Mini STX Graphics Card

[Sniperfox47]

I've been looking at building a small and portable Mini-STX gaming system to take to lan parties and the such, since my DG-87 is Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too big and heavy to lug around.

 

I've encountered a couple issues in the search for the tinniest gaming rig possible, but one of the big ones is how do I get a graphics card to work with it.

 

There are a couple STX boards now that have an MXM slot on them but what's the best way to go about getting an MXM card? And more importantly what kind of heatsink/cooler do they take?

 

Are there any MXM to PCIe adapters available that I could just rip the GPU out of my normal system and jury rig it up with a straight 16x PCIe connection over MXM, rather than relying on thunderbolt 3?

[Droidbot]

STX is an annoying form factor.. 

 

MXM cards are usually cooled using custom OEM heatsinks, so rig one up yourself.. try eBay for one as OEMs will fuck you in the ass for one with no regrets

 

[Sniperfox47]

What's so annoying about STX other than it not being meant for anything that even slightly resembles a gaming rig?

[Droidbot]

Very little and unclear standards. 

1 minute ago, Sniperfox47 said:

What's so annoying about STX other than it not being meant for anything that even slightly resembles a gaming rig?

 

[DnFx91]

never seen this form factor before, it's pretty cool i guess, using laptop ram and GPU in a desktop style build, but it does look like it serves a very specific purpose. Would i be right in thinking that the GPU can only be used as an accellerator ? like in switchable GFX ? obviously an MXM card has no video outputs so that card will just be pushing frames through to the integrated GPU which will then send them to the display.

[Sniperfox47]

4 minutes ago, DnFx91 said:

never seen this form factor before, it's pretty cool i guess, using laptop ram and GPU in a desktop style build, but it does look like it serves a very specific purpose. Would i be right in thinking that the GPU can only be used as an accellerator ? like in switchable GFX ? obviously an MXM card has no video outputs so that card will just be pushing frames through to the integrated GPU which will then send them to the display.

Yeah. It works the same way it does in a laptop. Gfx card acts as a render unit, which pushes rendered and composited frames back to the system for display.

 

STX isn't really meant for gaming systems obviously, and my next option is going to be just getting an eGPU dock and running it off thunderbolt, but I'd rather run it off the full fat PCIe link of the MXM slot if I can.

[DnFx91]

10 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Yeah. It works the same way it does in a laptop. Gfx card acts as a render unit, which pushes rendered and composited frames back to the system for display.

 

STX isn't really meant for gaming systems obviously, and my next option is going to be just getting an eGPU dock and running it off thunderbolt, but I'd rather run it off the full fat PCIe link of the MXM slot if I can.

if small size is what you want, why not just go for M-ITX instead ? the physical form factor is almost the same, and you can get tiny little lanparty style cases for them. that way you have a full PCIe link 

[Sniperfox47]

5 minutes ago, DnFx91 said:

if small size is what you want, why not just go for M-ITX instead ? the physical form factor is almost the same, and you can get tiny little lanparty style cases for them. that way you have a full PCIe link 

Because that would be too easy and make too much sense? also every inch counts, and it's not just that mini itx boards are an extra inch and a half both ways, the case also has to fit front and rear panels, a power supply, etc etc. If you're looking at the difference between a 5x5 board and a full Mini-ITX system there's a huge size disparity.

[Flavio hc 16]

If money aren't  a problem, i would go for something like an s4 mini case or a dan 4fx case or also a sentry when they come back online. Another thing that you could buy would  be one of those mini pc that zotac sell with a gtx 1060 or 1070 that are truly small ( 20×20×6 cm or 8x8x2.5 inch)