By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Mazty on 08 March 2013
Edit Thread
Pemalite said:
Mazty said:

PC gamer here. Running the GTX560 Ti on an outdated DDR2/940 setup, but still powers through most games.

The question I'd like to ask people here is:

Is small the new big? If you haven't guessed the meaning, I mean are small gaming builds now "better" than full tower cases? If you had to make a new PC, would you go for a full ATX setup, or go for a mini-itx setup?


Well. It depends on where the build is going and what it's main purpose is going to be and what kind of components you're looking at.

My HTPC for instance has a Radeon 7770 in a Mini-ITX case, My AMD FX build is in a Micro-ATX case and my Intel build is in a Full-ATX case.
In-fact because I've sold my 3x Radeon 7970's in my Intel build and now looking for some reference 7970's so I can throw everything under water... I'm actually looking to go with a larger case again, which has the benefit of better cooling and hopefully lower noise and more expandability.
Plus it doesn't exactly stop you from using smaller compact components either, but smaller cases do limit your choices with larger components though.

It all comes down to what you want and where you want to put it in the end, doing water cooling in a Mini-ITX build isn't exactly a cake walk.

Oh yeah having a non-closed loop water cooled mini-itx would be incredibly challenging in the smaller cases. Although is there really a need for water cooling? Sure the overclocks are nice, but unless you're doing insane rendering/media work, is there any game that really pushes cards hard without being a result of crap coding?