Computer-1 mini-ITX Chassis | Hacker News Reader

Computer-1 mini-ITX Chassis

teenage.engineering

391 pointsbkmn224 comments

I'm a big fan of this form factor, specifically just big enough to fit a motherboard/CPU/RAM plus a real-size GPU. These all use SFX PSUs and typically just an M2 SSD on the motherboard. They also have only 2 RAM slots.

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.

[1]: https://www.louqe.com/ghost-s1/

[2]: https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php

Agreed. There's an entire world of Small Form Factor cases available now with great features.

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...

Optimum Tech is the place to go when evaluating any PC part or peripheral. The work put into the videos is simply unmatched, with its scientific precision, in the space and it doesn’t go overboard in the recommendations. It keeps in mind everyday things like value for money, availability and practicality.

Agreed. Such a contrast to all the shouty, gossipy, attention-seeking channels. Just lays out the facts or opinions with high production values and (apart from sometimes repeating himself a little) no filler.

For quiet with integrated graphics I find this non-commercial 3d printed option quite nice:

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...

My last two builds (going about ~7 years) have been mini ITX. The builds tend to be more frustrating (I wouldn't say harder; just more frustrating and longer), but the end result is always more pleasing.

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.

The NXP LX2K stuff has lots of networking IO.

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...

If you’re willing to pay, the supermicro Xeon-D mini-itx boards have 10Gbps NICs. ECC support is also nice.

I've been looking for something low-cost with ECC memory for a NAS, the Xeon-D would probably work. Thanks!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon_D#Design_Goals

Never heard of the Xeon D! Thanks!

> Very few mini-ITX boards offer anything faster than 1Gbps

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.

I had a mini ITX case (Node 202) and liked it well enough once it was all closed up, but even with a modular power supply it's a bit of a mess to get all the cables to fit, and it was a nuisance to open back up. The case went together with plastic clips that would rather snap off instead of releasing.

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.

I think uatx is great but cases are simply too large. My uatx case has a lot of space for hard drives and dvdrw that simply sits unused.

A uatx case without such wasted space would be totally great. Atx power supply, decent mobo ports, good ventilation, et cetera.

Mine's in an InWin 301. Not the smallest possible, but reasonably compact. No optical drive bay, one 3.5", three 2.5". Airflow is suboptimal, the front fans turn 90 degrees and blow out through small gaps in the side, so I've used fans there with high static pressure rather than high flow rate and it seems to work well enough.

But I'm not doing any overclocking and my GPU is solidly midrange, for a hotter computer you might want better ventilation.

https://www.in-win.com/en/gaming-chassis/301/

Only small nuisance is I can't open it up while it's in the desk mount, so I have to unplug all the cables and remove it. Don't do that often enough to complain about it, might be able to fix it by dremelign off a chunk of the mount if I were concerned.

Glass panel is not really by bag, but under the desk I don't care about it. Solid side option is available but I wouldn't pay extra for it.

Size-wise, it is very similar to mine, a cheap Itek Patriot Mini, which seems just a bit smaller than yours. 3.5" bays take space.

I don't care a lot about space either since it's under my desk. But I think it would be easy to create a smaller uatx case by dropping fans/3.5" bays/other things that a miniitx drops.

EDIT: Something like this could be good for me: https://www.itekevo.com/en/product/case-smallcom-g/

mm 171x308x360 , this is probably close to the smallest size that could be achieved with a uatx without blocking slots.

Do people still have LAN parties?

> Do people still have LAN parties?

I averaged one or two a year through the 2010s, but my last one was in early 2020 for obvious reasons.

While most games can be played over the internet these days and voice/video chat is now accessible enough that the experience can be pretty close, in the end there's still nothing like being in the same room as your friends when you're either cooperating to take down a raid boss or taunting them after a headshot.

Exciting news for Halo: Infinite on this front, the Xbox folks can join you as long as they’re cool with playing against the mice and keyboards.

https://www.pcgamer.com/halo-infinite-will-let-you-use-your-...

And maybe more importantly, LAN multiplayer actually exists in case of ISP problems, server outage, or trying to play the game in 20 years when the official servers are long gone.

AFAIK the same has worked in Halo: MCC for as long as that's been available on PC. I've certainly been cross-playing my replay of the campaigns, rotating between PC, Xbox One, and XSX based on whatever I'm in front of at the time.

It is nice that Microsoft finally acknowledged a few years ago that their consoles are Windows devices that have USB ports and stopped disabling keyboard/mouse support. The idea that console users were banned from better FPS input for years was just nonsensical.

Now if only we could get them to mandate keyboard/mouse support instead of making it optional. There's no good reason to force console players to not be able to aim properly.

I know someone who's building a mini ITX computer with one of AMD's APUs for convenient LAN party travel, so it's a non-zero number! Been years since I went to one.

I had one a few weeks ago for the first time in probably a decade. It was so much fun that we're going to try to organize them more frequently.

Don't forget the NR200P [1] which is mass produced and cheap.

[1]: https://www.coolermaster.com/sg/en-sg/catalog/cases/mini-itx...

I like handles. I had mac pros with them (g4 and original). My system76 mini desktop has a nice case and is significantly lighter, but the handles are a nice touch.

