The days of needing a tower are over for most people. I'm all about space-saving while still having a full-power PC.
It's a niche, boutique market but there are some really interesting cases. My personal favourite is the Louqe Ghost S1 [1]. I've built one PC with this (the Mk II). I bought a Mk III case but couldn't source a GPU so ended up just buying a CyberpowerPC prebuilt (which is actually a pretty nice PC, to be fair).
They're not cheap and they're kind of annoying to buy. Louqe in particular has had huge distribution problems in the US (through Amazon's logistics service).
Another popular one is the Dan A4 [2]. It's smaller. I personally prefer the Ghost for having better airflow, being more modular and being able to expand the case with "top hats". This allows you to add a 240mm AIO and bottom fans for some pretty darn good cooling and airflow.
Anyway, I'm always excited to see entrants in this market.
This Teenage Engineering chassis is neat and has a cool aesthetic, but it's definitely a form-over-function design. Great if you're going for a certain vibe, but not ideal for a high power build, or even a quiet mid-range build.
Those tiny fans and limited ventilation holes are not going to cut it for anything but a very low-power build. I'd be looking at the lowest power CPUs and GPUs available for this case. I'm not even sure why they limited it to such small (read: loud) fans when they seem to have the space for larger fans.
Optimum Tech's YouTube channel has some great mini-ITX case reviews for anyone new to this space: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv8HwYhBwOOpUFPiBs6QG...
https://github.com/phkahler/mellori_ITX
The one and only fan is the CPU fan, which is also used to blow air through the case and out holes in the bottom. I look forward to the next iteration, but my current system does everything I need without missing a beat.
But then I'm biased in this area...
The biggest thing that I wish were more accessible within the mini-ITX form factor is 10Gbps ethernet. Maybe with thunderbolt it could now exist as an external dongle, with the right motherboard, but internally there's few options today. Very few mini-ITX boards offer anything faster than 1Gbps, and of course have no additional PCI-E slots (despite the chipset bandwidth being more than ample).
I believe Intel's enthusiast Alder Lake chipset (x690 IIRC) specifies 2.5Gbps ethernet as minimum spec, which is nice; but it ain't 10Gbps. This is something that Mac just plain-out does better, no argument; the Mac Mini has had 10Gbps ethernet as an option for years.
HoneyComb is a feature-rich Mini ITX platform [...] based on NXP’s [...] 16 core LX2160A Arm Cortex A72 (2GHz) offering up to 64GB DDR4 (dual channel) and up to 40GbE.
https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/h...
I'm more familiar with the AMD boards, but several of the B550 ITX motherboards have 2.5gbe. At least the MSI, Gigabyte, and ASUS boards have it. I think it's rarer for ITX boards with the x570 chipset, which is a bit older.
But last time I upgraded my computer I switched to micro ATX and I'm happier with that size. Any maintenance or upgrades are a breeze with room to get your fingers around the components, I didn't need to buy a special low profile CPU cooler, it's small enough, and if I need an extra PCIe slot for something I've got it.
The new computer is mounted it to under my desk where it's out of the way. Unless you're carrying your desktop around to LAN parties I think this is an overall nicer solution to "desktops take up space" than tiny form factor cases.
A uatx case without such wasted space would be totally great. Atx power supply, decent mobo ports, good ventilation, et cetera.
[1]: https://www.coolermaster.com/sg/en-sg/catalog/cases/mini-itx...
The mention literally crashing the machine on the original design when the case broke, hopefully means this one is quite sturdy.
Gaming SFF PCs are my jam and here the Louqe Ghost S1 holds up extremely well:
1. It takes almost all double-slot cards. Getting something a little shorter can help in terms of getting the card in and out and for cable management but there's really no need to shop for a specific shorter model. The more than two slot cards (eg RTX 3090, RX6900XT) won't fit but say a 3080 (assuming you can even get one) will be just fine;
2. My personal preference for PSU is something like the Corsair SF750. It's a 750W highly-rated SFX form factor PSU. It works well, can power a 3080 system and seems to be relatively quiet;
3. The Ghost with a top hat can then mount something like an NZXT Kraken X530 AIO to cool your PC. This is going to cut down a lot of your noise; and
4. With a separate top hat on the bottom of the case you mount two quality Noctua 120mm fans in exhaust (meaning it pulls air from the case).
