Yep, "BIG" desktop PCs are a dying breed, except for the few of us that either do content creation, or distributed computing (and/or gaming, I suppose).
I am actually building my next LAN party box super tiny.
For years I've done mATX and even mini ITX LAN systems. I've used several Ultra MicroFly/Aspire X-Qpack2 mATX cubes as well as mATX towers like the Antec NSK3480 and Cooler Master Elite 341. More recently I had a Lian Li PC-T7R and still have a Silverstone SG05, both ITX.
My next LAN party rig will be in an Antec ISK 300-150.
So what happened is that I built a rig in one to use in the garage, and I tossed in a low profile Radeon 4650 I had laying around for the heck of it. I put TF2 and MW3 on it, and they played fine at 1920x1080 in medium-ish settings! Other parts are Core i5-2500K, 8GB RAM, H67 chipset ITX mobo, stock CPU cooler, small SSD, slim ODD. PSU is 150W of course, and my power meter has yet to show over 110W pull from the wall even during gaming. Noisiest part of the system is actually the case fan that comes with it. It is an Antec Tri Cool and is still audible even on lowest settings.
So, I'm going to be putting higher capacity SSDs in there, and swapping the graphics card out with a low profile Radeon 6570 which I hope to get 50-80% more performance than the 4650 currently in there. That should allow me to play at higher settings, or more demanding games like BF3 (if I ever get around to playing it). The 6570 should arrive tomorrow. Differences
4650
600MHz core
320 stream processors
64-bit memory interface !!
DDR2 (unknown clock) !!
Note that most 4650 have 128-bit memory and use DDR3, so mine is especially slow.
6570
650MHz core
480 stream processors
128-bit memory interface
DDR3
supposedly 5W TDP lower than 4650
I fully expect to use it at LAN parties. Next big one I'm going to is
AWOL LAN though I'll probably use it at small basement LANs and at home as my garage computer before then.
I should make a thread about it.
I'm going to put a slow & quiet fan on it.
I'm done with any sort of O/C with screaming fans.
when that happens i dont see much reason to build when you can just buy a tiny premade box that never breaks
You mean like an Xbox? Oh wait... :sneaky: