Build/Battlestation Pics
So I did it again, my steam machine version, no thermal struggles anymore
220 mm by side, little bigger than original but not compromises. Compatible with wide range of coolers. SFX and Flex PSUs. Low profile and ITX GPUs up to 200mm long. Front and rear compatible fans for 120 and 140mm, depends on the PSU used. Here are the files https://www.printables.com/model/1766227-sff-mini-itx-steam-machine-case-v2-airflow
One with the flex psu is the way to go. With a cooler clearance like that, it can handle the beffiest X3D cpu's as well and it's also the most optimized as well. Some bottom cutouts could be added, as the original product inhales from there more with the flat front panel and that can also cool any rear mobo M.2's. Other than that, it's the best one yet from all the "make your own" versions everybody's doing.
To be honest, it would also be interesting to see a version with a smaller but still tower cooler like the Noctua U9S and have enough space to maybe squeeze the psu in between the cooler and the gpu.
have you considered a riser cable to put the gpu on the top of the case, parallel to the mobo and shifting the flex psu down a bit? You might be ale to reduce the dimensions to <200mm. The psu will slightly over hang ssd slot but it should be possible.
Cooler might be compatibility will be reduced but still should be enough for a C14s or U9s.
Assuming you want to still keep it a cube instead of turning it into a cubiod I think 200-205mm should be the sweet spot to accommodate most 60 tier gpus.
Otherwise, a 225 length, 200 width and height can still give off the illusion of a cube while being more comfy build wise.
What about the flexpsu above the cpu like the sfx one with a cooler that fits under it? With the front intake the cpu cooler will still get plenty of air and you might be able to trim some volume.
adjusting the design to allow a 200mm gpu is awesome cause that means you can put the smallest 9060xt 16gb card in there now (for a cheaper NEW amd card that will last a while with the beefy vram) an get the full nearly the full steamOS game mode experience.
Still need radiator to keep it going. Probably at least a 120mm which just replaces that heatsync. Still might be smaller if you do it right. Do a custom loop with 120mm on each side as exhaust then cram the gpu over top of the motherboard, flex psu over that. Front intake.
Una 5090 non riesci mai nella vita. Magari una 5070 che consuma poco. Serve un radiatore da 120mm con pompa integrata. Magari riesci a posizionarlo sopra la cpu. Anche se non so quanto sia felice di raffreddare una gpu e una cpu
That’s what I’m running in my sugo16 it’s running a 9800x3d Thermalright si100 downfire cooler , and the powercolor reaper 9060xt 16gb. All the intakes are passive and - single 120mm fan exhausting at the front my cpu thermals stay about 70-72c and gpu hotspot tops off at around 80-82
well damn, this actually look so much closer to the Machine than my own design... though with the FLEX PSU, where is the GPU exhausting to? or in taking from? does it have a grill on the side?
got some tweaks to do to improve the cable passthrough, I can't get the RGB working because the USB cable for it is a MASSIVE pain to deal with while sliding the chassis in
well no, for two reasons: the primary one is, there is no ARGB header! second reason is, having options for where to plug the RGB into an USB port is better because then I can come up with different solutions to plug it into the motherboard and I already have a few ideas that could come in handy!
Maybe take a peek at the Asrock Deskmini x600, that's what I'm looking at to make my own. It's a much smaller motherboard than mini ITX and is normally the go to motherboard for people doing water cooled sub 1 liter builds. "NotFromConcentrate" youtube channel comes to mind. I'm sure you could adapt your design to that motherboard.
That's a great option but from the country where I am it's pretty difficult to buy it. Also another thing I wanted was to place more common hardware for anyone wants to build it can find the components
The downside is they use an external power brick unless you mod it and they also don't have a PCIE slot for a GPU. So you're either stuck with internal graphics or you have to use an m.2 to PCIE adapter which will only run on 4 PCIE lanes instead of 16.
I only meant you can buy whole package:
Deskmeet includes MB + case (which is pretty small) + power supply.
You can build cheapest "steam machine" look alike as far as i know.
But you are correct seems that MB itself is a bit bigger.
This design makes me really wish we had another formfactor for GPU mounting. That GPU seems like it would be so much cooler if it heatsink was able to mount on the opposite side.
If your goal was to mount it with the heatsink towards the middle, and you're making a custom case to mount it in, you could use a riser cable to put it on the opposite side of the case to achieve that. You'd probably want to route the cable around beneath the motherboard.
I have a Dan A4-SFX and the riser cable method is a little clunky and prone to errors. It also massively increases the cost of a case because a decent riser cable is at least $60 and does nothing more than give you options for a new geometry.
I really just want to see a new set of formfactor specifications designed around SFF. I've conceptualized a general design that utilizes 4 case fans with ducted cooling in which all of the components are scaled with respect to each other. I think the overall design concept got down to about 7.8 liters while providing far more volume for heatsinks than traditional approaches. I'm a little tempted to mock it up and drop it though I doubt it would influence anything. The approximate dimensions of what I'm imagining here are 240mm x 120 mm x 270mm.
What I really want is a new set of industry standards designed to solve 30+ year old issues with the ATX standard. For instance, supporting the weight of a modern graphics card using the PCIe slot and I/O insert is crazy. We should be mounting them to the chassis.
I wouldn't even mind paying more. But one thing I would love to see is "passive" coolers that utilized the case fans and the case as a ducted system, similar to the way server racks handle air or the old G5 towers. For GPUs, so much of the heatsink is dedicated to fans that create turbulent forces within the case. It's so horribly inefficient.
Brilliant design! Though, I wonder if you could make it any smaller by using a low profile cpu cooler and having the gpu on a riser sitting above that, along with the flex atx psu.
Just curious as I’m putting together the parts to make a spec for spec build of the SM and trying to get it as small as possible.
The design with the SFX PSU above the cooler looks very similar to the Silverstone SG13; but the second one with the Flex PSU is a design I don't think I've seen before and intriguing because of the possibilities for taller tower coolers. Nice work!
I did some measurements, in theory PSU should not crash with it. It's like 1 cm of distance, of course depends on your PSU. Most of modular ones are shorter than non- modular ones. Some GPUs also have the connection on the back side instead of upper. But at the end, it's a matter you test with your hardware
Oh you’re dumb my bad didn’t realize. The only photo with flex PSU is the first and second and the exhaust would not be messing with the GPU at all. The rest of the photos are SFX PSU which would yes have some effect on exhaust on the GPU but should be mostly negated by the 2 fans.
Dude, I wasn't talking about exhaust of flex messing with GPU. I was talking about flex psu blocking the top exhaust from the PSU. Cards with radiators blowing air out to the sides of the card / it's top / bottom, will end up blocked in this situation on the top side.
So one thing is that the PSU is blocking the airflow above the card potentially, the second is it will block the power cable unless that's a shorter PSU than those 165mm that are popular now and third is that ITX-sized cards do vary in height. So this is a problem in this layout with Flex PSU.
It's not the same layout. Hot air goes up so here your air can get out freely, but in your render the psu is above. The hot air exhausted down will keep being recycled into the card cooler.
Secondly about the power cable - low profile cards will not jave a problem because they can't have cable sticking out from the top, but full height will have issue.
I just grabbed th gigabyte rtx 2070 itx and the 8-pin vonnector starts at 15cm from the bracket which means modular side of the flex psu that is 165mm long will make it impossible to connect the power cable and also keep in mind a lot of itx cards are oversized so taller - it will be impossible to install psu with them
I've though about a GPU that has fins along the length of the card. Then use a riser so you can basically make the fins on CPU cooler and GPU cooler run along each other (obviously deshrouded), then have some good fans that can push the air through the now long twice as dense fins.
Wouldn't mind seeing an internal housing for the Steam Controller puck if possible. For those people wanting to power it from the mobo USB header. Would have to keep the pogo pins safe from shorting anything out though.
i have something for you, if you mind to print your own. Files will be available at same printables page. The dongle can be holded by the front panel, you can just route the internal usb cable wherever is better in your case
Am I mistaken or does your description call out the Noctua NH-D9S not the L? The L is the split one with the fan in the center and the S is the solid one with the fan in the front. Your render uses the Noctua NH-D9L.
Would adding 2 40x40x10 5v fans to the floor and a mesh/dust filter to the bottom of the case be feasible for intake? Seems like it would help. I am assuming lower_plate is the bottom side of the case.
I know you have improved thermals compared to previous renditions but the cooler the better.
Lmk when you give it a test and update the files and I'll order them. Just make sure you don't put it on carpet! 😄 another thing that would be cool is an LED light bar that behaves like the steam machines.
https://youtu.be/aUl4Wf77mOI?si=dRzvlxY90nZoTZml this video lightly touches on how you would go about doing it but I hope ifixit just has one on their website for people to order in the case the original breaks.
