Travus got a wild hair and decided to build a gaming PC (at the ripe age of *12*). This was because there are some games that Travus and I want to play that are only available for the PC platform (we've been making due with our Macs for a long time).

Note that our family has been 100% Mac ever since the company came out with the Intel chipset (~2006) which also coincided with me focusing more on photography as the Mac platform was/is much better for such tasks.

Am loathe to own anything that comes out of Redmond when it comes to software (besides Skype), but am giddy at the POWER one can get for the money when it comes to PC-hardware (when compared to Macs).

Could've bought an off-the-shelf-top-of-the-line machine for ~$2k (no doubt saturated with 'bloatware'), but he/we decided to buy the parts separate and have Travus build it and save ~$600 (and be in 100% control of what software is installed from the start). Besides, there is something most-satisfying (from a Geek-point-of-view) in knowing that you're playing on a platform that you built from scratch ;-)

Picture of the final product; main components as follows:

1) Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX [case]

2) MSI Z97I Gaming ACK Mini ITX [motherboard]

3) Intel i7 4790k [cpu]

4) HyperX 16Gb (2x8GB) 2133MHz DDR3 [memory]

5) M.2 256Gb Transcend SSD [harddrive]

6) MSI GTX 970 4G [graphics card]

7) Corsair RM Series 650W [power supply]

8) Corsair H80i [liquid cpu cooler]

***Travus gives a: HUGE THANKS to my bro for doing all the hard work before he spec'd out the parts!

- Intel i3-6100 3.7GHz (Skylake)

- 8GB Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Ram

- MSI H1101 Pro AC Socket 1151

- Adata SP550 240GB SSD

- Seagate ST500LT012 500GB HD

- Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK110-VESA

- Intel i3-6100 3.7GHz (Skylake)

- 8GB Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Ram

- MSI H1101 Pro AC Socket 1151

- Adata SP550 240GB SSD

- Seagate ST500LT012 500GB HD

- Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK110-VESA

- Intel i3-6100 3.7GHz (Skylake)

- 8GB Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Ram

- MSI H1101 Pro AC Socket 1151

- Adata SP550 240GB SSD

- Seagate ST500LT012 500GB HD

- Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK110-VESA

- Intel i3-6100 3.7GHz (Skylake)

- 8GB Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Ram

- MSI H1101 Pro AC Socket 1151

- Adata SP550 240GB SSD

- Seagate ST500LT012 500GB HD

- Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK110-VESA

This is a Mini ITX gaming computer I built as a gift for a friend of mine. It uses a Geforce 9600gt, a Core 2 Quad q6600 2.4ghz processor, 2gb of DDR2 ram, is liquid cooled by a Corsair H50 cooler, and is about the size of a shoebox. You could put any socket 775 CPU in it, and most any dual slot PCI-E x16 slot graphics card... so long as it is not excessively long. The case is a Silverstone Sugo SG-05.

My shiny new Gaming Rig... it was supposed to be an HTPC but I got sidetracked when the painfully gorgeous case arrived and kept on upping the spec... This case supports some pretty serious kit. The build includes...

Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe Mini-ITX mobo

Intel Core i7 3770K CPU @ 4.6 GHz

16 GB DDR3 1833 MHz RAM

2x 120 GB SanDisk Extreme SSDs (RAID-0)

2x Seagate 2TB HDD (RAID-1)

EVGA GTX 670 FTW 2GB Graphics card

Corsair Hydro H100i Liquid Cooling kit

MadCatz V5 Gaming Keyboard & R.A.T.3 mouse

Krator NESO4 2.1 Speakers

LG IPS27I-BN IPS 1080p Monitor

BitFenix Recon LCD fan controller

Update: Ooh wondered where all the views were coming from... my image has just been featured on lifehacker.com

lifehacker.com/5994570/five-best-small-form-factor-pc-cases

- Intel i3-6100 3.7GHz (Skylake)

- 8GB Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Ram

- MSI H1101 Pro AC Socket 1151

- Adata SP550 240GB SSD

- Seagate ST500LT012 500GB HD

- Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK110-VESA

This is a nice and very cheap motherboard: Intel Atom 330 (dual-core w/HT @ 1.6GHz), 2x SATA & 1x IDE ports, serial & parallel & PS/2 ports, VGA, 5.1ch audio, 1x PCI slot, 8x USB ports, max 2GB RAM and 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet. About $100 (excluding RAM).

