THE BEST MINI-ITX CASES TO CREATE SMALL AND POWERFUL GAMING PCS
It is certainly not the news of the day that many companies are aiming to change their perspective in response to the ever-increasing need for living room PCs or at least small in size, without sacrificing performance for this. One of them, the gorgeous and powerful Corsair One has shown the world that bringing good, well-designed pre-assemblies to the market is not madness.
Today, however, we would like to focus on the most
successful SFF mini-ITX cases of this 2020 . The market for pre-assembled
products with such small dimensions is still far from being able to answer the
question, so the do it yourself mantra still reigns supreme.
Waiting to find out what the protagonists of CES 2021 will
reserve for us, we have chosen for you the best five SFF houses of the past
year. We will not elect an absolute winner because our review wants to be above
all a guide to the conscious choice , trying to show what one is better than
the other and the reasons why it would be good to look elsewhere.
Razer Tomahawk ITX
We begin our review with the youngest of them all, quietly
presented together with his mid-Tower brother, the Razer Tomahawk. It is a
restyling of the Lian Li TU150 , with the same frame and some minor changes
mainly aesthetic and in the cable management . A solid, elegant case that
offers what it promises: a low volume for small configurations . Instead of a
now traditional sandwich configuration with motherboard on one side and GPU on
the other, here we prefer a more conservative mold, to the " Cougar
QBX". This allows the company to save on the production of a riser for the
GPU. The air intakes are located on the upper and lower areas, also allowing to
accommodate a 240 mm AIO.
Supported SFX and GPU power supplies up to at 320 mm . The
RGB LEDs placed on the bottom are beautiful, but let's move on to the sore
points. To get the new Tomahawk you have to spend just under 200 Euros. Not
that it is not worth them, from many points of view, but it is a price range
with a fierce competition to say the least.
CoolerMaster NR200
The real surprise of this 2020. Nobody expected it, yet
Cooler Master has made his "little" big hit by presenting a
stupendous SFF mini-ITX, with a capacity not of the smallest (18 liters), but
let's talk about a product from less than 100 Euros . An exceptional price
point given the build quality, the type of solution but also the price
positioning of its direct opponents.
Aesthetically it marries the communicative line of the
Cooler Master Master Case SL600Mand we are on a traditional type design,
without riser cable, but with a decidedly more generous airflow than you might
expect, offering 120 mm double slot intake on the top and bottom, as well as a
side window if you choose the economic version with aluminum panel. The only
flaw: it cannot accommodate heatsinks higher than 155 mm per CPU.
NZXT H1
Without doubt the most interesting solution of the group,
from more than one point of view.
This is a mini-ITX case that promises to revolutionize the
world of Small Form Factors and we really have to say that it does it
excellently. The dimension are very similar to those of Corsair One , allowing
you to house full-size GPUs inside. The airflow is really great and the
"Series X" look really suits any environment. If it is true that its
list price of 400 Euro is not among the most accessible, it should be
considered overall as a real barebones with a tempered glass front panel and
inside a 650W NZXT power supply in SFX format 80 Plus certified. Gold, an AM4 /
LGA1151 liquid AIO cooler with a 140mm radiator and GPU displacement riser, all
included in the price.
It is therefore, after all, a much higher quality / price
ratio than the average in the SFF sector, considering the costs of the first of
the class, which fluctuate around 200-300 Euros for the casing alone.
Cooler Master NC100
Now let's move on to an outsider , being a NUC type mini pc
case. We are talking about a case of just 7.9 liters with an internal structure
completely designed around the NUC Compute Element H and able to host,
alongside the main unit, even discrete GPUs with a thickness of 2.5 slots and a
length of up to 320 mm. It supports SFX power supplies and comes with two
pre-installed 92mm fans.
The price is 200 euros for the case alone and here the
obligatory considerations start. While it is true that inserting a NUC in such
a case solves the dissipation problem, as there will be no puzzling to find a
sufficiently low but at the same time performing heatsink, no other reason
comes to mind to prefer this type of configuration over a more flexible SFF
mini-ITX with similar capacity, such as the Thor-Zone's highly anticipated
Mjolnir or the award-winning Louqe Ghost S1, or even better Dan-Cases' Dan A4.
Fractal Era ITX
Certainly could not miss the beauty of the party, the
Fractal Era ITX. We are talking about a case of about 16 liters, not among the
most compact and above all with a traditional type form factor, certainly more
bulky than a NZXT H1. The undisputed quality of this brand is known to all,
Node 202 has definitely made school among the SFF, but with Era ITX Fractal
Design aims to be the protagonist in the living room rather than to blend in.
We have five color combinations available and the top lid to
choose between tempered glass and a beautiful wooden top. The assembly is taken
care of in every aspect and you will not find a single visible screw . There
are dust filters on each intakefor air and a fairly good internal clearance.
You can mount tower heatsinks up to 120mm high, supports ATX
power supplies in combination with 120mm radiators and up to 210mm GPUs or
SFX-type PSUs with 240mm radiators and GPUs up to 295mm. The real sore point is
the airflow, as with the top mounted the performance will be sufficient. The
situation changes by removing the top panel and leaving the dust-proof mesh
layer as the only obstacle.
In conclusion, we are talking about a one-of-a-kind piece of
design , something different and of extreme quality, but for just under 170
euros in terms of performance there are certainly better choices.