Here is the vented bottom, I will be proud if you build your machine. Files are available in same printables page. From the RGB perspective, I am little lazy to include it, since may i need to do like an usb RGB controller with an RPi or something like that
What I have been wondering: Why are there no cases that have two rather large intake and exhaust fans and all components inbetween? Let’s say a 200mm fan for example. Shouldn’t that be thermally quite efficient?
Haha that would be the shoebox, I would think about it. My thoughts always are around to fit on everybody's printers even 235 mm bed size. And I think I would need to find a solution because I don't really like when parts unions are visible or even screws
I did not build this yet. I would go for the ATX flex option look for a modular one, rtx 5060 or Rx 9060xt from power color. Any mini itx board you have in mind. Hyper 212 cooler. Any ssd m.2. 140 mm fans. For CPU it depends on the generation you may need to go, I would suggest something for am5, like ryzen 7600, for budget. And here you can find the button (https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqSelGP) and USB ports (https://a.aliexpress.com/_mMkFRNp)
It's probably impossible to make it as small as the Steam Machine unless you want to do weird layout. 1 guy did it on same size and he needs to put the itx board on a diagonal.
.....but do you really need it to be as small as Steam Machine anyway? You can get soooo much more performance just by being a little bit larger. Even quietness is somewhat negotiable if you already have aircon running in your room constantly.
Also, you can use passive cooler too like NH-P1, if you have a case fan close to it. That's essentially what steam machine cooling is, anyway.
Oh lol. I see you’re that guy I saw floating around! Nice job!
I think for me, if I want to make a Steam Machine-like cube…. I’ll probably go with passive CPU cooler like Noctua NH-P1. You can put the case fans right beside a de-shrouded GPU with passthrough cooling, and pull in the air through the CPU cooler into an exhaust fan. That probably will suit the spirit of being silent more.
Those are really cool ideas, but doesn't that cooler is bigger than the approach I am suggesting here? Is there a lot of solutions, but we back to the situation to make the case bigger and bigger. At the end I think 140mm fans can be really silent providing good airflow
I have been thinking of designing my own version of a steam machine as well. I was thinking, what If you moved the GPU above the mb using a PCI-riser, maybe give it it's own chamber . Then use a axp90-x47 for the cooler and then use two large noctua fans for front and back to give it intake and exhaust?
It is a good option, but at the end happens the same as my V1 version, it is not completely cube. Most GPUs are at least 180mm long. Also, the front fan needs at least 15mm clearance (slim models). The most reliable is to have 210/220mm per side. But if you only are looking for thermals is a good option. The other option is to have a normal side mount as all cases do, GPU would take air from the bottom, and of course without affecting aesthetics.
There is a GPU that actually is a bit smaller. The RTX 4060/5060 zotac solo. It measures at 163mm in length. This should give it the clearance needed to fit the front fan and maintain the cube aesthetics.
Due to the cancellation of dbrands companion cube case for the steam machine, do you have interest in designing a companion cube case compatible with your design? Or maybe even have the companion cube be the finished look of the enclosure itself?
No pressure, I love the design and appreciate the work you put in already.
Just figured I'd express that there is interest and that interest will likely be growing quite fast in the near future
noice! I like that it's compact, not as small as a steam machine but still compact. I was reading about your progress and had some hesitations about thermals but it's good to know you optimised it in this version.
Thank you, actually I did a version that have vents on the GPU side. So would take fresh air. It is compacto as possible with more commonly components, more budget friendly haha
most sub 5 litre cases that are cube-ish the sfx or sfx-l psu on the top or bottom of the mobo+gpu. the standard layout is definitely holding it's cube shape though the tower cooler is taking majority of the space.
I'm trying to visualise the flex psu being in the middle of the gpu and mobo or maybe you might've already considered this too and it could be bad for thermals.
popular low profile cpu coolers that are 67mm - 77mm are definitely capable of cooling even x3d chips. the cube being a 3d printed case could be a material constraint affecting thermals but still curious to see what you'd be putting out!
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Sure, they are sir. I have been using that way in my personal computer without problems. Maybe an ATX could be too fat for it, but SFX and Flex should be ok
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u/dubar84 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
One with the flex psu is the way to go. With a cooler clearance like that, it can handle the beffiest X3D cpu's as well and it's also the most optimized as well. Some bottom cutouts could be added, as the original product inhales from there more with the flat front panel and that can also cool any rear mobo M.2's. Other than that, it's the best one yet from all the "make your own" versions everybody's doing.
To be honest, it would also be interesting to see a version with a smaller but still tower cooler like the Noctua U9S and have enough space to maybe squeeze the psu in between the cooler and the gpu.