The mention literally crashing the machine on the original design when the case broke, hopefully means this one is quite sturdy.

Big annoyance with SFF builds is noise. Many of these are overall smaller than just my GPU and CPU cooler, and SFX PSUs have smaller fans and aren’t available in passive configurations. And they’re usually more expensive than a more normal-sized build.

There are really two flavours of SFF PC: those with a full-power GPU (typically for gaming or professional use) and those that don't. For the latter, it shouldn't be too hard to build something even passively cooled. You can go even smaller. I know less about this space because it hasn't been my focus however.

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.

> Big annoyance with SFF builds is noise.

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.

They do OK in noise-normalized tests, which are good for comparing and still relatively easy to perform. They're inadequate for quiet operation though. In fact the huge coolers I am using currently are barely adequate for their respective components - they require clearly audible fan speeds to avoid unhealthily high temperatures under sustained load. Certainly not extremely quiet; I'm not really happy with it, and I have the best air coolers with some of the best fans and the best thermal compound on the market and I have very carefully tuned fan profiles. Water cooling would offer slightly better cooling performance, but it has other issues - mainly pump and motor noise - plus it's rather expensive (more than 10x the cost of air cooling).

You can of course make an extremely quiet SFF build, just not with an upper-midrange CPU and a highend GPU. With the same components you can make a decently quiet mid-tower desktop, like I have.

("Extremely quiet", "virtually noiseless" and so on are pet-peeve phrases of mine - I'm always assuming that marketing people are half-deaf because they keep referring to stuff emitting 20 dBa or more like this.)

If your goal is as close to noiseless as possible, a big case with a lot of sound dampening material is the way to go.

However, the modern SFF experience is much better than you give it credit for. An AMD 5950X with a 240mm AIO in a mini-ITX case is easy these days and it keeps the CPU temperature in a reasonable range.

But if your goal is a no-compromise quietest build possible, obviously you don't want to get a small case.

> plus it's rather expensive (more than 10x the cost of air cooling).

I'm not sure where you're getting these numbers, but modern AIO water cooling isn't that expensive.

You can get a good 240mm AIO cooler for about 1.5X the price of a good air cooler: https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Radiator-Software-Control-Liq...

> I'm not sure where you're getting these numbers, but modern AIO water cooling isn't that expensive.

I could have been more clear here, I meant a custom-loop, not an AIO since they're a sidegrade to a top-end air-cooler at best.

> However, the modern SFF experience is much better than you give it credit for. An AMD 5950X with a 240mm AIO in a mini-ITX case is easy these days and it keeps the CPU temperature in a reasonable range.

I don't see the contradiction - you can have a quiet SSF build, and you can have pretty powerful SFF builds (enthusiast GPUs might be a problem), but you can't really have both at the same time... at least not under load.

The space is evolving. https://www.winterdesign.co/ -- this ultimately proved too expensive to produce in large quantities (due to the massive spike in the price of Aluminium), but it's a mini-ITX case with 2x280mm radiators.

I managed get one cheap-ish from the Kickstarter, and while it's got some flaws (and was a total bastard to build in -- it's a very small space to do a custom loop), it's everything promised on the tin; small, quiet, powerful (5600X and a 6800XT -- even when gaming the fans don't ramp above 40%, though admittedly that may change in summer).

> I could have been more clear here, I meant a custom-loop, not an AIO since they're a sidegrade to a top-end air-cooler at best.

Custom loop and an AIO of the same size are going to perform the same. I don't understand why you're suggesting that water cooling costs "10X" as much as air cooling when that's clearly not true.

An AIO and a custom loop with the same size radiator will perform the same. I've done custom loops and I've done AIOs. There's nothing special about a custom loop other than you get to mix and match different components.

Also, the top-end air coolers like Noctua perform almost as well as liquid cooling these days.

> I don't see the contradiction - you can have a quiet SSF build, and you can have pretty powerful SFF builds (enthusiast GPUs might be a problem), but you can't really have both at the same time... at least not under load.

I'm telling you - I have a 5950X and a 240mm AIO in a SFF and it's quiet. I could move the same CPU and the same AIO to a big case with sound dampening and it might be marginally quieter, but not by a huge amount. The only real difference is when I'm running the GPU at full tilt during gaming, but it's undervolted and I can't hear it over the game anyway so I really don't care.

> This isn't true.

I don't understand why you claim something is not true, then say the same thing with different words.

the mobo is the itx premium tax, sff PSUs aren't so bad, bit more. itx mobos seem to start at double matx.

What happened to external graphics cards? That seems to be the way forward to me.

Thunderbolt 3/4 max out at 40Gbps of bandwidth.

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 bought a Louqe Ghost S1 from the original Kickstarter, I still love it. Solid as a rock, really high quality. There are a few minor design issues like the tophats warping if you screw them in too hard but otherwise it's the perfect form factor (plus it looks great).

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).

I think being able to fit MicroATX gives you a bit more options and they are not that much larger. From the picture I would have guessed it could fit it. Nice overall look though.

Size comparison motherboards for reference: https://www.gamersglobal.de/sites/gamersglobal.de/files/user...

Personally I use a midi tower at home.

r/sffpc is solid with a spreadsheet covering parts, cases, etc for compatibility and more. I just moved into a Lian Li Q58 from an SG05, bigger but cooler.

