Black Aluminium HTPC Micro ATX Case - No Storage Bays or Optcial Drive If Possible

BobbyMac

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As/my potential build thread spent the past 3 days looking for a minimalist HTPC case to house either a A10 5700 or A10 5800 CPU, however the minimalistic cases all seem to be designed for Mini ITX rather than Micro ATX forms

I am looking to build a A10 5700 or 5800 CPU with a 128Gb Samsung 830 SSD running 4Gb of 1866Mhz RAM, no optical drives or any other HDD

At a push I can live with a case that has an optical slot, however I don't want a case that has cut-out for a storage bay or has the manufacturer's name in white writing on the front of the case (yes I'm looking at you Mr Silverstone) :suicide:

I can live with any shape of case as long as it can fit into 425/450mm wide x 200mm high x 450mm deep

Oh and did I mention that my budget is £100 INCLUDING a 150W PSU? :devil:

So the criteria is -:

Black Aluminium Micro ATX Form Case
Minimalistic - No Garish Lights/Writing on front of Case
No Storage Bays/Optical Slot if possible
Must be able to cope with 65W CPU TDP as a minimum (preferably 100W)
Budget -: £100 inc PSU

Any and all suggestions are welcome, even if it's to tell me that it's impossible :rotfl:

To give you an idea of the style of cases I like, see below -:

0711.jpg





0869.jpg





m368.jpg
 
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Seen that case on my travails, my main concern was the noise of the PSU fan and the large DVD Drive Cut-out :blush:

I don't think you will find anything much better TBH, I have been trawling the internet for weeks looking at cases, without much luck, for a microATX build that I am doing. At the moment I am using a Silverstone ML03 case but I would like something smaller.

If you find anything I would be very interested to know.

Thinking more about the Silverstone cases.....have you looked at the Grandia series in particular the GD04 and GD06. Apart from the Silverstone label these are pretty close to what you want....the GD06 is nearly exactly what you want.

David
 
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I don't think you will find anything much better TBH, I have been trawling the internet for weeks looking at cases, without much luck, for a microATX build that I am doing. At the moment I am using a Silverstone ML03 case but I would like something smaller.

If you find anything I would be very interested to know.

Thinking more about the Silverstone cases.....have you looked at the Grandia series in particular the GD04 and GD06. Apart from the Silverstone label these are pretty close to what you want....the GD06 is nearly exactly what you want.

David

Saw this one which looks not too bad (comes with 350W PSU & RC), but not sure of the build quality and drive cut-out :blush:

tc2200b.jpg


PRODUCT DETAIL - MS-TECH Technology

MS-Tech MS-Tech MC-1200 computer case

UK Stockists


I could live with this one although the Black seems to be sold out (and the PSU would only handle the A10 5700 and hopefully the badge is stuck on and not screwed on)

jonsbo-g3-htpc-case-pc-chassis-remote-control-without-psu.jpg



Silver UNIHTPC LC021 Micro ATX mini-ITX HTPC Chassis Aluminum Case + Remote | eBay
 
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Thats the same one I posted at Novatech.

David
 
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all the cases you have liked are mini-ITX but an aluminium case that looks nice and includes a PSU for £100 is really going to be a problem. You either need to increase your budget or lower your requirements
 
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Apropos your requirements .. AMD have released a new APU the a10 5600 .. this should interest you as its a 65w TDP part .. nicely lowers the thermals. Its a smidgen slower than the other two you mentioned but not enough to worry about.
Lian li make some nice cases, as do streamcom and fractal design. That third box in your pictures is a bit ugly IMO.
have you looked at the ecute ally box thing?
e-Cute Y902BK Black Cube Case | eBay
 
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I'm confused..............what size case do you want, you have listed miniITX and ATX in the above post but in previous posts you have listed microATX hence my suggesting microATX cases.

David

As/the OP

"I can live with any shape of case as long as it can fit into 425mm wide x 200mm high x 450mm deep "

I could probably squeeze upto 450mm wide now hence the Fractal Design option

Also to complicate things I am swithering about downgrading my CPU to the 65Watt A10 5700 so theoretically I could live with a Mini-ITX case if the price & cooling options where right (However at the moment by the time I add in the cost of a Mini Case, Pico PSU, power adaptor & custom cooler your looking @ £150 minimum :eek:)

On the Fractal Design case according to the review it can take a MicroATX board and will squeeze into the space on my rack that I can give it hence why it's a potential option (unless the review is wrong and it can only take an ATX board??)

TBF your confusion is down to me as I was referencing my other thread where I said that I wasn't bothered about form factor and had forgot my thread title on this thread was specifically for a Micro ATX case, my bad :blush::smashin:

Just to really twist your melon I've came up with another option, running a 7m HDMI cable from my gaming rig in a room directly above my living room down to the living room TV

My two main concerns on this option are the running costs using my gaming rig (see specs below) to run XBMC and how to control the upstairs PC from my Living Room using a wireless keyboard/mouse (if I ever wanted to game on my Plasma TV downstairs)

Asus P8Z77-V Premium Motherboard
Core i5-3570K CPU
Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X
2 x Samsung 830 SSD Raided
1 x 1TB SATA-300 HDD

:suicide:
 
Apropos your requirements .. AMD have released a new APU the a10 5600 .. this should interest you as its a 65w TDP part .. nicely lowers the thermals. Its a smidgen slower than the other two you mentioned but not enough to worry about.
Lian li make some nice cases, as do streamcom and fractal design. That third box in your pictures is a bit ugly IMO.
have you looked at the ecute ally box thing?
e-Cute Y902BK Black Cube Case | eBay

Isn't the 5700 65w as well? :confused:

Looked at that case but it's too tall for my unit and I don't like having coloured inputs visible on the front (in fact my preference is for a blank front) :smashin:
 
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I think this case is pretty close to what you are asking for. I have a GD05 and think it is a great case.

SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd.- GD06

Cost is about £100 w/o PSU.

David

Cheers was swayed with that case but put off with the security key lock on the front (I assume you can wipe out the Silverstone label using chemicals)

I'm a fussy so & so :facepalm:

Thanks again for all your help :smashin:
 
Cheers was swayed with that case but put off with the security key lock on the front (I assume you can wipe out the Silverstone label using chemicals)

I'm a fussy so & so :facepalm:

Thanks again for all your help :smashin:

Boy, you sure are fussy.........;)

How about going miniITX with a Fractal Design Node 304 case.........

Fractal-Design.com
 

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