- Dec 14, 2004
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After building a number of SFF rigs with the Lian Li PC-Q08 mini-ITX case and recommending it in one of my previous builder's guides, I decided to build my personal system in this case, with one minor modification: use of an SFX PSU.
Though I really do like this case, with a full-size PSU installed, it is extremely cramped and difficult to work with. Since I've offloaded most of my computationally intense research to my lab's PCs and don't really game anymore aside from the occasional L4D/L4D2 bout, and since I drastically pared down my TV show collection to the bare essentials (Simpsons, X-Files, Walking Dead ), I now only need a single 2TB hard drive and I no longer require a beefier PSU.
Here are the specs:
Lian Li PC-Q08B
SeaSonic SS-300SFD 300W SFX12V v3.1 80+
SFX to ATX PSU adapter bracket (Least expensive I could find one bracket.)
ASUS P8H61-I
Intel Core i3-2100
2 x 2GB Patriot DDR3-1333
Intel X25-M 80GB SSD
2TB Western Digital Caviar Green
LITE-ON DVD burner
The SSD mounts immediately below the DVD burner, and can't be seen in the picture. I removed the middle drive cage (that can hold four 3.5" drives) for better airflow and volt-modded both the 140mm front intake and 120mm top exhaust fans to run on 5V. The stock CPU HSF is PWM and the PSU fan are also nearly inaudible. I might add a 6670 or some other shorter, low-power GPU at some point.
As is, the CPU idles 25-30 degrees over ambient at 105-130F, and the HDD is at a lower 88F. If I add a video card, I'll likely bump the fans up to 7V and get an aftermarket HSF.
Here are a couple pics:
As you can see, use of the SFX PSU really opened the case up, and I'm very pleased with the result! I'll add that Silverstone makes a 450W SFX PSU that has 1 6-pin PCIe connector and 1 6+2-pin PCIe connector that also comes with an adapter bracket, so you could build a system similar to mine with a beefier CPU HSF and longer video card by using the middle rather than lower hard drive cage.
Though I really do like this case, with a full-size PSU installed, it is extremely cramped and difficult to work with. Since I've offloaded most of my computationally intense research to my lab's PCs and don't really game anymore aside from the occasional L4D/L4D2 bout, and since I drastically pared down my TV show collection to the bare essentials (Simpsons, X-Files, Walking Dead ), I now only need a single 2TB hard drive and I no longer require a beefier PSU.
Here are the specs:
Lian Li PC-Q08B
SeaSonic SS-300SFD 300W SFX12V v3.1 80+
SFX to ATX PSU adapter bracket (Least expensive I could find one bracket.)
ASUS P8H61-I
Intel Core i3-2100
2 x 2GB Patriot DDR3-1333
Intel X25-M 80GB SSD
2TB Western Digital Caviar Green
LITE-ON DVD burner
The SSD mounts immediately below the DVD burner, and can't be seen in the picture. I removed the middle drive cage (that can hold four 3.5" drives) for better airflow and volt-modded both the 140mm front intake and 120mm top exhaust fans to run on 5V. The stock CPU HSF is PWM and the PSU fan are also nearly inaudible. I might add a 6670 or some other shorter, low-power GPU at some point.
As is, the CPU idles 25-30 degrees over ambient at 105-130F, and the HDD is at a lower 88F. If I add a video card, I'll likely bump the fans up to 7V and get an aftermarket HSF.
Here are a couple pics:
As you can see, use of the SFX PSU really opened the case up, and I'm very pleased with the result! I'll add that Silverstone makes a 450W SFX PSU that has 1 6-pin PCIe connector and 1 6+2-pin PCIe connector that also comes with an adapter bracket, so you could build a system similar to mine with a beefier CPU HSF and longer video card by using the middle rather than lower hard drive cage.
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