I have plenty of room so I like my tower, thank you very much. I have plenty of room and it allows me to play with various disk combos and multiple video cards. I love the mac mini for other reasons and use it as a NAS and multimedia center in my living room where space is as a premium for hiding away stuff. There is no reason to assume no one else has a need for other form factors than these mini computers.

> The days of needing a tower are over for most people. I'm all about space-saving while still having a full-power PC.

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.

MicroATX Threadripper boards are theoretically possible, if you go chipsetless like in X300 or EPYC.

heck, I have an epyc on an almost-ITX (https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=R...) board now, and any of the noctua TR4/SP3 tower coolers will cool it fine.

>I'm a big fan of this form factor, specifically just big enough to fit a motherboard/CPU/RAM plus a real-size GPU.

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.

The Dr Zaber Sentry case is also pretty good http://zaber.com.pl/sentry/. I'm not sure they will make them again though. Mine is pretty nice, though you need to be careful about your GPU size.

> The days of needing a tower are over for most people. I'm all about space-saving while still having a full-power PC

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 don't know about this "boutique" vibe. For me the entire idea of a desktop PC is saying "no" to any trade-offs. There's so little actual difference in footprint between those and classic middle-tower that it actually does not make any sense to me. Instead I prefer to have an ability to infinite expansion and upgrade. What if I want a super wide bandwidth storage for some data processing? I will buy an expansion PCI card for like 40 bucks and put 4 M.2 NVMes there as RAID0 stripe. Having an ability to expand RAM instead of trading in is quite good too. And last, but not least, a question of price. $200 for a case without PSU?!

The size difference can be substantial.

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)

One PCI slot is effectively zero PCI slots because I don't know who is seriously using internal graphics. Maybe as a temporary solution to get things up and running and buy GPU later (doesn't work with AMD, though). This, by the way, is another perk of a desktop PC - the ability to postpone some upgrades.

To expand the RAM you will have to buy new sticks first and then try to sell old ones, with the discount, of course. My ATX board supports 4 sticks, so I could start with just one 16Gb (with bandwidth penalty, but still) and pump it up to 64Gb without any reselling hussle. I am also a happy owner of ASRock B350 motherboard so it is 6 years from Zen 1 to Zen 3 all the way for me.

I don't even want to start bragging about switching from air to water cooling for silence sake, I don't think it is even possible with mini ITX form factor.

So, once again, for me the main perk of desktop PC is upgradability, and mini ITX seriously impairs that.

I don't game (but would like to be able too). I ran intel integrated graphics for 5 years and never missed a thing ;).

I put 16G in my machine in '15 and rarely exceed 3-4G daily use even today (and for a long time 1-2G daily - I recently switched to Budgie desktop so it's jumped a bit). At this point I'd just buy new ram and the two sticks I have go into the surplus pile but my motherboard (depend on source) only supports 16 (it's oldish also from 2015)

There are water cooling for SFF cases (mine can take a 120MM radiator for instance - the ghost mentioned upthread can take up to a full 360 with the tophat) but I put a Noctua CPU cooler in and changed out the fan on it. Stays nice and cool. My Caselabs itx case could do up to 3 360MM Radiators but was not SFF (by a large amount!).

On the upgrade path, it's so long between that I usually just build a new machine, 6+ years so far on my current desktop and good enough until I find it not. By then, DDR5. PCIE 4.x, etc, etc

I am not trying to convince you to get one, just show that there's a market for SFF... just like there's one for latops, rackmounts, NUCS, stickpcs, Pis and yes even EATX Threadripper monsters in cases on casters ;)

With your circumstances (internal graphics, 4GB RAM tops) I would consider using Raspberry PI 4 as a desktop computer (seriously, no sarcasm). If you are interested in reduced footprint, take a look at Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny series: they have a VESA mount to hang behind the monitor and the price starts around $400 (your ITX case + PSU)

No quite enough CPU ;). It's getting a bit dated of course, but my machine is running a Devils Canyon 4790k (at stock speeds), 16G ram, 1.5TB of storage (NVME M2 and a 2.5" drive) and a rx5700.

If you don’t mind limiting your CPU choices, there’s nothing stopping you from using one of AMD’s CPUs that come with integrated graphics. I did this for a short while with a Ryzen 5 2400G before purchasing an external graphics card (and eventually replacing the CPU too).

I like that case.

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.

The gathering place for fans is https://smallformfactor.net/forum/

but it doesn't fit my dual xeon supermicro EEATX

mini itx isn’t restricted to 2 DIMMs

I agree wholeheartedly. I built my first ITX machine at the beginning of 2021, and the case choices were fairly dire. The Ghost S1 was sold out, and finding anything else with a decent aesthetic that didn't cost $200+ USD was near impossible. I settled on a Silverstone SG13, which is great utilitarian case, and supports decent sized GPUs.

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.

Before my Ghost some 7-8 years ago I built a SFF PC with a Silverstone case. IIRC it was the SG08. It's old enough that it had a tray and a slot to put a slimline optical drive. It wasn't a bad case and had a decent PSU included but it was a bit fiddly. For example, you had to remove a few things to get into the case properly. I also ended up breaking the wire to some button at the back.

