small MITX CASE comparison

[kotenok]

I'm trying to decide between the following cases

Thermaltake Core V1

Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced

Fractal Design CORE 500 (expensive)

and, at the moment the "leading" one

Chieftec CI-01B-OP

has many drive bays (VERY IMPORTANT), accepts matx (very important too) at small size (and is only a bit bigger than all the above cases), seems to have no problem with normal sized components and there's still enough space to maintain decent amount of cooling and comfort of working on it

 

Which one should I pick? Explain, why please.

[Spotty]

6 minutes ago, kotenok said:

has many drive bays (VERY IMPORTANT), accepts matx (very important too) at small size (and is only a bit bigger than all the above cases), seems to have no problem with normal sized components and there's still enough space to maintain decent amount of cooling and comfort of working on it 

So, basically you want a mATX case then?
The Chieftec is the only one you listed which supports mATX motherboards, and that is because it's a mATX case not mini-ITX...

 

• What hardware are you planning on putting in it [so we have an idea of clearance]?
• Have you already purchased the rest of the components?
• What's the system going to be used for?
• How many 3.5" bays do you require for HDDs?

[TVwazhere]

15 minutes ago, kotenok said:

accepts matx (very important too)

Why are you comparing an mATX case with mITX cases if it's important to have mATX?

[kotenok]

4 minutes ago, Spotty said:

So, basically you want a mATX case then?
The Chieftec is the only one you listed which supports mATX motherboards, and that is because it's a mATX case not mini-ITX...

 

• What hardware are you planning on putting in it [so we have an idea of clearance]?
• Have you already purchased the rest of the components?
• What's the system going to be used for?
• How many 3.5" bays do you require for HDDs?

mitx or matx board (depends on AMDx570/b550 motherboard lineup), but most likely mitx, small to medium sized or stock cooler

a small GTX 750/1050/1650 type graphics card

450W 80+gold SFX power supply

2 active 3.5" HDDs + 1 "hot"-swap-able (I could use the additional empty pcie brackets for an esata shield that converts motherboard's sata into esata) there'd be m2 one too, but that doesn't affect the case choice, right?

1 DVD recorder

 

 

9 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Why are you comparing an mATX case with mITX cases if it's important to have mATX?

All of them are called either "small cases" or "cubes". It's sort of good to have matx just in case, but if a mitx only case would be much better I'd be able to give that up.

[Spotty]

9 minutes ago, kotenok said:

mitx or matx board (depends on AMDx570/b550 motherboard lineup), but most likely mitx, small to medium sized or stock cooler 

So far there has only been one mini-ITX motherboard and one mATX motherboard shown off for the X570 chipset. Both from AsRock. The rest have been full size ATX motherboards. No B550 motherboards seen yet as far as I'm aware...? At least not at Computex.

Oh, also important to note that the AsRock mini-ITX motherboard can't fit the AMD mounting bracket so actually uses Intel's LGA1151 cooler mounting system. Might affect compatibility with the stock AMD cooler.

 

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by Spotty

[Fasauceome]

41 minutes ago, kotenok said:

has many drive bays

How many? The Sugo can hold 3 2.5" drives as well as any M.2 the motherboard supports. You could have up to 5 drives, or more if you use the PCIe slot for an NVMe expansion card instead of gfx card.

[Alan G]

I've done three builds in the Fractal Design Core 500 and it's pretty straight forward.  You can only put two HDDs in it along with 2 SSDs.  There is enough room for a reasonable size air cooler and of course it does have a front bay for an optical drive.  You don't say what the use for this PC is.  Mine have either been office builds or HTPC.  My current HTPC runs 24/7 and I've not had any issues.  I only run a Sony 32 inch TV off of it so I use Intel graphics which are just fine.  If I had a GPU, cable management would be a bit of an issue.

[kotenok]

8 minutes ago, Spotty said:

So far there has only been one mini-ITX motherboard and one mATX motherboard shown off for the X570 chipset. Both from AsRock. The rest have been full size ATX motherboards. No B550 motherboards seen yet as far as I'm aware...? At least not at Computex. 

I don't really know yet. But prices are "slowly" skyrocketing, here. I'm getting whatever I can before the prices will explode around 7/7.

I'm considering getting ram, tomorrow, too; either Corsair Vengeance LPX, DDR4, 16 GB 3000MHz or G.Skill Aegis, DDR4, 16 GB 3000MHz. They're already 20% more expensive than 1.5 week ago.

 

5 minutes ago, Alan G said:

  You don't say what the use for this PC is.  Mine have either been office builds or HTPC.