I ended up bringing more gear than most. took well over an hour to setup. too many cables; why can't we go all wireless? lol

the main component of this setup that I'm demo'ing is the silver 1U rackmount style device in the center, with the red (bigfonts) lcd display. its an 8-channel analog (consumer/pro line level) preamp that is controlled digitally but varies volume purely in the analog domain.

the new feature I just added was a 'link up' between the computer's notion of a volume control (eg, a volume slider on linux ALSA sound system) and my own preamp's volume value. turn the knob on my real-world preamp and the value inside the pc changes. change the pc's volume slider via any of the usual means (eg,android or alsamixer) and my volume mirror that value and your volume will go up or down that amount, to match.

any app that has a volume slider and uses alsa sound engine in linux (almost all do) can make use of my preamp. the connection is even RF wireless between the pc and the preamp (small xbee rf modem sitting on the white wifi router, right behind the silver sercona preamp box). this means your pc music server could be located somewhere else, and the preamp and pc can still 'stay in touch' and keep the mirrored volume slider working. and, of course, you can walk around with your android phone, change music using mpd and now change volume, too, without harming the sound in the process.

and btw, if your source is natively analog (turntables, etc) this volume control avoids any conversion to digital. its purely an analog volume control that happens to be digitally controlled.

it runs the open-source LCDuino command code and a 2nd arduino processor runs embedded on the cirrus 3318 (vol control engine chip, itself) board. the 2 arduinos are linked via serial-to-softserial. the main arduino is 'reachable' via its hardware uart serial port and this is what the webserver or mpd server uses to talk over.

a linux daemon process runs in the background keeping the mixer volume slider on ALSA linked to the serial stream on the sercona preamp. if the sercona changes, alsa updates. if alsa changes, the sercona updates. its just that simple ;)

top view of the preamp, showing the hand-wired proto boards: www.flickr.com/photos/linux-works/8126599842/in/photostream

- Intel i3-6100 3.7GHz (Skylake)

- 8GB Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Ram

- MSI H1101 Pro AC Socket 1151

- Adata SP550 240GB SSD

- Seagate ST500LT012 500GB HD

- Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK110-VESA

The tiny Linux box I use as a file server/MP3 jukebox now has a suitably tiny monitor and keyboard.

- Intel i3-6100 3.7GHz (Skylake)

- 8GB Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Ram

- MSI H1101 Pro AC Socket 1151

- Adata SP550 240GB SSD

- Seagate ST500LT012 500GB HD

- Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK110-VESA

Graham susccessfully modded this old Beeb computer including some inticrate keyboard rewiring and key coding.

Intel DQ77KB Mini-ITX MB

Intel Xeon E3-1265L V2 Ivy Bridge 2.5 (3.5) Ghz 45W Quad Core

Intel BXHTS1155LP CPU Cooler

16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 RAM

256GB mSATA SSD

Lian-Li PC-Q05B Mini-ITX Cases

19v/8.4A 160 Watt AC-DC Power Adapter

2 x 1TB 2.5" 7200rpm HDD's

The two Atom's there in the MiniBox (mini-box.com) cases with picoLCD displays are configured as:

Intel D2500CCE Mini-ITX Motherboard

4GB RAM (2 x 2GB) SODIMM

One with 2 x 30GB mSATA + SATA converters. The other one with a 480GB Sandisk SSD.

Some additional external storage added for quick-off backups, including Vantec JBOD and RAID external cases with USB3 and eSATA.

Lennie Moore and Jim Wiggins combined forces to resurrect this old Enrico Bertini accordion to create a home music server.