But yeah I sympathize with the issues in sourcing the Ghost. My first one took like 8 months to get.

I mean...neat? But the price is insane. £195 for a very basic case that you have to assemble yourself?

I think anyone complaining about the price is missing something. Anything produced in small quantities will be expensive and I wouldn’t even assume they themselves thinks this product is gonna be profitable. I suspect a lot of the projects TE puts out is more about showcasing their design language to then be able to do collaborations with other brands like IKEA who can take a product to a broader market.

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.

This isn't an injection molded part or something with electronic components. There aren't even any fans included.

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.

And the cost of the design, which you’re pricing at $0.

Personally I thought it was cool and if I were in the market to build a PC I’d consider it.

Actually a laser or waterjet has to pierce all those arrays of holes and slots, which take time, which is what you charge for. Plus deburring and powdercoating. At only 1mm thick the pierces will go fast, but prices will not be cheap until you're punching out low thousands on a CNC turret punch. Source: I own and operate a waterjet and frequently design similar parts.

I get what you're saying. But as a consumer, I don't care what the production costs. I care what the product itself costs and what I'm getting out of it vs what similar products cost and what I get out of those.

The people buying Mini-ITX cases for custom PC builds are typically hobbyists, and the value they derive from these cases (which are expensive across the board, it's a niche low-volume market) is not the same value you or I get from buying a (relatively) cheap ATX tower and throwing whatever parts into it. If you go looking for "similar products", I guarantee that you will find some very expensive cases indeed.

Not every product is for every consumer. This case is already sold out, so apparently somebody wants it.

My Phanteks Evolv Shift Air 2 mini-ITX case was about 120 € (with one 140 mm fan) and I don't think it was that expensive. And it looks really nice + fits beefier components.

The Evolv Shift Air 2 is a cool case, but (as you say) it is on the large side for Mini-ITX cases and therefore likely has much more mass appeal, since the smaller a case is the more difficult (and rewarding for hobbyists/enthusiasts) it will be to spec out components that fit and have adequate cooling.

Just comparing it to some other popular Mini-ITX cases, 23 liters for the Evolv Shift Air 2 is nearly twice the volume of the NZXT H1 (13 liters), and far in excess of the Dan 4 (7 liters) or the Velka 5 (5 liters). Especially the latter two cases are extremely challenging to build in, and at 8.5 liters the "computer-1" is arguably most comparable to that segment despite its GPU length limitations. It's not a put-whatever-you-want-in-it case, and that makes it a niche offering.

I'm not going to argue that there's no TE tax attached here, especially since (unlike similar cases) it doesn't include a PCIe riser or other electronic components, but it's not way out of range for its market segment.

Well, maybe you as a consumer can value the effort this guy made and pay it. I mean, not every one of your consumer decisions has to be based on the lowest price possible.

Exactly. The PC case market is actually really competitive these days. It seems like new high quality cases at a good cost are coming out on a monthly basis at this point. Teenage Engineering makes cool stuff and this case looks nice, but I don't think I would ever spend this kind of money on a case.

Also value-oriented builders probably wouldn't want to use the ITX form factor given they're always more expensive than mATX with a on-par feature set at best. ITX builders likely are not price conscious.

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.

It's Teenage Engineering. None of their stuff is cheap, and you're paying mainly for the aesthetic.

They make high quality stuff. I have an OP-1 synthesizer. It's not just good looking, it's an amazingly innovative and fun device.

I'm not sure that is still the case. I have an OP-Z and lurking forums for that device reveals tons of posts about build / hardware issues. Luckily my secondhand unit only has SOME broken components but it's pretty widely known as an incredibly fragile device with many design flaws

The OP-Z is made of plastic. The OP-1 is all aluminum.

There's plenty of products made with plastic that holds up well, even in the most harsh environments.

They decided to make the OP-Z out of plastic and it didn't hold up well. It's the fault of their poor design, or at least the type of plastic they decided to use, not the materials.

Not saying OP-1 is a bad product, but it is VERY expensive, and one could argue that the aesthetic of the OP-1 is what makes it a good device.

For something like a PC case, there's already a LOT of options in aesthetics, so asking for nearly $200 for a case (that, as pointed out, you have to assemble yourself!) is a bit much to swallow. $200 gets you basically the highest end case in ANY look that you want. Perhaps not this 'unique', but you have a plethora of options.

I agree that their stuff is high quality concept-wise; at the same time their products are not very durable. E.g. OP-1 is prone to failures; knobs break, ports and keys stop working. In case someone likes high quality and durable products, I recommend doing careful research before buying from this brand.

I might be a little more forgiving to their cause if they didn't drastically increase the price after it became popular.

They used to make high quality stuff. OPZ and OB4 have been a huge let down in terms of build quality and sturdiness.

Wish it wasn't unbelievably expensive. I have wanted to get one for sometime now. Rather amazing little device.

I think you mean A E S T H E T I C

Don't you mean a e s t h e t i c?

You mean ＡＥＳＴＨＥＴＩＣ ?

except those pocket operators. Those are pretty affordable music thing. Its basically a circuit board, even the hanging part is part of the board.

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!

Its not for computer people it's for teenage engineering people. There's a big difference.

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.

