Case, Power Supply, And Optical Drive
Case: Cooler Master Elite 120 Mini-ITX Tower
The Cooler Master Elite 120 mini-ITX tower accommodates standard-sized components, such as ATX power supplies, dual-slot graphics cards, a full-height optical drive, and up to three 3.5” hard drives.
Read Customer Reviews of Cooler Master's Elite 120 (opens in new tab)
Airflow is provided by a 120 mm front fan, an 80 mm side fan, along with vented side and top panels for the graphics card and power supply. One USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 connectors, and audio I/O are all accessible from the enclosure's front panel.
Power Supply: Corsair Builder Series CX500 500 W
Our beefy Radeon graphics card doesn't come with any power adapters, so we're using Corsair's 80 PLUS Bronze-certified CX500, sporting a single 38 A, 12 V rail and a pair of 6+2-pin auxiliary power leads.
Read Customer Reviews of Corsair's CX500 500 W Power Supply (opens in new tab)
Optical Drive: None!
We could have added a standard-height 5.25” DVD burner for $17 more, but instead funneled that money into a more powerful graphics card.
However, life with more mobile platforms has come to mean that more folks are using optical media less frequently. Only you can decide if a desktop without a DVD drive is acceptable.