Intel DQ77KB Mini-ITX MB

Intel Xeon E3-1265L V2 Ivy Bridge 2.5 (3.5) Ghz 45W Quad Core

Intel BXHTS1155LP CPU Cooler

16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 RAM

256GB mSATA SSD

Lian-Li PC-Q05B Mini-ITX Cases

19v/8.4A 160 Watt AC-DC Power Adapter

2 x 1TB 2.5" 7200rpm HDD's

The two Atom's there in the MiniBox (mini-box.com) cases with picoLCD displays are configured as:

Intel D2500CCE Mini-ITX Motherboard

4GB RAM (2 x 2GB) SODIMM

One with 2 x 30GB mSATA + SATA converters. The other one with a 480GB Sandisk SSD.

Some additional external storage added for quick-off backups, including Vantec JBOD and RAID external cases with USB3 and eSATA.

- Intel i3-6100 3.7GHz (Skylake)

- 8GB Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Ram

- MSI H1101 Pro AC Socket 1151

- Adata SP550 240GB SSD

- Seagate ST500LT012 500GB HD

- Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK110-VESA

Intel DQ77KB Mini-ITX MB

Intel Xeon E3-1265L V2 Ivy Bridge 2.5 (3.5) Ghz 45W Quad Core

Intel BXHTS1155LP CPU Cooler

16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 RAM

256GB mSATA SSD

Lian-Li PC-Q05B Mini-ITX Cases

19v/8.4A 160 Watt AC-DC Power Adapter

2 x 1TB 2.5" 7200rpm HDD's

The two Atom's there in the MiniBox (mini-box.com) cases with picoLCD displays are configured as:

Intel D2500CCE Mini-ITX Motherboard

4GB RAM (2 x 2GB) SODIMM

One with 2 x 30GB mSATA + SATA converters. The other one with a 480GB Sandisk SSD.

Some additional external storage added for quick-off backups, including Vantec JBOD and RAID external cases with USB3 and eSATA.

Intel DQ77KB Mini-ITX MB

Intel Xeon E3-1265L V2 Ivy Bridge 2.5 (3.5) Ghz 45W Quad Core

Intel BXHTS1155LP CPU Cooler

16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 RAM

256GB mSATA SSD

Lian-Li PC-Q05B Mini-ITX Cases

19v/8.4A 160 Watt AC-DC Power Adapter

2 x 1TB 2.5" 7200rpm HDD's

The two Atom's there in the MiniBox (mini-box.com) cases with picoLCD displays are configured as:

Intel D2500CCE Mini-ITX Motherboard

4GB RAM (2 x 2GB) SODIMM

One with 2 x 30GB mSATA + SATA converters. The other one with a 480GB Sandisk SSD.

Some additional external storage added for quick-off backups, including Vantec JBOD and RAID external cases with USB3 and eSATA.

Alpha-1 と合わせて2 or 3ノードのクラスタを構成予定

*** Alpha-2

Case: Lian-Li PC-Q07-U2 (5" Bay x1)

HDD Bay: Century CMRK-S6S6G (2.5"x6 => 5" bay)

Power: CORE-SFX300 (SFX 300W) + ATX blacket

MB: Gigabyte/Z170N-WiFi (Mini-ITX)

CPU: Intel/i5-6500T (4 core)

Fan: Cryorig/C7

Memory: Crucial/DDR4-2100 16GBx2 (CT2K16G4DFD8213)

M.2 SSD: Intel/NVMe 128GB (SSDPEKKW128G7X1)

2.5" SSD: Samsung/SATA 250GB (MZ750250BIT) x2

2.5" HDD: HGST/SATA 1TB (HTS721010A9E630) x4

*** Alpha-3

Case: ThermalTake Core V1

Power: KRPW-L5-400W/80+ (ATX 400W)

MB: Gigabyte/H170N-WiFi (Mini-ITX)

CPU&Fan: Intel/i5-6400 (4 core)

Memory: Crucial/DDR4-2100 16GBx2 (CT2K16G4DFD8213)

2.5" SSD: Apacer/SATA 250GB (AP240GAST680S-JP) x1

2.5" HDD: 500GB + 750GB (used)

- Intel i3-6100 3.7GHz (Skylake)

- 8GB Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Ram

- MSI H1101 Pro AC Socket 1151

- Adata SP550 240GB SSD

- Seagate ST500LT012 500GB HD

- Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK110-VESA

my mini-itx computer in a cardboard box

Lennie and Jim chose a VIA EPIA 800 Mini-ITX board for their case mod.