The net effect of all this is that air is drawn in from the sides and expelled out from the top and bottom. It is also a negative pressure set up, meaning there is more force for exhaust than intake.
Positive pressure would be nice for keeping dust out of your case but negative pressure here is better for airflow and thus noise (by operating at lower RPM).
The above will have almost full case power and airflow and be relatively quiet. It won't be as good as you can get with a full or mid tower case but it's pretty darn close.
Not really any more. Most popular mini-ITX cases for enthusiasts support 240mm AIOs for CPU cooling. Noctua even has low-profile air coolers that fit in some mini-ITX cases and rival their biggest heatsinks in performance.
The SFX PSUs are slightly more expensive, but the good ones are so efficient that the fans won't even turn on during normal (non-gaming) use.
Modern SFF builds can be extremely quiet.
PCIe 4.0 x16 (16 lanes) has a bandwidth of 32GB/s, which is 256Gbps.
So external GPUs are always going to be inferior. Also, an external case incurs a lot of extra unavoidable costs. Essentially you have a mini-PC case, a TB to PCI-e bridge, a PCI-e interface and mount and possibly cooling as well.
It's a nice idea and has some applications but on-chip GPUs as part of a fully-integrated SoC just makes way more sense for almost everybody.
I built it with a 1080ti etc and it's had no cooling problems apart from the 2 m.2 ssds getting a little toasty (alleviated by adding a fan under where the psu sits; I cool using a 240mm radiator in the top so the motherboard wasn't getting much airflow from that).
Size comparison motherboards for reference: https://www.gamersglobal.de/sites/gamersglobal.de/files/user...
Personally I use a midi tower at home.
Have you seen the air-cooler on a threadripper ?! :-)
I don't really disagree with you but I like my old tower box because it has lots of room and easy to work on, and I realize that was why I liked my old car because engine compartment had lots of room to work.
This doesn't really fit any decent GPU at 180 mm. I think the single-fan ASUS RTX 3060 Phoenix is 177 mm and would just fit, but I'd be a bit worried about the cooling at that point.
If you want a powerful space saving device, get a powerful laptop. If you want power, cooling, adaptability and room you get a tower.
This mini desktop form factor is the worst of both worlds.
There are laptops with 16 threads, a 3080, 2x nvme and 2x ram slots and weigh 5lbs that run at 70C at full throttle, 40C idling - oh and integrated 3 hour UPS.
A tower otoh can fit 8+ disks, 2 or 3 gpus, plenty of quiet cooling and most importantly doesn't make you cuss every time you add/change a component because there is lots of room to get your hands in there.
You want a portable tower? Get one with handles on it. How often do you really move it anyway.
I have an Antec something-500 from 15 years ago and a Caselabs ITX case that is larger (for custom cooling, etc - I never did use the space) and in 2018 transplanted the guts into a SFF from Sliger and I could fit four of my new case into the Caselabs case - and they are commanding quite the premium in the afterlife.
Height and Width are less than my MacBook Pro (deeper of course but still only 13.5cm)
I don't compromise on much, sure there's only a single PCIe slot but it's got a full size GPU in it (rx5700 reference design), a 650W Gold modular (SFX) power supply. RAM is 16G (lots for my use case - the MB is 2015, not sure it supports more - but with 64G sticks I don't think two slots is much of a limit), a M2 PCIe drive and a separate 2.5" SSD, two Noctua 120mm case fans and a decent after market CPU cooler. It's quiet and it runs cool.
Lastly on price. A good quality power supply is going to run you 150-200 and most decent cases are in the 150-200 range without a power supply anyways. These are small run manufacturers too so that makes them pricy too, but they'll last 5-10 years (eg a couple of MB upgrades) so worth the investment to some.
They are a pain in the ass to build in though :). (The Ghost looks a bit easier but wasn't really available at the time)
Recently bought a zotac magnus (pre-built). It was a little pricey because it came with a 3070 but easily expandable. it takes 2 x m.2 ssd, 1 x 2.5" sata hd, 2 x laptop ram.
