Shrinking already made build components from ATX to mini ITX case

[Churi]

Budget (including currency): 300€

Country: europe

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: gaming

Other details: few weeks ago i have made a build in the case: be quiet 500dx. Now my life has flipped upside down and now i am in a need of a very portable build that can fit in a backpack. I know that most of the components wont be compatible with the SFF in mind and that i will probably need to replace them. Since i have already spent a lot of money for the new build i was wondering if you have any great ideas and solutions that would keep as much as possible of the old components and making it as small and cheap as possible. I know i have to get a new miniItX case and that mainly the problems occurs with motherboard, power supply and CPU fan. Main goal is price and that it fits in the backpack. That you all for help

 

[Moonzy]

is selling the desktop and buying a laptop a more sensible option for your use case?

[aisle9]

A backpack's kind of a tough ask with those components. A few notes and/or possibilities, some more feasible/intelligent than others:

• If you're not using more than 900GB of storage space, consider removing the 3.5" HDD entirely from your build and going with just the P1 to save space and weight.
• It's going to be tough to find a backpack-sized case that will take a full ATX PSU. Unless you have a really big backpack, of course. Most cases of that size use SFX or Flex ATX power supplies.
• Ditto that for that Sapphire 5700 XT. Nitro cards are HUGE. Exchanging or selling this and repurchasing something else would be your best course of action here.
• Obviously the monitor is out of the question here, it's almost the size of a backpack by itself. The motherboard is also a no-go.
• The Wraith Stealth is capable of handling a 3600 at stock speeds

What I'd actually recommend is returning what you can, selling what you can't and buying a laptop.

 

An alternative would be to buy something like a Fractal Node 202, Silverstone ML-08 or RVZ-03 that's tall and thin, but I'm not sure how well that Nitro GPU would fit into any of those enclosures. I don't think what you're looking to do in terms of keeping everything together is realistic given your size constraints, but I'll yield here to others who have more SFF experience than me.

 

Something else to consider, depending on what games you're playing, would be to ditch the GPU entirely and go with a Ryzen APU build. That would save a ton of weight and even more size, as going to a straight APU build with an ITX motherboard opens the door to some of the smallest cases out there.

[Churi]

33 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

is selling the desktop and buying a laptop a more sensible option for your use case?

I already had the omen 15/ RTX2070/ 144hz gsync/ year 2018 and i gave it to my wife. I was very dissapointed with the laptop if you look that i’ve paid 2.4k€ for it and it was a toaster of a laptop. And the answer is no, next time i will buy a gaming laptop it is when desktop pcs advance so much that there will only be laptops alike pcs

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, Churi said:

I already had the omen 15/ RTX2070/ 144hz gsync/ year 2018 and i gave it to my wife. I was very dissapointed with the laptop if you look that i’ve paid 2.4k€ for it and it was a toaster of a laptop. And the answer is no, next time i will buy a gaming laptop it is when desktop pcs advance so much that there will only be laptops alike pcs

there will be compromises in squeezing so much performance into a small package like that, and it'll always be the case

it's up to you to determine if you'd like to take those compromises

i would look at reviews to see pros and cons of each model and determine which is best suited for me

 

but yea Aisle9 already mentioned pretty much all i would say regarding your transition.

 

lugging around a full desktop setup doesnt sound like a compromise i would take personally.

[Churi]

53 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

A backpack's kind of a tough ask with those components. A few notes and/or possibilities, some more feasible/intelligent than others:

• If you're not using more than 900GB of storage space, consider removing the 3.5" HDD entirely from your build and going with just the P1 to save space and weight.
• It's going to be tough to find a backpack-sized case that will take a full ATX PSU. Unless you have a really big backpack, of course. Most cases of that size use SFX or Flex ATX power supplies.
• Ditto that for that Sapphire 5700 XT. Nitro cards are HUGE. Exchanging or selling this and repurchasing something else would be your best course of action here.
• Obviously the monitor is out of the question here, it's almost the size of a backpack by itself. The motherboard is also a no-go.
• The Wraith Stealth is capable of handling a 3600 at stock speeds

What I'd actually recommend is returning what you can, selling what you can't and buying a laptop.

 

An alternative would be to buy something like a Fractal Node 202, Silverstone ML-08 or RVZ-03 that's tall and thin, but I'm not sure how well that Nitro GPU would fit into any of those enclosures. I don't think what you're looking to do in terms of keeping everything together is realistic given your size constraints, but I'll yield here to others who have more SFF experience than me.

 

Something else to consider, depending on what games you're playing, would be to ditch the GPU entirely and go with a Ryzen APU build. That would save a ton of weight and even more size, as going to a straight APU build with an ITX motherboard opens the door to some of the smallest cases out there.

Yeah i was already thinking about that. Because all i need for now is just to play world of warcraft when im on a road and the game itself is not demanding. Anyway i already made a build with used parts: ryzen 5/3 1400, gtx 950... it all came to somewhere 400€ with miniITX case and thinking how much this costs and what you are getting i started to think to custumize my already made build. Never have thought about APU build. Gonna check it right away