Basically a USB hub in a birdbox to make it look nicer. iPhones won't charge from it because they check the data lines to make sure they're connected to a computer, an official charger, or indeed one of the millions of knock-offs that followed Apple's pointless attempt to make the iPhone not charge from anything else.

Of course, the USB hub won't talk anything but 5v if a computer isn't plugged into it. Installing a miniITX board underneath the shelf would be overkill, right?

Mini-ITX Intel Atom PC inside my desk.

See details:

www.dslreports.com/forum/r21969692-My-nearsilent-MiniITX-...

Built in with an Intel® Dual-core Atom™ Processor 330 (1.6 GHz) (Note 1)

512K L2 cache

533 MHz FSB

North Bridge: Intel® 945GC Express Chipset

South Bridge: Intel® ICH7

1 x 1.8V DDR2 DIMM socket supporting up to 2 GB of system memory

Support for DDR2 667(Note 2)/533 MHz memory module

Realtek ALC662 codec

High Definition Audio

2/4/5.1-channel

Realtek 8102E chip (10/100 Mbit)

1 x PCI slot

1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices

2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices

Up to 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports

1 x 20-pin ATX main power connector

1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector

1 x IDE connector

2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors

1 x CPU fan header

1 x system fan header

1 x front panel header

1 x front panel audio header

2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers

1 x chassis intrusion header

1 x power LED header

1 x PS/2 keyboard port

1 x PS/2 mouse port

1 x parallel port

1 x serial port

1 x D-Sub port

4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports

1 x RJ-45 port

3 x audio jacks (Line In/Line Out/Microphone)

iTE IT8718 chip

ZX Evolution (also known as PentEvo) — Russian Sinclair-compatible clone with VGA, PS/2 keyboard and mouse. Based on original & genuine CPU Z80, AY music chip and КР1818ВГ93 FDD chip.

Features:

Z80 3.5 MHz (classic mode) / 7 MHz (turbo mode without CPU wait circles) / 14 MHz (mega turbo with CPU wait circles);

4 Mb RAM, 512Kb ROM;

MiniITX board (172x170mm), 2 ZXBUS slots, power ATX or +5,+12V;

Based on fpga (Altera EP1K50);

Peripheral MCU ATMEGA128;

PS/2 keyboard and mouse support;

Floppy (WDC1793) Beta-disk compatible interface, IDE (one channel, up to 2 devices on master/slave mode), SD(HC) card, RS232;

Video out: RGB, VGA (scandoubler);

Sound: AY, Beeper, Covox (PWM);

Original keyboard and joystick support;

Tape interface (in/out);

Real-time clock.

Technical description:

zx.rediron.ru/projects

Official website:

www.nedopc.com/zxevo/zxevo_eng.php

What it "should" look like

(2) Intel D2500CCE Atom 2x1.86 Ghz,

(1) Intel D2500HN Atom 2x1.86 Ghz,

(3) Intel D2700MUD Atom 2x2.13 Ghz,

(2) tbd Intel PDC LGA775 2x2.93 Ghz

Possible layout of two mini-ITX boards in a drawer. This is sort of lies since this is a drawer before it was trimmed down. In reality they'd be right next to each other.

VIA Mini-ITX Form Factor Comparison

John Kanemura's Attache Server looks like something out of Q's lab from the James Bond movies.

Using a VIA EPIA V10000, Mark Pepper created his Frame server to sneak a computer into the living room.

Time to build a computer!