Finding a GPU to fit a SFF case this year was a whole other issue, but I too am glad to see some more companies get into this space. I want some nicer ITX options, I want to see the variety that ATX and "larger" cases see.
But yeah I sympathize with the issues in sourcing the Ghost. My first one took like 8 months to get.
In other words their products are like business cards sold to a niche category of people who like products that look like a collaboration between Dieter Rams and Simone Giertz.
Laser/water jet cutting metal and powder coating it is so common that you can submit such an order online and have it in a day.
What I am trying to say is that the cost because of small quantities does not apply here. This is just the cost of the brand.
mATX cases can also be quite small (e.g. Fractal Node Define 7) but you get 2 more RAM slots, can use ATX PSU, and can get bigger coolers so not have to resort to price AIO.
https://teenage.engineering/products/po
They're lots of fun. (I have the rythmn and robot ones). Its weird you could do this on a cell phone now, but the separate device kinda works well.
of course the optional case is about half the cost of the device.. but I never bought one and haven't had a problem.. and runs on regular aaa batteries!
Not to be too mean about it (I do own an op-z) but there's a subset of synthheads who will buy whatever they put out.
The price is about double what i expect anyone else to sell it for so that is about on par with most of their stuff.
The most interesting thing to me is that they don't seem to give you a reason to want to buy it over some other mitx case. Its just "we made a small computer case it's small!". They're marketing to their own fans with this.
I think their just showcasing their proof of concept.
Without the benefit of seeing it in the flesh, I fear either I would struggle to get accurate bends (which would annoy me for the rest of it's life) or the case has been made flimsy so it bends easily.
Beautiful web site and digging the orange though.
And behold their 600€ radio:
https://teenage.engineering/products/ob-4
Yes, I said a radio.
While the OP-1 is a unique musical instrument (sold a $700 10 years ago, now $1200 new, god only knows why...), these designers will make you pay a premium for most of their products, aside from the low quality pocket operators.
Compared to other high end design speakers such as B&O / BeoSound it’s not particularly pricey, if at all.
I’ll never understand the complaining about case prices, it’s big enough to be a piece of furniture in your house, why wouldn’t you pay more for something that looks and feels premium or has a design you like.
They openly admitted that the reason why their prices are so eye-wateringly high — at least with another product of theirs, the OP-1 synth emulator — is because they can’t produce in high enough supply, and they got fed up with seeing scalpers / touts buying up all their stock and selling it on at twice the price.
But on the other, usually you get excellent sound absorption, clever mounting solutions etc. At first glance this is an objectively bad case by the usual measures of high-end mini ITX cases.
This is another functional display piece for a designer's desk, just like the Playdate.
It's overpriced, but in a similar way to how a clay brick with Supreme stamped on it goes for hundreds of dollars.
[1] https://www.newegg.com/black-ssupd-meshlicious-mini-itx/p/2A...
The Teenage Engineering case looks great as a non-gaming, everyday-use build, if a larger GPU isn't needed.
[1]: https://www.coolermaster.com/catalog/cases/mini-itx/masterbo...
Also y'all gotta stop hating on this price it's actually very reasonable in the sff pc case market.
Fools and their money...
Buy power-efficient components and load it with the thickest and biggest Noctua PWM fans possible, and set the fan curves low, and its basically totally silent.
In horizontal mode you have a choice of obstructing the CPU or the GPU vent. It comes with feet, but they're not very tall.
Tangent—Coming out of hours of fantastical sci fi VR escapism into a nondescript hotel room in <industrial center, USA> is a very surreal and memorable feeling.
Dear Teenage Engineering,
Please make a modern FLAC (MP3, M4A, ...) player with your signature style and OLED screen. Running Linux with USB keyboard capabilities for bonus points. No wireless whatsoever, with songs transferred over USB mass storage protocol, much like the OP-1.
(0) Seamless playback, shuffle, volume (normalization option?), balance, EQ, ... (1) Song listings (why do so many music apps completely fail to simply list all my songs?!) (2) Album, artist, etc grouping and sorting (3) Search (4) Album art (5) ...
