Designing a portable Lan "party" box

[GoodGame]

I have a bunch of remainder parts like around and want to incorporate them into a Lan party box. The goal is to only spend about $100-$200 on a transportational-friendly case and a new board (probably microATX). I possibly will buy a medium end GFX card if needed, though I will try to avoid the situation of buying a microATX with a GFX card-like on-board GPU AND a new GFX card.


I have a spare Intel LGA CPU sitting around, a low end 8000 series IIRC (will look it up and repost).

I also have a CD drive, a HDD, RAM, and a spare Audigy 2.

So what would be a good case design?

I'm leary of the ITX form for my purposes, and I can't imagine that there's a fully portable ATX form around. Primary considerations are if it comes with a reliable power source for a mATX case, space for the cards, and if it has enough juice (I'm guessing 150W would not cut it, cooling, and 350W would be more what is needed, if a GFX card is added). In terms of space, I take it that "half-height cards" doesn't describe typical cards like even a single width GFX card or Audigy 2.

Thanks for your pointers in advance.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

micro ATX is probably your best bet. ITX motherboards are usually very low-performance and come with the cpu as part of a bundle. With a decent uATX motherboard you'll get at least one PCIe x16 slot.

You'll have a hard time finding a game-capable half-height card. They have much less PCB space and either plain don't exist, or cost more than usual for the regular form factor. You should be looking for a shorter card though, 11" is going to be much too long. I used to own a GT9800 that could game decently that was only 7" long, so it fit on a uATX mobo just fine.

You're going to be looking at a 350W PSU min. My suggestion is the Corsair CX400, which is a nice cheap PSU thats pretty much guaranteed to run like a champ (Its a Seasonic OEM, which means its really well built)

For the motherboard, a couple of my suggestions:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131629
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128388

They're more HTPC oriented, but should serve well for what you need, and arent that expensive.

Case is slightly more personal. I suggest you look through newegg's offerings of cases.

 

[Fëanor]

I have/had a very similar situation: My main pc is housed in a HAF 932 which is extremely unpractical for lan parties/portable use (Weights some 20 kg and is really large/difficult to handle, transport and fit in a LAN party like setting), i had turned my former main pc into an HTPC, but i felt it was wasted since its powered by a e8400, has 8 GB of RAM and i'm about to Phase out/give it the Radeon HD4850 from my main pc.

Basically had everything i needed to make a decent LAN/Portable pc except for the Case.
Since my HD4850 is fitted with tall triple slot aftermarket cooling solution (Accelero S1 Rev 2 + Turbo Modules) the regular (180mm wide) mini towers would not fit it, it fitted in the (206mm wide) Antec Sonata III i have but that case, while pretty small, is way to heavy/massive (9kg) and has only average ventilation. After some searching i found what i believe is a great compromise case: The Thermaltake V3 Black Edition

It weight only 4.8kg and is 190mm wide, which is enough to fit the Mugen-2 and Accellero S1. Plus its all black which looks pretty cool*




Fully loaded the system weight less than 10kg, which is pretty easy to handle.

My Thermaltake V3 Black Edition conclusions:
+Cheap (Paid €35, its $29.99 after a rebate on newegg)
+Extremely Light (4.8kg Empty)
+Well ventilated

-Regular screws**
-Front panel is extremely hard to remove.

*The P6T6 MB in my main pc has a black I/O shield and the CM M850 psu is also black, so when i'll upgrade my hardware those will end up in that case, making it completely black
**had to take the black screws and thumbscrews that you seen in the picture from my now retired Thermaltake DH101

Edit: A couple of reviews of that Case:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/ttake_v3_bk_edition/
http://hardwarelogic.com/articles.php?id=8401&page=1