A synth head looking for a SFF should get a Mac mini, much better value for music production than this tiny pc.

I think their just showcasing their proof of concept.

It's not a PC it's a case and it was designed for their own team computer needs which is presumably a nice looking case for a high end build to run CAD software.

The number of PC components that look nice, not the designed for gamers RGB aesthetic is miniscule, so they're definitely going to do alright with sales of this.

They were for sale so it's not really about the showcase. This ain't for all synth heads this is for the teenage engineering enthusiast synthheads.

Not just assemble but actually bend/form the corners yourself.

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.

It's Teenage Engineer!

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.

I own one. It's amazing. Don't knock it till you try it! It's a $700 toy, not a radio. It works well in their ecosystem if you have other TE stuff, It's hours of enjoyment playing with it. It's well worth the money for the fun (I even used it to get off alcohol, every time I wanted to drink I was usually bored so I played with it every time I wanted to drink), unfortunately the build quality is awful.

I agree with everything you are saying except that pocket operators are actually quite neat. But yeah, everything else is actually really pricey and actually has a lot of reliability problems. You see a lot of people paying that $1200 for the OP-1 and it just breaks and TE doesn't support their product either.

It looks like you at least heard of this product before and yet you completely misrepresent it for some reason. This is not just a radio, it’s a music instrument of sorts: it continuously records what you hear on the radio and allows you to manipulate it in real time (rewind, loop, time stretch).

It’s a Bluetooth speaker.

Compared to other high end design speakers such as B&O / BeoSound it’s not particularly pricey, if at all.

Looks like something designed by Dieter Rams.

Looks like something designed by Dieter Rams around 1969.

Which I guess is the point.

Zero appeal for me, but I'm clearly not the target audience.

The radio is incomplete without the $400 leather bag.

Is that a bootleg G-shock?

I love the pocket operators :)

Niche product you’re buying for the design and aesthetic, 200 seems very fair to me.

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.

Teenage Engineering had previously been victims of their own success.

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.

In the SFF (small form factor) case game this is a quite reasonable price. Check out the ncase, ghost s1, etc.

The Ncase is no more, sadly. The company is still around, so everyone is expecting they'll have a new case eventually, but the M1 is EOL.

But why?

Here's their statement: https://ncases.com/blogs/news/farewell-m1-classic

My read is that there's a lot more competition now. The M1 just isn't as competitive with (for example) the NR200 being so similar, 1/2 the price, and produced by a major manufacturer/system integrator.

It's not the SFF case that I'm using now, but it's the one I used the longest and was certainly the most versatile. If I hadn't decided to build my first custom loop in the Meshlicious, I'd still be using my M1 today.

I mean, popular sliger m-itx cases are around $250

https://www.sliger.com/products/cases/s620/

On one hand mini ITX cases tend to come with a price premium if they're anything more than the most basic plastic case.

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.

What was your experience using the Playdate that informed you that it should be relegated to a designers desk?

Teenage Engineering is literally selling a dock with a pen holder for the thing.

I feel like this is supposed to be a well-laid trap of a question, but c'mon... technically Amiibo are for unlocking in-game extras, what's my experience with those for them to end up relegated to a designer's desk?

It's not a "trap". If you say something like this:

> This is another functional display piece for a designer's desk, just like the Playdate.

Then you'd better have something to back it up. And unless you're one of the few people who've actually used a Playdate (who actually had largely positive impressions IIRC) then what basis in fact, or even in subjective experience does your comment actually have?

Seems to me the answer is none. And that's worth calling out.

The fact that it literally turns into a desk clock instead of turning off by default isn't something?

The fact the creators of it are letting you put it on double duty as a pen holder isn't something?

Are you joking?

The problem is you're getting upset someone dared to imply this amazing device is going to end up unused...

As if Teenage Engineering of all companies didn't realize a lot of people will treat these like an interactive desk ornament. So they made it look striking. And maybe thought of a cool way to display it.

Maybe like, a stand. With a pen holder.

As if something that's intentionally niche in functionality and divergent in design is never released in limited quantity to double as a statement piece... (Not a chance: https://www.kanyewest.com/)

I know HN users do enjoy purposefully acting like they lack basic context on things they're braying about so they can turn around and go "Cite your sources! How dare you assume I know what I'm talking about!"... but how like how does anyone with any idea what Teenage Engineering is as a company and un-ironically think:

"What blasphemy! To imply their items are aesthetically pleasing enough to become ornaments rather than be heavily used!"

If you agree that you have no useful opinion on the Playdate's practical merits as a video game console, then maybe you should edit your original comment to say what you now claim to mean. Making this explicitly negative value judgment about the functionality of the PC case:

> 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.

Directly followed by a direct comparison to the Playdate (emphasis mine):

> This is another functional display piece for a designer's desk, just like the Playdate.

Can really only be interpreted one way.

What are you on about?

If you were concerned with useful opinions you would have sat quietly until you got this through your head before blabbing:

*The Playdate's practical merits as a video game console have zero bearing on its suitability as a desk ornament.*

It's a wonderful designer desk ornament, flashy, you can pick it up and use it as a console when you're board, limited availability, people who know what it is will immediately recognize it and see you as part of the in-crowd, great conversation piece for people who don't know what it is.

