency for $40 each or one that does just below 80% for $9 each (clearance), both made by Antec, which I trust. Anyway, here is the build log. If I don't add the 6 ITX builds into it, then I will build the case for the ITX after I get this thing done. I will probably use acrylic for the ITX case. Also, let me point out, this huge box isn't getting all this cooling because of EQ lol

Not as easy a thing to do as I was thinking it would be. Part of the problem being I can only work on it durring the weekend and I usually like doing other things durring the weekend. If I only had a garage, I could use the shop to do certain things and then do the rest at home, but I have an apartment with noise rules, so working at home is out. The shop is at my work and there is too much going on from 7am till midnight for me to use it durring the weekday and only working on it durring the weekend is taking forever for everything to come together.

The computer hardware I will get into later. This is a case build from scratch and that is mostly all I am focused on for now. The case will be 24" wide by 24" deep by 30" tall. It is split up into 3 sections, with the top being a horizontally mounted motherboard. It will have 9 MCR320 radiators, 8 MCP355 pumps (4 XSPC res tops, 4 non res tops), a shit load of 120mm fans and fittings. 4 loops: CPU gets 2xMCR320, VGA 1 gets 3 MCR320, VGA 2 gets 3 as well and 4th loop is for NB/SB whatever and gets 1 MCR320. Or I may do something completely different, but there will be at least 4 loops.

I am not a metal worker. I am not a craftsman. I have access to the shop and some knowledge on a few things, but this is not my normal gig. I am winging it through alot of what I did here. My planning was very loose and I wish I would have spent more effort on it, because it is now costing me alot of effort to work my way around problems I could have avoided. Anyway, onto some pics.

There is more, but it's just the same stuff...more rads, pumps, etc.


Here is a sheet of .063" thick 6061 T6 bare. It is 4'x8' and really scratched up as well as quit a few gouges. I can fix/hide these, but no way I make this a bare aluminum finish or even anodized. It will have to be painted. I like black, but that's been done to death. Doesn't mean I won't paint it black, but I am open to other colors....although only dark colors...maybe plum red....some kinda deep blackish red.


This is a table shear. It cuts aluminum sheets very well





Got some 1/2" angles to form the edges on the panels. Cut em up with 45 degree ends on this meiter saw I got at Home Depot for $20.



Layed out on a front/back panel





Drilled a couple holes with a hole saw







Layed out my side panels, measured it out and then cut the side panel into three sections. I was going to have a TEC chiller build in this and the bottem section was going to house the hot side of the TEC, so I made a section to isolate it from the rest. I have now decided a TEC chiller is not worth the effort and won't be doing it, but the section was already cut so the case will be put together as if I were needing the bottem rads, sectioned off. Who knows, maybe I will do a TEC chiller after a while, even though everything shows that it is a worthless pursuit.


Drilled fan holes for the sides using the front panel as a templat


Rad holes done.



Worked on angles for the front and back panels






Countersinks for all holes I will be riveting through



These are flush rivets. Many here are probably familier with the blind rivets. These are actually much bigger then the ones I used..otherwise it's exactly the same. It's just my camera sucks at close ups, so I just got the biggest flush rivets we had and took a pic.


You install these rivets either with a rivet gun and bucking bar. Using the bucking bar to press against the tail end of the rivet as you jack hammer the head of the rivet with the rivet gun till the tail buckles and locks the rivet in place


Or you squeeze it with a rivet squeezer...although you are limited to only edges as the squeezer can't reach anything else




There's a rivet in between each cleco. Tried getting a close up pic, but non came out very well. With some sanding, I doubt even a blind person can feel the rivets while running their fingers over it.


Tail side














Ok, that's it for now. Next weekend I work on angles for the sides and maybe panels for the different sections. I ordered two 5x5.25" drive bay's from Mountainmods and once I get those, will see about placing it on the front panel and if I like it, will make the cuts to install em. For a PSU, I have a 1600watt Ultra X3 and as great looking as I think that PSU is, I will be making a larger PSU box for it and will gut the X3 and fit it in my larger box with 2x120mm fans. I also need to come up with a way to make all the side panels for the rads swing open like cabinet doors, so that I can have access to those areas without having to take things apart everytime I need to get in that area. This build is getting more difficult then I anticipated. I was thinking I was just building a big box lol

[Zerocool2024]

I had the same Idea in mind. Though, I have been designing it in Solidworks so I can make sure I can get all the sheet metal/hardware to match up correctly. Lucky for me, I design Helicopters for the "man", and I can get all the sheet metal and hardware I need. Now I just need to get someone to help me bend/cut/weld it to the shape I need it.

