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OUR FAVORITE SMALL FORM FACTOR CHASSIS
Maximum PC
|March 2023
THE INTEL NUC is at the forefront of small form factor chassis, and also has the bonus of being supremely easy to build in.
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After all, it's more than just a case-it's a bare-bones kit that comes with most of the pieces pre-installed to save you some of the hard work. However, these cases don't come cheap, especially the top-of-the-range i9-powered Intel NUC 13 Extreme. There are far cheaper options available, including some so small that you can even mount them to the back of your monitor.
If you want to create a small form factor using a Mini-ITX or MicroATX, you don't have to go down the same flat-out route we did with the NUC 13 Extreme. There are plenty of other alternatives on the market with different purposes, and we've listed some of our favorites here.
COOLER MASTER MASTERCASE H100 $70
This is the cheapest offering on this list, but that doesn't take anything away from the Master Case H100. It's fun, distinctive-looking, and has one whopping great fan taking all of the limelight at the front. That fan is a 200mm RGB unit from Cooler Master's H-Series range. Its form factor, like the rest here, is MiniITX and its cube-like size makes it perfect for portability, especially with a built-in handle.
Unusually, this mini box can house a full ATX PSU, which is better than the Intel NUC 13 and NZXT H1 chassis that only support SFX. Saying that, even though you can power more resource-hungry GPUs from a standard ATX power supply, you can't fit them in this box. It only has a GPU clearance of 210mm, which doesn't give you too many options to play with. Regardless, this is a great machine and is an interesting chassis to build with, and who doesn't like portability? www.phanteks.com
TEENAGE ENGINEERING COMPUTER-1 $195
This story is from the March 2023 edition of Maximum PC.
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