Does such a HTPC case exist?

pedroc1999 said:

you could drill or make some holes on top of where the cpu cooler would be adding more airflow, and maybe a small fan inbetween cd drive and 3.5" to increase airflow

The current hight of this system is just barely taller than the motherboard's io shield, so on formulator I have a big grill overtop the motherboard and a smaller one to the left of the motherboard.

It has four 50mm fans now, two in the front (between optical and 3.5" drives, one on the side between the optical drive and the psu, and another on top, also between the odd and the psu.
The back only has room for a small vent below the graphics card, and the psu bypasses the case and has it's own intake vent.

So I switched to a slim drive and a TFX power supply, and now it's a bit smaller while having the same power:



Dimensions: 354mm (13.9") Wide, 68.6mm (2.7") Tall, 309.5mm (12.2") Deep
That rectangle around the motherboard ports is the IO shield, making it have very little room in the back for venting.
I don't know how I'm going to mount the drives, because there's three different drives stacked on top of each other (5.25" slim, 3.5", 2.5") facing in different directions.

And internal components:

Newegg.ca - Phanteks PH-TC90LS 92mm PWM fan UFB (Updraft Floating Balance) CPU Cooler

SAMSUNG 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model MV-3V4G3D/US

Transcend TS128GSSD320 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Desktop Upgrade Kit

Phanteks PH-TC90LS 92mm PWM fan UFB (Updraft Floating Balance) CPU Cooler

HIS iCooler H775FN1G Radeon HD 7750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

Intel Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge 3.2GHz (3.6GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2500 BX80637i53470

ASUS P8H77-I LGA 1155 Intel H77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Vantec Thermoflow 60mm Double Ball BearingTemperature Controlled Case Fan - Model TF6025 (x3)

SeaSonic SS-350TGM Bulk 350W TFX12V modular PSU

Sony BC-5640H Slot Loading Slim Blu-Ray Combo

I'm thinking the modular PSU would be nice because I can use just the right size cables, but I don't know where to buy the cables and i don't think the PSU comes with them...

that looks good

what kind of specs do u want to run with it

get the 3570k if it is in your budget, it will last longer than the 3470 in terms of needness of upgrades

may be if you can fit it get a wireless card if you need it

pedroc1999 said:

get the 3570k if it is in your budget, it will last longer than the 3470 in terms of needness of upgrades

I think I will; if the Virtu MVP thing works as well as claimed, then it would be good to have a decent iGP also. I'm just not sure if the phanteks cooler can handle an unlocked chip, as i need a low profile cooler to fit the case.

pedroc1999 said:

may be if you can fit it get a wireless card if you need it

I possibly could... but the ITX board only has one PCI Express 3.0 slot which will be used for the video card, and the case would be unshielded acrylic so i don't know how good the reception would be. I'm perfectly happy using a USb card with a stand if needed, but I would definitely prefer wired internet.

ok, as long as you dont raise the voltage for the time being the temperature between the unlocked will only be like 2-4c in difference. so if you run the chip with no overclock the temperature will be almost the same, even by raising the multiplier it will be the same, the heat comes in when you add voltage when you overclock higher. basicly you can run the chip at 3.9ghz without adding more heat, but if you want to get past 3.9-4.0 when you might need more voltage meaning more heat

I don't think I would need to overclock that much...

And the cooler should handle it fine, as reviews show it handles overclocked CPUs just fine.
So far i've got the case roughed out in formulator.
I have to figure out what size of standoffs I need before I can figure out the back, and i need to figure out how i'm going to mount the drives.