1. The TJ08-E’s front fan, an 18cm Air Penetrator, is powerful enough to cool everything in the rig, thanks to the case’s simplified airflow 2. I left the empty drive cage in place to help channel air to the CPU cooler, but you can remove it if you prefer a less cluttered interior 3. The last-minute addition of an Nvidia GTX 680 gives my rig more oomph but ruins the nice black-and-red color scheme I was going for.
The Midsize Menace is small, yet mighty. It’s functionally equivalent to our Tax Refund PC from last month, but in a smaller package. It uses the same CPU and amount of RAM, as well as a similar GPU. The SSD in the Midsize Menace is a little faster, and the storage drive is larger and faster, but the Tax Refund PC has a Blu-ray drive and a higher-wattage PSU.
So how much smaller is the Midsize Menace than the Tax Refund PC, which we housed in an NZXT Phantom 410 midtower chassis? The Midsize Menace, in a Silverstone TJ08-E, is just under six inches shorter than the TRPC, five inches shallower, and about a quarter-inch narrower. That makes for a lot less bulk on your desk.
Using the Rampage IV’s Gamer OC BIOS setting, it took about two seconds to get a stable 4.4GHz overclock on the 3820, and Gordon Mah Ung’s experience last month shows that the 3820 can be easily overclocked to 4.7GHz on air. At 4.4GHz, though, it’s within spitting distance of last month’s Tax Refund machine, and the differences are attributable to the clock speed. More time with the Midsize Menace, and it’d be just as fast as last month’s high-end box.
If you don’t mind a cramped build process and the loss of some elbow room (as well as expandability down the line), you can get a machine that’s just as fast as the Tax Refund PC but more compact, for the same amount of money—or even a little less.
| ZERO POINT | ||
|---|---|---|
| Vegas Pro (sec) | 3,049 | 2,319 |
| Lightroom 2.6 (sec) | 356 | 270 |
| ProShow 4 (sec) | 1,112 | 915 |
| MainConcept 1.6 (sec) | 2,113 | 1,707 |
| STALKER: CoP (fps) | 42.0 | 62.3 |
| Far Cry 2 (fps) | 114.4 | 151.1 |
Our current desktop test bed consists of a quad-core 2.66GHz Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.5GHz, 6GB of Corsair DDR3/1333 overclocked to 1,750MHz, on a Gigabyte X58 motherboard. We are running an ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics card, a 160GB Intel X25-M SSD, and 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate.
Comments are closed on this article
Benjo
June 25, 2012 at 1:51pm
My last PC build was mATX. It's a good balance between cost/size/performance. Being able to use standard/existing parts is a plus. :)
I don't see the advantage of mounting the motherboard upside-down though. Lower center of gravity?
-it-
June 28, 2012 at 11:24am
the upside down mobo lets you use long gpus that go over the hard drive cage.
diedrichg
June 25, 2012 at 11:41am
I knew that didn't look right! The dimensions in this article are wrong. The correct depth is 14". 15.16" x 8.27" x 14.72"
csda
June 24, 2012 at 7:09pm
I was looking for a good MicroATX box, when I read the April article. I used the following for my build;
Silverstone TJ08B-E case
Asus P8Z68-M PRO Motherboard
Intel 3770k CPU
8GB DDR3-1866 memory
Antec NEO ECO 620C Power Supply
Antec Kuhler H20 620 CPU Water Cooler
CoolMaster Blade Master 120mm PWM Fan
22x OEM Sata DVD Drive
2 TB Hard Drive
Win 7 x64
MSI Nvidia Geforce GTX 580 Lightning Video Card
8 Pin GPU power adapterThe CoolMaster 120mm Fan replaced the 2 pin 120mm fan of the Antec Kuhler H20 620 to allow controlling that fan speed independent from the water pump. The MSI GTX 580 Lightning needed two 8 pin PCIe power, so the second one comes from an unused PATA drive power using the adapter.
By using the Antec Kuhler H20 620, it leaves the motherboard area very open for good cooling, much better than the passive cooler used in the article. And, with the video card dumping out up to 400 watts itself, this keeps the air flowing smoothly.
