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Mini-ITX Playstation 2 Build

Kailib
Go to solution Solved by CatzRuleZWorld,

I after my laptop died I decided I would make a mini Itx build to take with me and what better to use as a case than an old Playstation 2. I've ordered the parts and will start uploading pictures when they arrive. I'm also going with the Pentium anniversary edition so I'll be overclocking it as far as possible. The ram is getting borrowed from my main PC till I can afford to buy more and the HDD was scavenged from my laptop. The PSU is taken from an old dell optiplex as it was the only one I could find that is thin enough for the case. Eventually I'll be adding a graphics card and was thinking about a GTX 750ti. Is this the best graphics card for a small build like this as it will need to be under 17cm long.  Any comments and suggestions are welcome and a name would be great.

 
CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£50.49 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: ASRock B85M-ITX Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£32.99) 
RAM: 1x4GB stick of Corsair Vengeance Pro (£0.00)
Storage: Western Digital Scorpio Blue 320GB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£0.00) 
Cooler: Stock Cooler (£0.00)
Case: Playstation 2 (£0.00)
PSU: 225w Generic Psu (£0.00)
Total: £83.48
 
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Change the psu to a pico psu, will give you a bit more space and you will need a pci-e riser to get the card 90°. It won't fit if you plug it straight in.

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you might want to go with a AMD APU to fit everything or wait for Intel's Iris pro to come to desktops.

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won't be to easy to fit all that stuff in a PS2 case.

I know its going to be tight since there's less than a cm of clearance between the motherboard and the side of the case.

 

Change the psu to a pico psu, will give you a bit more space and you will need a pci-e riser to get the card 90°. It won't fit if you plug it straight in.

I was thinking about is but I'm working on a tight budget and there weren't many cheap pico psu's that would give me enough power to add in a graphics card in the future.

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you might want to go with a AMD APU to fit everything or wait for Intel's Iris pro to come to desktops.

I was thinking about an apu at the start but went with the pentium because I could overclock it. I know this won't give me anywhere near apu performance but it should do for now until I can get a graphics card.

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Fat or thin PS2?

If it's thin I doubt you'll fit that in unless it's thin Mini ITX... + the cooler...

 

Otherwise if you've the fat one:

 

-For better iGPU performance try to get an APU + 160 W Pico PSU + a good power brick

It's the fat one. Theres no chance i would get that in the thin. I've already ordered some of the parts so ill see how it runs without spending any more but if its terrible I'll try to get an apu. Any suggestions for what one preferably less than £60?

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I saw this post now, If you want to add a GPU you already saw a pico PSU isn't the best option... but what you could do is to buy 2 good pico PSUs (130-150 W) + respective bricks for each ones and plug them both with a cable like this:

CVT24Y-1_500.jpg

that for a pentium + a GPU like a GTX 750 (the ones that takes 55-70 W)

 

for 60$? unless you save more, nothing... Also look at that idea :P -^

I hadn't thought of that but I'm going to try that if I run out of space. And £60 not $60, so about $90.

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A10-5800K...

Against that one I'd consider the A8-7600 BC GPU and thermals (this one is 65 W and the other one 100 W...)

Cooling... both, intel and AMD, have stock coolers tho I don't think they'll fit there...

The problem is that the only cooler for FM2+ I can think for that is the Raijintek Zelos (44 mm), EDIT: Silverstone SST-AR05 (36,7 mm, compatible with socket 1150 too, would allow a bit of OC in the G3258)

For the pentium there's a lot of LP options... Noctua NH-L9I (37 mm), SilverStone NT07 (36,5 mm) Thermaltake Gravity I1 (31,8 mm), Cooltek ITX30 (30 mm, they claim 100 W... but I wouldn't be so confident), Dynatron K2 1156 (27,8 mm!, blower style, better if you don't want to cut the case a lot) and more xD

Thanks. I'll have about 60mm of clearance once the motherboard is in but maybe more if I shorten the standoffs. I'm also going to add usb to playstation controller adapter to one of the original slots. Hopefully this will turn into a true console killer :D

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60 mm? more than expected...

Then why you not try to get a Flex ATX PSU? IIRC there are 350 W 80+ bronze made by seasonic... that would be amazing... tho too much tetris if you try to fit a GPU :P (there are LP GTX 750 so it might be an idea...)

I don't know how it'll fit yet but I was thinking about something like the palit 750ti or one of the r7 265's since they're both pretty low power and decent performance. 

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I have made a project in paint about this with measuerments ,in cm, about all the components and i thinks it will fit . I looked at the dimensions of the ps2 fat, the gygabyte 750 ti card and the seasonic psu.