Gratz on the new concept of towers :thumbsup:

[Herc130]

In Hong Kong and after trying to find the board in Wan Chai computer center and having no luck, was able to find it at Sham Shui Po Golden Computer Shopping cneter in Kowloon. Prices are actually much better to about the same in US e-seller's like newegg, zipzoomfly, mwave, etc, with the added benefit that if something is wrong, you can work through the seller to replace it, but for me, shipping adds a ton, so getting it at location in Hong Kong, even though it's the same price, saves me about $70 us for shipping.






Seeing it next to M-ATX boards really helped me to decide I like the ITX FF better for this application. M-ATX might as well be regular ATX. Probably why they are now coming out with the DTX ff. Each board was $1190 HK, which is @$153 US. Only got three, since I had to lug from Kowloon back tothe hotel through the mass transit rail. Probably go to Mongkok and see if the computer center there has it for less, but am thinking it will be the same price if they have it at all. Last time I was in Hong Kong, I had to haggle for prices on everything. Everything was horribly overpriced and you usually start off by halfing whatever the listed price was, but for these mobo's, they did not budge and I already know what the US sellers price em at and it's pretty much the same. $150 per mobo, $60 for cpu, $60 for ram, $60 for hdd, $80 for TFT module and $30 for psu. OS is free thanks to technet. Could save $100 us going with the atom 330 board, but screw it, this board should run it great.

[Herc130]

Been back home for about 4 days now and deploying again tomorrow, so didn't really plan to do anything with any of the hardware I got. However, it occured to me that maybe the intergrated graphics might not be powerful enough for some graphically intensive situations I may need for two of my box accounts, so I decided to slap one together temporarily and see how well it runs Everquest.



Added a mouse on top of the PSU for size comparison





It's the J&W mobo with 780G chipset and HD3200 IGP. The CPU is an AMD BE-2400 45w, 4 gigs of GSkill DDR2 800 notebook ram, a coolermaster cpu cooler that is bigger then I thought it'd be (it works fine with it, but is taller then I thought and will make me make a bigger case) 240w HEC PSU 75%+ efficiency.

I loaded Vista 64 Premium on it and patched it to SP1. Then loaded Everquest and patched it all up. Let me say I am very impressed with how well it runs Everquest. I left EQ in default settings which had everything set to near max. These settings are higher then what I use in my box accounts with my full size ATX computers running 8500GT video cards and yet, the ITX builds are running EQ just as well with the higher settings. I ran around small areas (guild lobby) with just under 200 people. When I had particle effects set to max in everything, (which makes it so every spell or glowy sparky weapons near me will cause a bunch of graphically intense light shows that bogs you down) there was lag while running around the near 200 people, but even my Maximus II 8500cpu, 8800gtx 8gb ram main comp. boggs down in those situations. Once I turned particle effects off, there was practically no lag while running around the guild lobby....still filled with near 200 people.

I am truley amazed by this mobo and its IGP. I don't see a reason to get a discrete video card, even for my accounts that are sometimes brought to raids. Although I will make sure the case I buy has a slot to accomadate the vid card, because these builds should be able to play even new MMO's as boxxed accounts. Everquest and probably WoW, it has no problems with at all. I am running around areas that bogs down my full atx 8500GT computers with no problems. For the most part everything runs very smooth.


For cases, I think I will have to build my own, which will end up costing more then buying one that is almost built the way I want ($55). Getting the power switch, reset switch, couple USB connectors cost damn near $55. Then add in cost for case material and my time and effort. However, that $55 case makes space for stuff I don't need at the cost of craming the PSU right over the mobo which no doubt will make things run hot. I can maybe mod it to what I want, will be thinking on that while deployed. If I make my own, the case will be @7"x7"x7" with the mobo sitting horizonatally over the PSU and HDD and maybe a slim DVD burner ( could just use USB drives when needed and not worry about space for a DVD drive at all)

Also, will probably go XP Pro 32 for 4 of the builds and XP MCE or Vista 64 Ultimate for 2. Or maybe all 6 with Vista 64 Ultimate and I just disable UAC for them all. That's about the only thing that still gives me problems with Vista for my box accounts.

Just remembered the mobo has 128mb sideport memory..which when switched on makes it so the intergrated video has it's very own memory and doesn't have to share with anything else. Essentially making it so the HD3200 "intergrated" video on the northbridge behaves as if it were a discrete video card.