4 of 5Neat small case but needs special parts Tuesday, May 26, 2009 Uri from South Florida
I have this case for a few months. The case is very small and compact and the price is very low for a mini ITX case... but when I wanted to build an ITX desktop I faced the following issues:
1) Mini ITX motherboards are far more expansive then ATX or Micro ATX motherboards... but I have found the Zotec MITX motherboard for a bit over $40 (got the 630 model for the better video)... works great with an Intel E5200 CPU... 2) The case/mobo seem to fit best with one PSU (....!) a PicoPSU 150 that fits perfectly on the 24 pin power socket and has the right plugs for peripherals (although you will still need one 3 pin to molex fan adapter). 3) I am using a Travelstar 7200RPM hard drive... a perfect fit. 4) I swapped the OEM CPU cooler for a low profile after market version... now I can install two hard drives and even configure a RAID. 5) At first I bought the (very hard to find) Aopen CDROM add on stackable accessory for this case... then realized I am better off with an external slim USB drive. I bought a USB slim (drive-less) case for $12 and moved the DVD burner into that case.. am happy! 6) Last but not least: The PicoPSU or any DC-DC internal PSU that fits in this case (including those that are built into the motherboard) would require an external 12V "Brick" power supply. I have been using a 5A PSU that I borrowed from an LCD monitor. That one does not provide enough power for the E5200 CPU... I changed to a 9A PSU that I obtained on "Fleebay". Overall the machine runs amazingly well as both a desktop and a web application server and has enough processing power to run circles around other computers I had... This device put together may not be a gamer's machine but works fine for server, desktop and video apps, at low power, low noise, very small footprint and relatively low price.
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1 of 2 customers found this review helpful.
1 of 5Pretty but Useless Monday, April 16, 2007 A Customer from Waterford, MI
Mini ITX case:
Nice Piano Black Finish.
No Power Supply and No place to plug in an external Power Supply.
No way to plug in a PCI Card to the motherboard.
The only Reason I have not Returned it is that it is not Worth my time to bother.
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2.5