 

http://imgur.com/YwJw2gn
 
 
Looking at the http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine and calculating the wattage of the system you could get away with a 200w psu. One problem that i see is ventilation, you can cut some holes on the ps2 case but it will make it less rigid and fragile. Another thing is that it would be better to get a low power i3 instead of the pentium, it will draw less power,especially if the pentium is overcloked and the temps will be better.
 You can put the gpu on its side with a pcie raiser but i dont know how you are going to get ventilation unless you make a hole on the top or bottom.

cpu:I7 4770k @ 4.3   gpu: 3.5 gb ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) GTX 970 @ 1530MHZ   Ram: 16Gb

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I have made a project in paint about this with measuerments ,in cm, about all the components and i thinks it will fit . I looked at the dimensions of the ps2 fat, the gygabyte 750 ti card and the seasonic psu.

 

http://imgur.com/YwJw2gn

 

 

Looking at the http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine and calculating the wattage of the system you could get away with a 200w psu. One problem that i see is ventilation, you can cut some holes on the ps2 case but it will make it less rigid and fragile. Another thing is that it would be better to get a low power i3 instead of the pentium, it will draw less power,especially if the pentium is overcloked and the temps will be better.

 You can put the gpu on its side with a pcie raiser but i dont know how you are going to get ventilation unless you make a hole on the top or bottom.

I don't know if i'll get the seasonic in since the ps2 gets thinner and shorter halfway down and because of the design of the case it loses about half a cm for the internal dimensions. I'm going to try and fit them in and I willl definetly use a pcie riser. Will the riser effect performance? Because I couldn't really find a clear answer.

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I don't know if i'll get the seasonic in since the ps2 gets thinner and shorter halfway down and because of the design of the case it loses about half a cm for the internal dimensions. I'm going to try and fit them in and I willl definetly use a pcie riser. Will the riser effect performance? Because I couldn't really find a clear answer.

It wont affect performance, http://www.overclock.net/t/1427731/pci-express-extender-cables-benchmarked

cpu:I7 4770k @ 4.3   gpu: 3.5 gb ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) GTX 970 @ 1530MHZ   Ram: 16Gb

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I wanted to keep myself busy while I'm waiting for parts so I replaced the original switches for the power. Sorry about the bad quality I had to use my phone. wiuHqaP.jpgVh6qkmr.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

Sorry I've not been posting over the holidays as I've not been home. I got my processor and ram this week and I've installed these in the case(I'll post pics tomorrow). I ran some stress tests at stock speeds and under full load it was sitting at 42C on the stock cooler with the case closed over which I'm extremely pleased about as it gives me plenty of room to overclock. I also found out that my plan for the power supply wouldn't work so I'll be using a pico psu like the previous suggestions. I've ordered a 200w pico psu but i couldn't find and power bricks that could output enough power until I found out about the Dell DA-2. The connector won't fit directly into the psu so I'll have to mod the 3 12v 6A connections into a single 12v 18A output. The graphics card is the last part I need to get and I'm trying to get 750ti for as cheap as possible to finish everything off.

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I've found my graphics card, the EVGA Superclocked 750ti and it was under £100 and brand new :D Anyone want the free in game credit? Its £30 each for Heroes of Newerth, Path Exile and Warface.

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I'm still waiting on a power supply and the graphics card (and a new sata cable now) but I booted it up and installed windows. I thought my drives had broken but it turned out to be the sata cable and I had no spares and the cable management in my main pc took too long so I done thisOidkvrd.jpg

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I also thought I'd try, my old HD 4870 in it with its "ghetto edition" cooler which keeps it at aroung 30C at idle but I cant remember load.rFs9rOk.jpg

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I know it maybe a bit too late, but if your mobo has a m.2 socket you could run a m.2 ssd and save a lot of space and eliminate a couple of wires in the process.

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The graphics card arrived today and it looks great. It turs out that they've changed the promotion so I have £30 for strife, war thunder and infinite crisis. Should I do some sort of giveway for the code or does anyone really want it? 

n7ZgaxN.jpgcDIvmFn.jpg

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Changed the vent for the cpu since a raised one could give a bit better airflow.

OT2G4XR.jpg

Then took the faceplate off the gpu

EVWbHCy.jpg

added foam to stop vibrations

jVbHuMU.jpg

everything but the hdd is mounted now but I'm going to secure the gpu a bit better.

l9088th.jpgI should be able to post the rest tommorow but I'm still waiting for the psu from china :(

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G3258 @ 4.5 | 8GB Team Vulcan RAM | 128GB Kingston V300 SSD (I didn't know what I was doing when I bought it) | MSI H81I Motherboard | Corsair H55 with Noctua NF-P12 | EVGA SSC GTX 960 4GB | OCZ 550W Fully Modular PSU with Noctua NF-A14 | Cooler Master Elite 130 (Soon to be something cool)

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  • 2 weeks later...

After a long wait the pico PSU finally arrived from China. I managed to get a 200w so I just need to modify the power brick to get it running. I'll post picture when I get home.

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