Graphics designer, will be running at intermediate loads for long hours

 

6 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

How many? The Sugo can hold 3 2.5" drives as well as any M.2 the motherboard supports. You could have up to 5 drives, or more if you use the PCIe slot for an NVMe expansion card instead of gfx card.

What is Sugo?

Also 2 x 3.5" and 1 x 3.5" that could be swapped easily, but connected to an internal sata or esata.

 

8 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Oh, also important to note that the AsRock mini-ITX motherboard can't fit the AMD mounting bracket so actually uses Intel's LGA1151 cooler mounting system. Might affect compatibility with the stock AMD cooler. 

  

 

Coolers are always cheap to get so it's fine. In the worst case scenario, I'll just pick one from a discount bin at local computer market.

[Fasauceome]

4 minutes ago, kotenok said:

What is Sugo?

Also 2 x 3.5" and 1 x 3.5" that could be swapped easily, but connected to an internal sata or esata

The Sugo is the Silverstone Sugo SG13B, that you see listed in my signature.

 

Unfortunately it doesn't have the 2 3.5" bays you need

[Vajra]

19 minutes ago, Spotty said:

So far there has only been one mini-ITX motherboard and one mATX motherboard shown off for the X570 chipset. Both from AsRock. The rest have been full size ATX motherboards. No B550 motherboards seen yet as far as I'm aware...? At least not at Computex.

Oh, also important to note that the AsRock mini-ITX motherboard can't fit the AMD mounting bracket so actually uses Intel's LGA1151 cooler mounting system. Might affect compatibility with the stock AMD cooler.

 

 

I believe OptimumTech showed an ITX board from Gigabyte as well.  He said it was kind of hidden at their booth.  Here's the links:  Actually I found an Asus one too so that makes three x570 ITX boards so far:

EDIT:  I think technically the Asus one is an ITX-D or something?  Never heard of it but it's slightly larger so won't fit in SFF cases but will fit most ITX apparently?

[kotenok]

6 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

The Sugo is the Silverstone Sugo SG13B, that you see listed in my signature.

 

Unfortunately it doesn't have the 2 3.5" bays you need

It looks really nice and it's even cute-case sized, lol. It's unfortunate that mitx cases don't include space for many HDDs anymore.

 

edit

Also I know gamers might not care, but at work or university people still need to deliver their work at CD-ROMs, besides 5.25" slot can be used to hot-swap HDDs or as a cool panel with additonal USBs, card readers or cooler control

[thinwalrus]

Lian Li pc-q34/pc-q33?

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, Vajra said:

I believe OptimumTech showed an ITX board from Gigabyte as well.  He said it was kind of hidden at their booth.  Here's the links:  Actually I found an Asus one too so that makes three x570 ITX boards so far:

Ah, nice! I missed those.

 

1 minute ago, kotenok said:

It looks really nice and it's even cute-case sized, lol. It's unfortunate that mitx cases don't include space for many HDDs anymore.

Would using a NAS (Network Attached Storage) be practical? Will eliminate the need for 3.5" bays and give you more flexibility with case options. Otherwise you will probably just need to choose a larger case (mATX).

[kotenok]

11 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Ah, nice! I missed those.

 

Would using a NAS (Network Attached Storage) be practical? Will eliminate the need for 3.5" bays and give you more flexibility with case options. Otherwise you will probably just need to choose a larger case (mATX).

I will consider everything said in this thread, till tomorrow.

 

Even NAS, if that'd help me to save on case, because I'm looking at prices and the cheapest NAS costs 1/3rd of the money I might spend on the buld. Tho, I don't know if I could run software off it.

[TVwazhere]

On 6/3/2019 at 12:04 PM, kotenok said:

I will consider everything said in this thread, till tomorrow.

 

Even NAS, if that'd help me to save on case, because I'm looking at prices and the cheapest NAS costs 1/3rd of the money I might spend on the buld. Tho, I don't know if I could run software off it.

A NAS isnt designed to house a full system (CPU, GPU, OS, ETC). It's just a case that holds hard drives that can then be connected to your home network. 

 

You's still have to buy a PC case for the rest of your system. The NAS just allows you to access the files on your hard drive for any computer on your network, allowing you to only need 2.5" or M.2 Drives for local storage. 

[Ross Siggers]

I would say if you want a lot of drive space, maybe consider the Core V21 instead of the Core V1, which I think would be too small for your drive requirements.

Or a V1 and NAS, which would overall take up more space anyway.