I too once dremel'd a pc case to fit everything in. As long as your airflow is fine, you're golden.
The biggest case I could find had literally 1mm of clearance for my video card, I'm starting to think it will become standard procedure at some point.
So that's what it means to think outside the box. I've always wondered.
My daily driver is a PC like that, Thinkcentre tiny 6500T (32GB/2TB samsung, works like a charm!), I would be a itty bitty scared about the power draw as it comes from one of these "laptop plugs". I wonder what's the GPU models...
I also have a game-box for all windoze
crapwearcrapware with a RX6400 to not blow the think centre (tower) PSU.I like think centres.
I had a bulky ATX case with i7-3770k (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) and 3 years ago I switched to a mini PC, Beelink SER5 with a 5600H, 32GB RAM, 512MB M2. It is incredible, it is like 5"x4" on my desk, super silent, super fast, mini PC are incredible! Can plug 3x 4K display. Now they have pretty good GPU too.
First thing I did was to install MX Linux on it. It is my daily PC, using it for work for 3 years now.
Would be great as a local device dedicated to transcoding or running an LLM. Or as a steam machine.
transcoding
It's a ThinkCentre, trans coding is traditionally performed using a ThinkPad.
I have earlier gen and it’s kinda underpowered and undercooled. Sawzall mod should help, but I’d look for results before attempting that.
Cover the cut side panel with some nice black mesh and it could almost look factory
Didn't need to hack the case up, could have simply removed it all together
But then they wouldn't have gotten to go BRRRRRR on that case with a Dremel for two hours OR posts pictures on the Internet of this thing that they almost certainly never used for any sustained period of time.
And what is PC building if not those two things?
I can't argue with that
c/buildapc goes BRRRRRR
At first glance I just thought: Wow, that's packed in so nicely and fits so well! Then I realized the cover was already on...
Are those NVMe GPUs? Where can one obtain such things?
No, there's a specific model of think center tiny with a 16x slot - intended for an Nvidia P620 or T400, or something equivalent from AMD. Cutting the case let this low profile slot in.
Unfortunately AMD doesn't really have any good LP GPUs, most of them are just Display Adapters
newegg had them, but they're VGA only, and NOT for gaming
Depends on if you are space constrained or not.
If not any GPU can be an M.2 GPU, so long as you don't mind the 4x lanes.
Plenty of riser kits available from AliExpress or similar etailors. I've got an old HP all-in-one I've considered strapping a GPU to for some encoding tasks (plex / frigate) but also for shits and giggles.
I've got an old HP all-in-one I've considered strapping a GPU to for some encoding tasks (plex / frigate) but also for shits and giggles.
I did this with a prodesk 600g1. Apart from the hole in the lid, no changes required to the system. (Stock bios, etc.) It does require a separate power supply for the GPU, but it works. I ran it for a while as a portable gaming desktop (switched out the 4130T for a 4770) and it - to my surprise, worked well.
I use one of these at work lol. Unmodified without dedicated graphics though.
Impressive.
Though at that point I would've cut a large square out of the case and gone for a plexi cover, with holes for the fans.
Though this approach is really impressive.
Nice, what are the specs? It would look good with a grill added.
A ltt $69 build. Love it
ltt
Gross
What CPU cooler is that? Looks a lot like the one I just stuck in my Dell XPS 8930.
Do I see a mini pc cluster in your near future? I’ve recently started a home lab with a handful of raspberry pi’s, a Mac mini and go two of these.
Have been selfhosting on an m70q for nearly 3 years. I was looking for an m90q that has an extra ssd slot, or a thinkstation tiny that can hold a t1000 GPU when I found this
Oh that would be nice. I wish these machines were a tad bigger to fit these GPUs.
...
It is only airflow!
Plus both of these fans are compressor style, so they can really move air through their respective channels.
The video card uses it's own exhaust channel out the back, as does the cpu cooler.
There's also a cutout for the CPU hsf? The CPU is getting better cooling than before.
Serious question: does it not fit (with the case closed) otherwise?
It's probably for airflow
It is, the main fan for the whole machine is the one on the right and these machines rely on very little clearance for the fan to work. The slot the GPU is using would usually be expected to be used for a network card. The case itself has no holes/etc for airflow by default there for most models. There's a lot of interesting mods for these cases, usually a bit fancier, but this works.
Temps on these change drastically with the case off.