- 64GB minimum
- ~100x50x10mm
- IO:
- 3.5mm 3 channel (left/right/mic)
- Play/pause, left, right, up, down, in/out, power switch
- ~2" screen, backlit OLED
- USB-C
- Dedicated power?I am constantly searching for good itx cases but at this point given the prices I see I’d rather buy an Ender3 and print one myself.
the PDF manual explicitly warns to bend only once. i expect repeating or reversing would cause striations/stretch marks at the seam, which would be actual openings in the metal exposing the raw aluminum underneath, not an adhesion failure of the powder coat.
However, I'm leaning more towards a horizontal chassi (think like a piece of stereo equipment or something). I think it could be pretty nice to have it lying on a shelf / on top of a AV rack, and then run a Thunderbolt cable to a small desk nearby.
I found the F12C from Streacom [0] which matches my aesthetic bend perfectly (it is available without the hideous optical media slot). But it's a tad to thick.. Thinner by mounting the graphics card rotated with a raiser would be awesome. Any tips greatly appreciated!
But the Node 202 would be the much cheaper option.
For example https://www.thermaltake.com/core-g3.html or https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?area=en&pid=488
- made by an evil society-destroying corporation
- sold out forever
But of course I’m gonna complain about the price again. Even though this looks pretty innovative (I haven’t seen an “assemble yourself” construction like this before) and this looks something potentially leading to a huge price reduction (I’m gonna guess production cost is somewhere around the 10-25€ mark), it’s still … 200€??? Egh.
I guess they’re selling the brand.
But that’s also weird, because I would figure that people who care about the brand tend to not build their own computers (is this assumption wrong?), instead usually opting for the fruit brand.
Mini-ITX computers are a niche among a niche market of PC builders. Form factor is inherently a consideration being made when you build one, given the added difficulty and compromises one must make to build one. In that sense, it's pretty obvious that people building such computers would care about the aesthetics of the case they're building in. This also isn't terribly expensive in the world of boutique mini itx cases, where one can easily spend double that on some of the more exclusive ones.
That said performance and noise was a concern for me and I've overall ended up satisfied, you may be pleasantly surprised if you do your research. IMO the only actual thing that makes noise on any modern rig is the GPU (and I don't put spinning rust in anything except the server in the other room.) Everything else can be effectively silent even at the highest grade, and low-end GPUs can be tweaked to be nearly-silent as well if you aren't a gamer. Mine has 10TB of storage (2TB NVMe/8TB SSD), 64GB of RAM, a Zen 3 5600X, and a triple-blower RTX 3080, and I'm using it as my 4k gaming rig with a 144hz monitor rather successfully. I understand there are a lot of cases you might need even more oomph, though; I literally can't extract any more perf until Zen 4, I guess.
Genuinely curious, if someone gets one, that has access to the proper test gear, could you look for RF spurs emitted from that chassis?
Some combos of circuit boards, in the wrong enclosures crush WiFi (and cellular). If you ever have persistent WiFi issues in your house, isolate your network gear (modem/router/AP) to a single circuit breaker, and just start killing circuits in the house until your problem goes away.
Then start turning things on until the problem returns.
So a bit over 10 liters. About the size of some gaming computers MSI used to sell (Nightblade, I think), for around 1k fully loaded with RAM, HD+SSD, Intel CPU, and Nvidia graphics. Plus led light bars, etc.
200 for an industrial looking orange case seems a bit of a fashion statement.
Also, given I have dimensions and diagrams, how is called the type of service which builds it "from source"?
Any major city will have someone who can do this, though their website and pricing will probably be worse. Searching "laser cutting" in google maps gives eight different places in the Seattle metro area.
Do they focus on audio gear (synths, speakers, ect..) clothes, computer cases?? Product lines seem all over the place.
NEW! FIELD DESK AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
CONTACT US
so I think the answer is...nope :(
now the next question is: what GPU can I fit that's dual and 180mm?
Mine stays cooler than my tower, somehow. Was not easy to build, but damn it is sexy.
Their modular synths are particularly terrible, and have so much structural give when you just put your hands on it. Reminds me of an erector set
With all those gaps you'll need to push fans harder to get the same cooling and keep dust out.
It looks amazing!
I can buy a pretty nice mini-itx cube shaped case on newegg for 80.