Like are you just this out of touch with the world of limited availability merch? If I say that the Balenciaga Triple S is just a way to flaunt, are you going to complain that I didn't go based on the practical merits as a sneaker?

This entire conversation arises from you wrongly assuming that calling it an ornament was an evaluation of its merit as a console, then refusing to back down on your wrong assumption.

And I mean, if you really want to go there...

All reviews of it are based on the promise of what it could be since the entire season of games promises doesn't exist yet...

The SDK isn't out yet... except if you got cosy with the right people in the Discord server. That sounds a lot like Nintendo? Sony? Microsoft? For a device that won't have .001% of titles they end up with? the So much for a device focused on open development lol...

Hilariously the ... Playdate... doesn't work for play-dates. Despite Bluetooth and WiFi Panic have confirmed the SDK does not support networking APIs (I can already hear the gears whirring in your head though "I don't like multiplayer so no one else can!")

No backlighting despite the fact the display tech used would have supported edge lighting without sacrificing daylight performance, and even backlighting if planned for (Sharp produces transreflective versions of the LCD in question with no reduction in daylight performance)

Games base can only be accessed on a schedule specific to your device, which is a lovely thing to do to people ordering. If you got yours first, you get more games than people who get there's later. No way this is supposed to add to the exclusivity of the early adopters though :)

Do you need me to go on? It's very easy to tear down its "merit as a console" when all that "merit" is based on potential and next to nothing in established execution that the reviewers could access lol.

The thing literally damages it's own merit as a console intentionally by limiting input and output in a bid to chase this existence as a nostalgia-fueled simulacrum of by gone consoles lol.

Okay. So just to make this very clear: you very much do have an opinion on the practical merits (viz. "fun") of a game console you have never in your life seen or touched, let alone used for any meaningful length of time, and you very much did intend that meaning in your original comment.

So you may refer back to my original comment in this subthread for a succinct explanation of why your opinion, upon which you have expounded rather incoherently and at some length, is utterly worthless: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29032691

I'm sure you'll reply to this comment, but I doubt whatever you write will be worth any more keystrokes on my part. I think this ties it up rather nicely, anyway.

Wait, let me get this straight, you're incapable of evaluating a product without holding it in hand?

Something a toddler can do, say select between two cupcakes without eating them, you're incapable of?

Your keystrokes haven't been worth much so far, but I do welcome silence from people who not only lack the faculties to make basic observations, but attempt to find fault in others for doing so...

Of course, you'll reply to this and explain why such a basic shortcoming is actually a good thing! At least that would be par for the course...

Yeah, you can absolutely buy much cheaper cases. I think this type of thing is to appeal to people who like to look fashionable. The same group that forks over a couple of extra hundred bucks per build on RGB accessories.

The price is pretty comparable to other enthusiast-tier mini-ITX cases, like the Skyreach 4 mini.

I love 'no frills' PC cases, but to me, this case has frills. The bright orange, the rounded corners and all the cutouts. This PC case is a 'wow! what is that weird PC case!?' type of case. I like cases that you dont even notice: Sliger designs [1]

1: https://www.sliger.com/products/cases/cerberus/

Re: mini itx cases, I'm surprised no one is mentioning the meshlicious case[1] (linking to Newegg because ssupd's website seems to always be so slow). The nice thing about this case is that it comes with a pcie riser allowing for some pretty large GPUs to fit in it.

[1] https://www.newegg.com/black-ssupd-meshlicious-mini-itx/p/2A...

Just did two builds in this case and absolutely love it! Re:Hair/dust, the side panels are so easy to remove that it's been no problem to just hit it with a duster every once in a while. It's small enough to easily take outside for a cleaning, compared to the effort needed to clean my full tower.

Interesting design! But I have to wonder how well it works in places with hairy animals in them, or places that have more dust than general (older buildings, exposed "hipster" walls and on so on). Cleaning the inside of the PC once a year would probably not be enough anymore.

I just built a Ryzen 5800x / B550i / RTX 3080 (well, 3080 is arriving tomorrow) to replace an aging i7-2600k + 980ti build mid tower, used an 18L CoolerMaster NR200p case [1], and pretty happy with that case overall-- lots of flexibility, though a bit bigger than most of the SFF PCs.

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...

Having built ITX for NAS before I would highly suggest to get a SAMA IM01 mATX case which is almost as small as an ITX case and will let you avoid ITX price premiums on MB's, RAM, and GPX cards. mATX MB's are much cheaper and will give you lot more options.

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16811197012

That's a very expensive price for unassembled computer case with questionable aesthetics and missing many premium features of similarly priced products. I don't even think this is a good market fit. I don't think this case would be a good learning tool.

You don’t think there is a market fit and yet it’s already sold out? I am not defending the form factor or esthetics, but TE has a huge following and their products are usually very successful.

The market fit is existing TE fans that buy anything they make. Their page doesn't even say why you want this over something else or its functional features. Its not really a market product so much as low run TE fanservice. That's why it sold out - because they didn't make more than they expected to sell.

And if they profited from it, isn't that enough? There's a market, however small, and they produced enough. I would argue that TE knows its customers really well.

Its a bit like an art piece. Its like YouTubers writing novels or comic books and selling them to their existing audience. Is the money real? For sure. But they're really not competing with anyone in a market they're just relying on a small group of people who buy whatever they make. Good for them but not really interesting in its own merits.

