Watercooled Mini ITX Beastie

[subtle]

Hi all,

im sick of having a huge p180 around the house and having decided im gonna go to mini atx format.

I think the best case for my needs is the Silverstone TJ08 and the mobo has to be a Gigabyte GA G33M DS2R. I have an 8800gtx which im pretty sure will just fit in the case as the hard drive cage is just above the level of the pci express slot.

The issue is that I want to watercool this thing, I have an Swiftech apex ultra kit, at the moment this is mounted on the rad box on the back of the p180. However this wont work on the Silverstone case because of the position of the PSU

The only solution I can think is to mount the radiator vertically on top of the case with the in and out loop going straight through the top.

I'm just wondering if anyone has had experience mounting a radiator vertically, or even better with WC in such a small space. The CPU and GPU will be wc I am unsure about the NB as yet.

Any ideas?

regards

 

[rodney_ws]

This seems like an oxymoron... a water-cooled mini computer. Radiators, pumps and reservoirs take up space... but you're wanting to cram that in a small PC enclosure. Square peg... round hole.

 

[brisingamen]

im looking into building a mini itx water cooled gaming rig also, however i have zero experience working with the mini itx form factor.
so i hope there are atleast a few people on here that can help us out.

my gaming goal with this rig is a good playing experience on most games with upgradeablility in mind at the resolution of 1680x1050,
i currently have a samsung syncmaster 2032gw and i love it, its plenty big enough for me and i feel that the resolution of 1680x1050
is something i can work with for quite some time.

i was looking at a couple of mini itx boards, they seem to be few and far between,
until i find a motherboard that can handle apropriate sized ram capability, and until they become availible and or widespread i dont think mini itx will see much attention
from gamers, trying to build a decent performing mini itx rig has become a daunting task. building regular towers is a sinch compared to this lol.
but the challenge has me exited.

motherbroard = open to suggestions.
am3 phenom, for the oc potential on stock voltage.

but i just dont know all of the video cards that are out thier, so a few questions,

what are the 2/3 fastest single gpu cards availible?
are they availible with 1gig of memory?
and are they availible under 17cm long?
is finding a video card with no need for a extra psu plugg in going to be a requirement?

power consumption of the system and components will also be an important thing to keep track of, so are thier any single cards with dual gpu's that
out perform the fastest single gpu chip while using less or slightly more power?
again i have no idea what mini itx power supplys are up to the challenge.


i think its a great idea to build a tiny beast, as far as watercooling the radiator takes up space sure, but i plan on custom making
my watercooling unit to whatever extent is neccesary, i think it evens out when your not using massive fans and heatsinks everywhere.
not to mention with the computer being so much smaller than normal water cooling becomes even more attractive vs fans. although
i do plan on having 2 small fans that produce the most cfm for thier size aswell. i was looking at several cases but in the end
may make my own.

im really exited to see someone else wanting to do the same thing, i wonder who will be the first do build a mini itx water cooled
gaming rig with very respectable,
practical gaming performance.

the best of luck with your build.

 

[Guest]

Did you ever build that mini itx water cooled system? I have been day dreaming about building something along those lines myself. I have a zotac geforece 9300 itx and would like to throw the new single slot gtx 295 with the danger den water block on my tiny mobo. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143200 there is a link to the new bfg single slot 295. now if I only had $700 to spend on the vid card. Right now I hve the board in an apex mi-100 case and an 8600gt E8400 hooked up to 42" flatscreen. It's mostly media center now, but my sidefan is screaming load and that has made me want to do the watercooling. Its not really feasable to use watercooling in my current case. Silenx has an interesting 400watt sfx size psu that would power some pretty good GPU's a single slot watercooled 9800gt might go well with what you are trying to do.