Building a gaming pc with small body case

[Ikmalhidayat]

since i saw an alienware X51 which is small factor gaming pc, i have a lot of question in my mind.
building a pc with XBOX 360 case is also possible but without a graphic card which is not declare as a gaming pc.

using alienware x51, it has an external power supply just like Xbox 360. but when building your own with this case, where will you put your 800W gaming psu? externally will make your building harder cuz most of power supply's cord cannot be pulled out from the psu itself. standard gaming psu are atx type. same goest to xbox 360.

this guy http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=224593 able to install graphic card to the xbox 360 case with PCI-E x16 Riser Flexible Cable. but, the graphic cad is too big for xbox 360 (hd 4870).

now, i have 30cm X 25cm X 7.5cm case which is unused later. its a dvr in which will later reach its age. so im going to use that case later for my diy pc building. but how about psu?

with appropriate tools and skills, do you think that this diy pc can be make?

cpu: unknown (maybe at least amd athlon X2 260. if possible, AMD FX-4100)
mobo: micro-atx ASRock N68C-GS FX (which is the cheapest yet smaller, better mobo available in my area)
gpu: at least hd 7750 small profile (heard hd 7750 performs nice even small profile one)
psu: at least 300W with 6-pin power connector @ 12V X 20A
cooler: stock if possible. but smaller is better
ram: 2X 2GB ddr3
optical drive: well, not necessary for me when goes to small case. but laptop size one is perfect
hdd: 2.5" hdd with at least 320GB
extra fans: 1X 180mm fan ONLY IF required

the case will be mod. NOTE THAT im NOT REALLY PLANNING TO DO THIS. but maybe be planned in future when my dvr is not capable anymore.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Just get a Bitfenix Prodigy or something. And a G2120 or i3-3220. Mini-ITX board.

 

[Ikmalhidayat]

its not like i want to use this for usual things. i want to make a pc with small case which is smaller than micro-atx case and about a size of an xbox 360. creativity. smaller, lighter and portable for bring it everywhere.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Mini-ITX is pretty small. Mobo is 6.7" square.

 

[mouse24]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007583%20600006318&IsNodeId=1&name=Mini-ITX%20Tower

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007583%20600006320&IsNodeId=1&name=Mini-ITX%20Desktop

Pick whatever you want. find an Mitx board and compatible PSU and your good to go. (sorry im not that helpful today its 3 AM and I haven't slept yet.)

 

[manofchalk]

Dont suppose a laptop will cut it?

You could go for building a case from scratch. If you lay out all the components right (and skip the GPU, get something like an A10), you could probably get a very small computer.

EDIT: Just remembered a mod I saw a while ago. Someone managed to build a computer inside the box Windows XP came in. So it is definitely possible to make a machine that small.
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/windowsxpbox/

 

[Ikmalhidayat]

Dont suppose a laptop will cut it?

You could go for building a case from scratch. If you lay out all the components right (and skip the GPU, get something like an A10), you could probably get a very small computer.

EDIT: Just remembered a mod I saw a while ago. Someone managed to build a computer inside the box Windows XP came in. So it is definitely possible to make a machine that small.
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/windowsxpbox/

Yeb. I really building it from scratch. Buying a mobo (or upgrade my desktop mobo and use the older one), hard disk (not really cuz i have one IDE 3.5" 40GB hdd unused but, maybe i decide whether buying 2.5" sata hdd or not), a cpu (later upgrade my desktop one and use my Sempron 140 instead for this build), a graphic card (yeah. i know is almost impossible but if i use pci-e 16x riser flexible cable, solves the 'not enough' space!), fans (lots at me but most of it is less than 120mm). but, just how will i get a picopsu and high wattage brick external psu... and is it compatible to micro-atx?

i want to know more about picopsu. is it possible to power all parts of this pc? i heard that picopsu is small in wattage compare to atx psu. alienware X51 i believes uses picopsu and if want to upgrade the gpu, it needs to buy a new, higher brick power supply.

 

[ceh4702]

This company makes a small case for MITX motherboards but you can not fit much else in there and you have to use an external DC power Brick. http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal-mini-itx-enclosure. Of course this means the bare minimum for cooling and maybe limiting the processor a bit for cooling. You might also have to use an SSD or M.2 flash memory device. It also means you need your own wireless keyboard mouse device.

Everything you add like a full size ATX power supply requires a larger size case.