Box of purchased parts that I've been building up slowly for some time now. Case is Bitfenix Prodigy MiniITX case.

Mostly finished cab with one board. I mean, look at this thing, it really is just like a mini cabinet that you'd find in a datacenter! It also drew less blood (none) than some cabinets I've worked with (ahem, Internap).

My Intel D525MW broke down and I cannot get it to recognize any USB or SATA devices. Time for a change. So I got the Raspberry Pi for NZD48 and I installed Raspbian running Apache and MySQL to host some web sites that used to run on the Intel. All on a 8GB SD card that has about 4GB free space left keeping in mind that one of the sites is a photography site explaining why I've used 4GB on the card.

What I love about this setup is the power saving. The Intel was configured with a 60W power supply, but the Raspberry Pi run off 700ma from a cellphone USB charger :-) That is about 3.5 Watts at full steam. The scary thing is I am typing this description on a quad core 750W gaming PC!!!

A possible layout of a mini-ITX board and two 3.5" drives in one of the HELMER drawers. Power would be provided by a PicoPSU.

In theory with a PicoPSU you might save enough room to fit two 3.5" drives and a micro-ATX board into this footprint, but I don't have a board in that factor to try.

ZX Evolution (also known as PentEvo) — Russian Sinclair-compatible clone with VGA, PS/2 keyboard and mouse. Based on original & genuine CPU Z80, AY music chip and КР1818ВГ93 FDD chip.

Features:

Z80 3.5 MHz (classic mode) / 7 MHz (turbo mode without CPU wait circles) / 14 MHz (mega turbo with CPU wait circles);

4 Mb RAM, 512Kb ROM;

MiniITX board (172x170mm), 2 ZXBUS slots, power ATX or +5,+12V;

Based on fpga (Altera EP1K50);

Peripheral MCU ATMEGA128;

PS/2 keyboard and mouse support;

Floppy (WDC1793) Beta-disk compatible interface, IDE (one channel, up to 2 devices on master/slave mode), SD(HC) card, RS232;

Video out: RGB, VGA (scandoubler);

Sound: AY, Beeper, Covox (PWM);

Original keyboard and joystick support;

Tape interface (in/out);

Real-time clock.

Technical description:

zx.rediron.ru/projects

Official website:

www.nedopc.com/zxevo/zxevo_eng.php

Peter Watson used a VIA EPIA 800 Mini-ITX as the engine for his Supra-Server case mod.

Liquid cooled Mini ITX gaming computer I built for a friend. Mini Cooper British Racing Green auto paint, Corsair h50, Silverstone SG05 paint,. q6600 quad core 2.4ghz processor, BFG GTS 250 GPU, Zotac 9300 socket 775 motherboard.

For scale, that fan on the front of the case is your typical 120mm fan. It is about the size of a shoe box.

Forgot how much fun it was to install Gentoo Linux on a computer without a CD/DVD drive...

I had to use another computer's drive in-situ as the system I was installing onto couldn't power one by itself!

Inspired by working on his Supra's engine, Peter Watson chose a model Supra for his Supra-Server.

Geir Ergor used just about everything he could find lying around the house except the kitchen sink for his Coelacanth-PC mod.

This thing fits together really well, rails just slide into notches

Possible layout of two mini-ITX boards on a 9.5"x14" sheet of acrylic. This may be a bad idea because the plastic generates static like crazy.

Jeffrey Stephenson's Humidor CL Server Project neatly hides the components under a removable Spanish cedar tray.

Liquid cooled Mini ITX gaming computer I built for a friend. Mini Cooper British Racing Green auto paint, Corsair h50, Silverstone SG05 paint,. q6600 quad core 2.4ghz processor, BFG GTS 250 GPU, Zotac 9300 socket 775 motherboard.

For scale, that fan on the front of the case is your typical 120mm fan. It is about the size of a shoe box.

Wantng a computer to hook up to his family's living room, Marco happened upon this fake set of polystyrene encyclopedias that fit his mother's rigid standards.