Looks like a modded out pc battery backup, lol. Soory ID.

To each his own, I have a giant tower, the A+case "ElDiablo".I like a fancy case, however, functionality is cool too!

Actually, that is quite a nice case with a good, compact design that still accomodates larger GPUs and PSUs.

In fact, I may even look into one or two for my 2nd and guest rigs for their space saving design when I am relocated in my own place once more.

Looks like liquid cooling in the screeny, is that your plan also?

ANd yes Starkers, kinda appealing after the second look, the case, not you, although, send a pic, lol! 

whoow.. terrific...! (y)

What on earth do you do for optical drives?

Sometimes I think 'small' becomes just plain useless....

Only experience I've had with a 'small' mobo was less than brilliant....hottest part of GPU ended up right on top of the southbridge....requiring the latter to be constantly monitored for getting toasty.

Only advantage was.... I only paid $6 for the whole shebang [not the GPU that was an XFX GTX285 I already had spare].

All my boxes I've built run 2 DVDs [and too many drives to squeeze into that box].

These days the only limitation re size is whether it'll fit into the computer desk I built...

I agree with Jafo.  My GD has one of those small mobo's and its a bitch doing anything with it and it gets hot faster and no space to put an extra fan.

Now that you guys mentioned it.....it does look like a toaster........

I haven't thought about water cooling.  Never needed it before, so not really sure what I would get out of it now.  

And I have no use for optical drives.

Im not cheering quite for Mini-ITX/µATX build as "Gaming rig" for office ok, but for Gaming?   
If you want to build a Gaming rig what CPU are you aiming for?
Is current Gen even supported on those small boards and if they are will they offer enough space for all those goodies like PCI-E x16 *2 or 3 ? Will those be 3.0 with 16 lanes or only 2.0 with 4?
Also will it have four Slots for Ram and so on?
I think having only 11,2x8,2 space will not allow that or does it? Haven#t checked the market for some time...

Do you already know what kind of CPU you want? I7- K model or maybe X?
How many drives should it have how many GPU´s? 

Don´t understand how one will be able to build a DVD drive into that case?
I don’t see a slot for it or will you go for external drive?
I only see three fans, guess that means you will have to buy at least two additional fans if you want to cool it solely with Air.
Would calculate those costs into the price and see if you can get something better for the same buck. Just a thought.



 

MicroATX motherboards can handle nearly any CPU and other current gen items.  MiniITX are more limited, but as smaller systems have become more popular, more options are out there than there was not too long ago.

If you read my last comment you'll see I don't use or need optical drives. 

I've been contemplating upgrading my case too, but that's because my SOHO file server tower isn't big enough...

I can't use 2 of my 10 drive slots because the GPU is too big so I'm only running a mirror for my 3TB primary storage drives instead of raid 1+0.  I need a deeper form factor to get Steam off my damned SSD before it uses the whole 750GB!

that's not "real" water cooling shown in that pic, folks. i'd bet a bajillion dollahs that what is shown is one of corsair's H series liquid cooling options. i run one myself although i forget the model number. i think it's the H60 but i wouldn't bet a nickel on that.

That's easy for such a case... use an external drive that can easily sit on the desktop.  I use a Samsung portable with my 11" laptop, which is USB powered and does okay at both reading and writing.  However, I do prefer dual optical drives that are internally mounted for my main rig... can save alot of time copying files to HDD for later burning, etc.

As for small and useless.... getting "toasty", Corsair liquid cooling is quite effective and would do a good job at keeping components cool in this case, and given there are 3 mounting places for liquid cooling, one unit could be assigned to the CPU and dual GPUs respectively, thus cooling the 3 hottest components quite well.

Having said that, I would not use this case as a main PC, rather as a guest or backup PC that serves to surf the net, create documents, etc... nothing that's resource intensive, and I certainly wouldn't install high-end components in it as I have all that in my main rig, and thus it would not need power to burn.

As John pointed out above, the unit in the screenshots is Corsair liquid cooling, not water cooling, which are sealed units and thus makes them safer around PC components. I have one in my main rig and find it better than air cooling, hence I would be inclined to go with liquid cooling in a smaller case such as this one.  It wouldn't be essential but recommended, especially if you are going with higher end CPU and GPUs for gaming.

"Island Dog: And I have no use for optical drives."

Indeed. Everything is downloadable or prepared for flash drives. Can't remember the last time I had used one that I have taken them out of all computers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_cbsSPiDIQ

While I quite like the Corsair Carbide 240 for its compact design, I'm somewhat impressed with the Corsair Carbide 540 as well.  It is a larger case and has plenty of room for large GPUs, liquid cooling, etc.  It could very well be a consideration if I ever wanted to change from the Thermaltake cases I currently have for my main rigs.

To be honest, I haven't used an optical drive for a while because the need hasn't arisen of late, but I still like to have them for burning off hard copies of things like skin collections, documents, photos and program installers, etc.... and Bluray discs hold so much data these days it's fairly economical to back up your most important files to disc.  So yeah, I think I'll be keeping mine for a while to come.