The bright (and not stupid ‘gamer’ rgb) colors are worth a premium for me. Show me some non-boring cases!

No drive cage? How does everything mount? They've provided zero photos of the interior of an assembled machine.

Given that the ncase is now out of production this may be one of the best sub 10L cases out there. Hybrid 2 slot card in my ncase would likely slot perfectly fine in this guy.

Also y'all gotta stop hating on this price it's actually very reasonable in the sff pc case market.

Oh damn, didn't know that they stopped production. Seems like I got lucky then when I ordered mine last month. It is truly an amazing case!

ncase can fit a much larger card -- it looks like this can only hold a 180mm dual slot.

£195 for 1mm sheet aluminium which you have to assemble (and bend) yourself?

Fools and their money...

Wait you have to bend it yourself?

Yeah, scroll ~75% down their product page and you'll see the flat sheets they ship you. You have to bend it at the perforated-looking lines to assemble the case.

If you want a good mini-ITX case, just buy a Node 202. You can use it horizontally and put your monitor on top of it.

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.

I have a Node 202, and I wouldn't put a monitor that weighs more than 10 pounds on it.

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.

I have a node 202 with water cooling that I built specifically to run Half Life Alyx at max specs while traveling for work. Fits in a larger ebags backpack very nicely with all the Valve Index kit. Now that I beat HL:A and am not traveling for work it sits under my TV and is pretty much a dedicated Satisfactory machine via steam controller.

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.

I second this. I use a Node 202 case for my firewall box.

Funny, I was just drafting an email to Teenage Engineering today begging for a replacement for my ancient iPod. Since this seems related I'll just paste in my notes here:

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?

At this price point... it's made for fans. Fans of Teenage Engineering.

Beautiful but no thanks, too expensive.

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.

I'm actually on the lookout for a small case but for a different purpose - I want to build a NAS enclosure that will hold at least 4 full size 3.5" drives in the most compact form factor possible. I was hoping one of those might do the trick but they are not geared towards 3.5" HDD

The Fractal Node 304 is an ITX case which handles that use-case pretty well. It's the smallest ITX case I know of which can fit 6 full-size 3.5" drives.

Great case. Shame there are no AM4 ITX motherboards with 6x SATA3 ports.

There are m-ATX AM4 motherboards with 6x SATA3 ports. Can anyone recommend a case smaller than a Node 804?

Thank you for that. Exactly the answer I was hoping to get.

The photos show it powder coated flat, then bent. I wonder how they kept the coat from flaking off at the bends?

powder coat doesn't flake if applied properly, and some coats are tested for and guaranteed to withstand a 180 degree bend without disturbance.

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.

I was actually just today looking at chassis like this for an upcoming build, really good timing! This looks really neat.

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!

https://streacom.com/products/f12c-atx-case/

I've wanted to build a PC in the Cryorig Taku for a few years now. http://www.cryorig.com/taku.php

But the Node 202 would be the much cheaper option.

wow that's a beauty!

Probably look for HTPC cases?

For example https://www.thermaltake.com/core-g3.html or https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?area=en&pid=488

I currently have a massive full tower PC that's water cooled and to be honest I hate it. Its great for gaming but otherwise I think I would much rather have a small mini-ITX pc like this that can be portable, and when I need to run demanding code I can just use a VPS.

There are some great larger cases though. I’m a big fan of Lian-Li’s cases, although they can be massive, its design is good.

You'd be surprised what kind of hardware you can put in an ITX case. You can, with some effort, build a water-cooled PC with a 5950x and a n RTX 3090 in under 15 liters of volume.

What monitor is that?

Eizo EV2730Q-BK

More interesting than the chassis. If this had 3840x3840 resolution I would buy two of them. The 1:1 aspect ratio is very attractive.

Yeah - I want that monitor but the dpi is a little too low to justify the price.

Does anyone have DIY designs (shapes to mill/laser cut) for something similar to this? I refuse to pay more than 50€ for a case, yet would like something somewhat compact and able to hold my 4 3,5” and 2 2,5” drives (cooling requirements are not very high).

I'm glad it's sold out. I was tempted to buy it even though I know I'd screw it up doing the bending and separating myself. I'm so bad at DIY. I know to buy extras and backups for everything because of how often I screw stuff up.

tech products seem to always fall into one of two camps:

- made by an evil society-destroying corporation

- sold out forever

IMO, most likely because the tendency for a corporation to turn into something "evil [and] society-destroying" increases with size.

I’m still looking for a case and this one is pretty cute.

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.

> 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.

Yeah, it looks really nice indeed, which is unfortunately rare for PC cases. But no thanks, computing power and low noise are more important to me. Waiting for a nice looking and silent ATX case :>

I ended up going with the NZXT H1 for my mITX case, and while it has had issues I had to fix, I'm finally happy with it I guess. My competitor was the the Fractal Design 7 Compact had I gone ATX, so if you're diehard about this I'd recommend it, and it's also still very small: https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/define/define-...

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.