My biggest disappointments in the case design are lack of a firewire connector on the front, and lack of screw-less or captured screws for the side covers and the cover for the card slots.
Since I always seem to be taking boxes on the road, I'll probably mod the case with a handle on top.
ohsnaps1104
June 24, 2012 at 12:20am
Who would want Blu-ray in their pc to begin with? I think it's a total joke. Why would I put a slower optical drive in that has to use a lot of background processes to update firmware, decryption keys, not to mention you have to buy updated software. It just seems like a joke to me. I have one. I never bothered to update anything for Blu-ray support.
JohnnyCNote
June 24, 2012 at 11:10pm
To each his own, as the song goes. I've have a large number of ripped BluRay movies. I record them on rewritable disks and it works great . . .
bigrigross
June 24, 2012 at 10:49am
I have a blu-ray drive in my PC. With Hard Drive prices the way the are, I dont have enough room to put all my blu-rays on my drives. And no, I am not compressing them. The picture quality is only half of the reason I buy blu-rays, I want the audio and compressing it loses fidelity. I like the sound blu-rays give. Plus, I just have to put a blu-ray in. I am not waiting an hour to rip each blu-ray disc.
JohnnyCNote
June 23, 2012 at 7:09am
This is good if you want to use an mATX motherboard for a specific reason, but for $2000 you're really not saving much money and you don't even have BluRay capability. I'd be more interested if you could use a less expensive mb and GPU, but that's just if I were building it. It's still a nice machine . . .
Jonskeez
June 23, 2012 at 6:09am
I think for the case, a Fractal Define Mini would also be a really good choice. It'd be a lot more spacious to work with also.
GavinFarrington...
June 22, 2012 at 8:00pm
Thanks guys. Going to use this as a blueprint for my next rig.
alex_dh9
June 22, 2012 at 4:12pm
Good to see the 3820 getting used. I picked mine up for $289. Sweet deal. You guys got screwed on the ram price though lol. Good build.
zaphodbeeblebrox 42
June 22, 2012 at 2:46pm
cant wait till i complete my build.
all it needs is the bit fenix prodigy
so far i have
6GB of ram 1600
hd 6990
2 120GB ssds in raid 0 pushing over 1 Gb/s WOOT
320GB side hard drive.
i5 2500k
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131840 mini itx mobo with more features than i know what do with
1 Kw power supply
EYEFINITY is awesome :)
all for around 1300 XD
which makes me wonder why would u do this build? it seems like u are better off get last generation parts for a hell of a lot less money and it is better performing. well the card is anyway. 2500k is good enough for most applications
AETAaAS
June 22, 2012 at 2:07pm
Nice to see an mATX build. I've got a NZXT Vulcan and its funny the looks I get when people see me carrying it around by the handle. :p
It will struggle to fit a full size tower cooler like the onein the build but I managed to get a Zalman CNPS5x (92mm) in there which cools well enough for my stock clock. You can also get full size graphic cards in the Vulcan but I cheaped out and got a 460. :)
bigrigross
June 22, 2012 at 1:24pm
I love this case. I came from the Silverstone Fortress 2 and it threw my back out almost everytime I picked it up to go to a LAN. So I got this and picked up a micro atx z77 ASUS Maximus V Gene. I had to modify the top of the case to fit my AX1200 but now everything is in there minus my 5.25in drive. Its so much lighter and easier to carry now. Plus it looks darn good. Though there is no room left inside between my dual 470s and my dual fan H70. Removable motherboard tray is amazing.
nedwards
June 22, 2012 at 1:50pm
I just went from an FT02 to the TJ08-E too! Both great cases, of course, and the Fortress has better cooling, but the TJ08 is just so much smaller.
bigrigross
June 24, 2012 at 10:51am
Yeah, definitely cooling wise, the FT02 wins. I am keeping the case for a future build that wont go anywhere. It was just way too heavy to carry around. I have dual 470s and those get hot. I am pretty sure I will have to drop on of the 470s which I am pretty sure isnt the cases fault, its the fact that the 470s are right next to one another and the second card isnt getting any air.
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