Dear sifus. I have researched, for several months, SFF solutions for my next rig which involves a GTX 970.

what I have come to conclude is that the tradeoff between SFF setups and traditional towers is cooling options.

While towers allow for several air intakes/exhausts, oftentimes the AIO water coolers will either be playing intake or exhaust.

In other words, the options are limited to injecting hot air into the casing, or expelling hot air produced primarily by the GPU through the radiator which is supposed to cool the CPU.

This sounds like a Catch 22 situation to me. Perhaps, and I hope I'm wrong, going SFF means we can't have our cake and eat it too.

There are of course laborious methods of modding cases to partially remedy the situation, but I, and I believe most people, do not have the necessary skills and time to do so.

Take the Corsair Carbide Air 240 for example. Installing either a 240 or 120 radiator would be placed in front, drawing warm air towards the GPU which recycles the air. Doesn't sound very efficient. Perhaps using stock coolers might be the best option.

Then there is the strange Coolermaster Elite 130. An AIO setup would make the front panel and PSU function as exchausts, blowing in opposite directions. However, the GPU is actively drawing in air from the left panel, thereby creating higher pressure, preventing the only possible source of cool air (the right panel) from functioning.

So these are my hypothesis. I've never worked on a SFF case before and relied completely on available reading material online.

I hope to be proven wrong.

This post has been edited by trent666: Sep 29 2014, 03:48 AM

are prolly your only option, thus you might want to find someone else to do for you if you dont have time

Well, I think the only solution for you is to put both your cpu and gpu under water, with both radiator pull cold air from outside

Some well-made SFF rigs have better cooling than most full-size desktops. If you have the time and budget, why don't you go for a full custom water cooling loop? Also, in a SFF, isn't it always better to go with a stock cooler GPU? Just my 2 cents.

The CWC route is not appealing to a lot of people because of:

1. Cost
2. Maintenance
3. Risk

At present, I think I'll stay away from SFF until I see better options in the market.

In-Win 901 anyone?



This post has been edited by kherel77: Oct 28 2014, 07:47 PM

Do you plan to overclock your CPU/GPU?

If you run on stock clock SFF could work. Take a look at those silverstone SFF casings.
My own SFF rig I plan to run on
1) i7 4770
2) Fanless PSU - waiting for stock to arrive
3) GTX 970 ITX format - waiting also....

what case do you plan to use?

Ncase M1. Its my current case too.
Currently running GTX760 (non ITX size) and using SFX power supply.
Have to use ITX size GTX 970 when the fanless ATX PSU arrives.

itx 970 is the gigabyte? already here? nice case btw

@trent666 i read that silverstone ftz01 is good choice for you, both will have fresh air directly next to the cpu & gpu

Currently only gigabyte announce it but I believe Asus and MSI will launch similar products too.
I think the gigabyte version not in Malaysia yet.

i wonder what the price will be, leadtek 970 is the cheapest at 1k currently

I am expecting price to be around 1k-1.1k anyway.