The ITX Sandwich megabuild saga

Yeah, I’m having a look at their site. The Cerberus looks a bit bigger than I need, but I’m gonna dig through the rest of em to see what I can find.

Cerberus is pretty small to be honest the X isnt much bigger (just a tiny bit taller for ATX support and thats where all to good mobos come in)


One on the right is Mesify C

1 Like

Is that the meshify C or mini?

ninja’d


Yeah, I’m looking for something a fair bit smaller than the C, so I’m not sure that’s in the right ballpark.

1 Like

image

I’m looking at the SM560 right now.

1 Like

what you really need slap in a 10gbe car there or optane drive

1 Like

Yep, gotta find a x570 with bifurcation support.

would guess as long as its x570 it should be good (direct cpu connection anyway)

I dunno, I really need to double-check.

1 Like

Wendell can probably confirm pretty sure he did the review it had that raiser


has the ribbon cable (bit bigger build then you picked)

Most here suggest a Sandwich style case, and these cases are great; but if you are willing to go up just slightly in volume, I’d like to suggest the 9 liter Pizza-box style SFFTime P-ATX for $109.

Supports full ATX boards while still allowing a small form factor, will allow you to have 10 GB Ethernet and fits full-length cards. If you go with an ITX motherboard, it’s also possible to use bifurbed 10GB Ethernet card, or even a bifurbed m.2 extension card.

NOT made in America, unfortunately, but that is the only drawback I can see.

Another case that might be interesting is the America-made J-Hack Pure XL, a lot more compromises and you would need an ITX GPU card, but there is a 2070 ITX out there if you’re willing to pay for it… :slight_smile:

1 Like

I wanted 10G with a SFF Ryzen build so I went with the ASRock ITX TB3 (that has been mentioned before). It doesn’t have built in 10G but the TB3 allows for a 10G adapter like the Sonnet Solo 10G so you could add that on if/when you setup a 10G network. I did have some issues getting TB3 working but that’s documented here with a solution. As far as I know, the ASRock ITX TB3 is the only Ryzen ITX board with TB3 support.

One thing I will warn you about on the ASRock board is to be careful about which CPU cooler you go with. It has very limited support so depending on the size of your case you may have a few things to keep in mind. I built in a Ghost S1 and pretty much my only option was the Noctua NH-L9x65. Any stock cooler that may come with the chip you buy [probably] won’t work so factor that into your budget if you go that route.

look into MSI boards
my b450m bazooka had bifurcation

if you want small but convention roll the NZXT H200i case . It has decent dust filtration but its not top of the line.

Not happening at Mini ITX and not happening in as smooooollll as possible lol.

The creme de la creme is the https://www.newegg.com/gigabyte-x570-i-aorus-pro-wifi/p/N82E16813145159?&quicklink=true Aorus pro but I view it as largely overkill in comparison to the ASUS ROG Strix. Despite not liking asus this is a practical mobo and half the price lol

It has intels newest AX chipset which means if you got AX in your house its probably going to be a good bit faster than gigabit LAN.

You can go cheaper on the motherboards if you opt for the B platform but ive got no experience in the budget platforms.

Another case I may recommend if you want to get even smaller is the https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php and that can be taken a lot of places with you optionally. Just be aware it needs an SFX power supply.

You can fit any graphics card into the two cases I just mentioned so that should get you started. The rest is up to you. Being an APU I would go for the fastest memory possible or if you arent going an APU I would just go for 3600 and take the extra latency on the ryzen chip. No sense in losing out on memory bandwidth and speed

Both the ASUS and the Aorus support Bifurcation I believe so you could riser out more capabilities and have the GPU at x8

With small cases keep in mind heat will be an issue. I would load in as much airflow as possible. The Dan 4 does better with small form factor GPUs and Blower styles since the heat can be pushed out of the case instead of onto the components

The Dan A4 has been recommended already, I think it’s too small for my GPU. Also, I want room for case fans so I can evacuate heat out the top.

I’ve got a 2.5 slot 1080 ti. Word on the street is it won’t fit in the A4.

Good, good. I’ll probably take that route then and I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do with the extra slot. Maybe go full 1900x and get a single slot AMD card? :thonk:

Yeah, I’m not really planning on doing much intensive stuff with the APU, and I’m even considering not doing passthrough, after sleeping on it, since Proton has come so far in the last year or so.

But, fast memory is going to be my jam this time around. I have 3200 in my Threadripper and it works great, but I’d love to snag 3600 or so.

1 Like

Then yeah your next best is the NZXT H200 or the http://www.phanteks.com/Enthoo-Evolv-ITX.html

I really like the Sliger SM560. I think I’m gonna stick with it, unless I come across something that’s a dealbreaker.

1 Like

oh shit thanks for the addition to my library of good smol cases

@SgtAwesomesauce no dust filtration it seems (not stock… needs additional addon filter)

With Bifurcation you could run a 10 GBE card if you really wanted it?

1 Like

That’s not a dealbreaker, I’m just trying to support american manufacturers where I can.

That’s a good consideration. I’m still not sure if I really need 10G or not. Its sort of a wishlist item. I think we’re at the point where 2-3 generations down the line, 10G will be standard, so it’ll be very useful in a year or so to have 10G, but it’s not super useful now.

Woah, that thing is tiny

The main thing for me is I’d like the option to keep my existing GPU. Considering the 10 series to the 20 series saw no major thermal improvements, I don’t see any benefit to moving up yet.

1 Like

Yeah, that’s another option I’m considering.

Yeah, it’s something that’s not really a hard requirement anymore. I’ve realized that dusting out a SFF case is super easy since it’s not a 50lb steel case that you have to lug down the stairs. (like my 800d was)