I have a Ryzen 3950X in an Antec P180. The GPU is an undervolted AMD R9 280x with custom, larger, fans. The case is okay - I guess the Fractal Design looks a little nicer and is probably less of a behemoth, but it's not worth upgrading. I have a powerful near-silent computer already and it looks... okayish.

This is nice, but I just built my first ITX based SFFPC in the GEEK G1 SE and would consider it to have fewer frills, while not requiring assembly, and about half the price. I don't see it mentioned too often so wanted to share it as an option if you want to go this route but keep it simple. Great airflow too :) https://www.geeekstore.com/shop/geeek-g1-se-miniitx-case/

I wonder what the RF emissions are like on that case.

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.

got the email, saw it 5-6min later, already sold out. neato

same, hope they double-down on the demand and shoot some more out soon

Dug a bit for size info: "outer dimensions (mm): W 170 D 190 H 322"

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.

Those handles make it a good LAN party case!

They only missed the golden days of LAN parties by about 20-25 years.

I just built a new computer with the XTIA Proto-N and I'm really really happy with it. It's super compact, easy to access and swap out components and quite pleasing to the eye. It's also not as expensive as a lot of closed m-ITX cases either. Highly recommended!

Since they give something very similar to blue-prints, can it be considered open source? Certainly no free (as in speech) because they say nothing about licensing.

Also, given I have dimensions and diagrams, how is called the type of service which builds it "from source"?

There's plenty of companies that will lasercut metal from a AI/SVG/DXF file. In the US, there's https://www.ponoko.com/

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.

I've heard about a workshop that do plasma cuts. Just wanted to know how it is called!

First time seeing this brand. The site is cool and their products seem interesting but I can't quite figure out the market segment here?

Do they focus on audio gear (synths, speakers, ect..) clothes, computer cases?? Product lines seem all over the place.

@teenage.engineering - the 2nd - 3rd line of hero text is hidden by the image on mobile.

Anyone know who makes that industrial-looking plywood top table shown in the photos?

It says:

NEW! FIELD DESK AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

Ah, that's not visible on mobile. Thanks!

I was wondering if I put a 3080 in there, would it fit?? The card's dimensions are 285 mm x 112 mm x 40 mm The chasis supports dual-slot up to 180 mm.

so I think the answer is...nope :(

now the next question is: what GPU can I fit that's dual and 180mm?

The Dan A4 can fit a 3080 (or any GPU up to 300mm). They also can fit an AIO!

Mine stays cooler than my tower, somehow. Was not easy to build, but damn it is sexy.

https://imgur.com/a/1hXg2Sz#db15yTr

I think there are some small form factor 3060s and 3060 Tis that will fit in this case. If you want to fit a 3080 you're gonna have to look at bigger cases like the NR200 or Meshlicious.

Even if it did fit, I'd think you might start to have to worry about thermal throttling.

They intentionally load a blurred image before the real image, as if you are viewing a progressive jpeg (for all their products, not just this chassis). highly annoying. i'll pass on this design aesthetic myself!

I own a bunch of TE products. They charge way too much for some of them.

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

I really is an excellent design aesthetic. I would love to see what these folks would do with the notion of designing a modular home 'rack' system for in-home services.

I need to know how airflow works for me to ever consider any case.

180mm GPU is a shame. Would be an instant buy for me otherwise, but if you want to build a capable gaming machine I think that's a real stretch.

Will the airflow "work" with all the gaps?

That was my first thought.

With all those gaps you'll need to push fans harder to get the same cooling and keep dust out.

180mm, dual slot only gpu. That eliminates a bunch of gpus on the market. I guess they're targeting this at not gamers that build pcs?

I would say musicians but don't most people use Macs anyway? I guess someone must be using Linux Renoise besides me...

I know it’s way too expensive, and it is probably terrible at containing fan noise … yet … it kinda makes me want to own a desktop PCs.

What model is the squared screen from the photo?

It looks amazing!

Indeed. Looks awesome. I think there aren't many - the only one a mere mortal could find was the 1980x1980 by Eizo, IIRC.

It's an Eizo FlexScan EV2730Q

Aren’t there any other options?

Air traffic 2048x2048 monitors excepted.

That solid top panel looks like it's almost fully obstructing airflow to a GPU cooler

Think the perferated panel is the top, and the rear intake is completely exposed.

Ahh my bad. The only photo that showed the top panel in place on mobile is angled such that it looked solid. The pics on desktop look even better.

I wonder how they're manufacturing these. Fiber laser? Turret punch?

ummm, 195 bucks?

I can buy a pretty nice mini-itx cube shaped case on newegg for 80.

is there any open design chasis? like a CAD file you can modify yourself? if you're living around shenzhen it's probably not expensive to find a manufacturer

Would like to have the MDF version probably LOL

i sold my desktop pc recently and went with a mini pc (asrock deskmini x300). these mini pc are so powerful these days

They just continue to surprise.. Incredible talent and inspiration in that company! Makes me proud to be a Swede. :)

neat

That's the worst monitor I've ever seen, about half way down the page. What's up with that?

Square or portrait aspect monitors rock for most computer work that's not media. Give it a try sometime.

It's a shame square monitors are not more common. The HAL-9000 console had 8 of them!

Yeah I did. In 2005. With 1024x768 square screen laptops.

Of course, downvoted for point out how a dumb screen ratio is bad. Typical HN.

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