Micro ATX case but a gaming rig? Is it possible?

[krashx6]

I have 2 HD's and 1 Cdrom drive. I have a case that has 10x HD bays and like 4 CD bays. I dont need allllllllllllllll this space.

Ive been looking at all these micro atx cases and love the way some look. Im wondering if anyone here has build a microatx computer that is able to fit the big hitter graphics cards. radeon 4870 specificlly.

If so can you list your components you got.

Thanks

-nick

 

[Synomenon]

Yes it's possible. Have you seen the much small barebone computers from Shuttle? People use those as gaming rigs too.

I don't own a Shuttle anymore, but my system is in my sig. (in a SilverStone Sugo SG03 case). The 4870x2 does fit in the SG03.

 

[mpilchfamily]

With many of the cases you can fit some nice hardware in. You are limited to the cards that use only a single slot. The dual slot cards ussualy don't fit but you can still have a good gamer in an mATX case. If its an mATX tower then you should have plenty of room for any single card. Unless the drives get in the way.

 

[Synomenon]

You can fit dual slot cards in the SG03. You can fit two dual slot cards in it.

 

[krashx6]

Okay, I guess I'll have to find a good mobo that will take my e8400 CPU and radeon 4870 vid card and then a nice case that it will all fit in. Anyone make any other case suggestions that are smaller and easy to travel with?

 

[CKent]

I have a PC in a Shuttle case (I named it Shoebox :heart

I don't use it to game very much, it's just my workout room PC that I stream audio / video to from my server. One thing you notice immediately is it's really loud. You have the same hot components to cool, but less space to do it in. Airflow isn't as good, with less room for intake, which doesn't help things. Despite having a dinosaur of a video card (ti-4600) and a CPU designed for mobile use (mobile barton 2000+), the thing still gets pretty hot, even when not gaming.

The other concern is space and slots. Cases differ, but if I wanted to put a double-slot video card in mine, I wouldn't have the room. Mine also only has one PCI slot, so my choices as to what I want in it are limited there as well. For example if I wanted a sound card and a TV tuner card, I'd be out of luck.

All things to take into consideration when deciding whether to go for it, and choosing the case if you do. Sorry if I rambled a bit

 

[Zap]

Of course you can do a mATX system using your parts (and a mATX board). I've built quite a few.

SLI in a MicroFly case
A64 socket 939
EVGA mATX SLI board
twin dual-slot 7900GTO video cards
two SATA HDDs in RAID
optical drive
normal PSU

Current gaming rig in X-Qpack2 case
Xeon E3110 overclocked
Asus P5K-VM motherboard
8800 GTS video card
two HDDs
optical drive
normal PSU

The MicroFly and X-Qpack2 cases are similar. They officially support two HDD bays, two optical drive bays and another 3½" external bay (5 bays total). They can handle any video card out there, however cards that require power to be plugged into the "top" will need holes cut into the lower optical drive bay (thus losing use of that bay for drives).

Silverstone TJ08 case in a build for someone

I dare anyone to say that the TJ08 case has significantly less airflow than regular ATX cases! Fits large video cards just fine.

Another decent case that fits large cards, albeit by losing the floppy drive bays, is the Cooler Master Centurion 541 (and more colorful kin).