Small form factor PC build

If you build a couple of standard PCs, the most obvious challenge is to build something smaller or even much smaller.

In order to do it, we should use smaller hardware. F.e. generic ATX mobo is slightly bigger than micro-ATX, but it’s significantly bigger than mini-ITX mobo. The same story with power supply units (ATX and SFX PSU) and graphic cards (short form).

We can see, that the generic GPU is bigger than the mini-ITX motherboard.

M.2 SSD was no brainer because it’s attached to mobo, saves a lot of space and does not require additional power and connector.

With this set of hardware: AMD Ryzen 5 3600, Noctua NH-L9i, Asus ROG STRIX B450-I, Corsair SF450, Corsair Force Series MP510 NVMe, DDR4 8GB (4GB x 2) 3200MHz Kingston HyperX Fury Black, GeForce GTX1660 Super 6GB DDR6 MSI. I had to find an SFF case. I’ve chosen Cougar QBX because it is looking good, can fit almost any video card and even ATX PSU. But the best thing about it is the price.

Proper cooling was the first issue I’ve faced. 80 mm outtake fan couldn’t help with the cooling. So I added 2 120mm fans: 1 intake and 1 outtake. It decreased temperatures almost by 10 degrease and made the system much quieter. But it revealed the last issue which I couldn’t solve: graphic card ‘s coil whine appears while I gaming ;(