 For years now, you've been able to buy compact ITX motherboards with support for all the latest features. 16 core processors, 64 gigabytes of memory, even things like high quality onboard audio and high speed onboard networking. But one thing that has always been the bane of many ITX's existence has been the lack of expandability. That's right, my friends, that's it. A single PCI Express 16x slot at best means that if you want to run dedicated graphics, you will not be throwing in any network cards, high speed PCI Express SSDs or storage controllers. At least that used to be true. In today's build, we are going to be splitting this single PCI Express 16x slot into dual 8x slots for two expansion cards on a mini ITX build. And we're going to be doing it on a budget. This thing's not even expensive. And it's brought to you by Seasonic. Seasonic makes high performance, high quality power supplies and all kinds of form factors like their Focus Gold SGX650 650 watt power supply we're going to be using for this build today. It's got a 10 year warranty and 80 plus gold efficiency. You can check it out at the link below. We're going to blow through the rationale for a lot of our hardware choices today because I think they're pretty self explanatory. We went for a Ryzen 9 3900 XT. It's a 12 core processor that offers not just great multi threaded performance, but also great single threaded performance for gaming. We've gone with 32 gigs of G skill Trident Z memory. We're not going RGB today because this isn't going to be as much of a flashy build. It's going to be more of like a versatile high performance rig. And then for storage, we've actually gone with a Sabrent 4 terabyte M.2. This is only PCI Express Gen 3 even though technically we could use Gen 4. But I was more into capacity for the game library today than, you know, the absolute fastest benchmark scores. So we're going to go ahead and pop this little heat shield off here, get our drive inserted, take our thermal pad peel off. Then the whole thing goes back in with the screws we use to take it off. It is truly remarkable how much they can pack onto these mini boards these days. We've got not one, but two RGB headers supporting different standards, a 12 volt and addressable. We've got four SATA ports. We've got both the older style USB 3.0 front panel header as well as the newer type C one. We've got USB 2, actually a couple USB 2's front panel audio. Of course, that PCI Express Gen 4 M.2 slot. And check this out. There's another Gen 3 M.2 slot hiding on the back. One of the coolest things about this board is that we don't even have to worry about putting high speed networking on unless we want to go 10 gig because it's actually got two and a half gig networking on board along with a bunch of USB 3, on board video as well as, ooh, that's a pretty limited on board audio selection. But frankly, most people these days are probably using their HDMI audio out or in the case of what I would use this for, a head mounted display. So I'm not going to take too many points off for that. It's also got AX, so Wi-Fi 6 on board wireless networking. Freaking nuts. Look at it. It's not enough to just have a motherboard that's capable of splitting or bifurcating the PCI Express slot though. You need to also have a case that's built with that functionality in mind or there's not going to be anywhere to put the card. So this right here is the SM580 from Sligar. These guys are a very niche case manufacturer that I actually used recently for a personal rig update for my VR setup because they've got kind of a unique approach to small form factor and modularity that I really like. So check this out. This case is designed to be used a number of different ways. You can either install a triple slot graphics card on your, you know, standard ITX motherboard using these three PCI slots at the back or as we're obviously going to be doing, you can, there we go, install a dual slot and a single slot using this special riser cable that's available as an option when you purchase it. Now it does cost extras. These are nice high quality shielded cables and this is generally considered to be more of a server feature than a consumer feature. But I think in the grand scheme of things to be able to achieve this kind of size with dual expansion slots is pretty compelling. Maybe the reason it impresses me so much even though it is like an $80 adder is that I know the alternative is way more expensive because if the functionality is built into your motherboard, all you need is this relatively simple cable. You see, there's no actual chips on this PCB. It's just the 16 lanes wired up to two 8x slots. By contrast, if the motherboard didn't support bifurcation, we'd be in a situation where you have to put some kind of switch chip like a PLX chip that would, yes, allow each card to use all of the bandwidth individually if the other one wasn't doing anything, but also would add a ton of cost, not to mention more complexity. Before we proceed with the build, let's go ahead and install some of our optional accessories like this carrying handle. It's actually secured with this bracing on the inside. Seems like it should hold up reasonably well. And for installation of the pass-through power cable, I'm going to use this blank plate here because while you can use one that just kind of passes through the cable and leaves this dangling outside the case, if you have a tall graphics card, I don't. I'm going to be using a Founders Edition RTX 2080 Super, and it should fit just fine even with, ah, see this, this potential clearance issue here. Oh, shoot. I can't have the handle in when I want to take out the radiator bracket. Oy! Hey, there it is. So it's just the two screws on this side, the corresponding two on the other side, and make sure you don't have your handle installed. Now, the orientation of this is apparently important. You want the bumps here facing toward the front of the case, so I got to make sure I remember that. I also need to give a little bit of thought to how I want to orient my AIO. That's right, my friends. You can put a massive dual 140 millimeter AIO in this thing. Wait, is this even going to fit? No, no, there's your problem. You got to take the top of this puppy completely off in order to get the radiator in, lower the whole thing in as an assembly. Ah! Cases like this, it sort of raises the question for me, why even bother shipping it assembled? Let's have a look here. How are we supposed to get that block to that CPU? I don't know if this H115i is going to fit. We might have to go with something with thinner tubes. I think we're good now. I pulled this H115i Pro RGB out of the stock room, and I think this should fit fine. Yep. Let's go ahead and pop this power supply bracket. Yeah, we're going deeper and deeper and deeper at every stage here. Okay, maybe through here? No, it's not going to go like that. It might have to go like that and be upside down. Shoot, I was hoping to have the fans on the top for easier dust removal from the radiator fins, but it looks like I'm going to have to go the other way around because it doesn't go in deep enough here from the mounts for the side panels. Now that I've got the fans loaded in here, this is an unbelievable amount of airflow in this case. Like, check this out. Dual 140 millimeters that take up the entire bottom of the chassis. Then that's going to run across our motherboard, across our graphics card, and we've got dual 140s that are going to pull it out the top. I'm jazzed. Let's get this motherboard installed. Here it is. This is like the big moment. I just have to like not break it. Wow, it's a really tight fit. Now it's coming together, now that I'm done taking it apart the whole time. Power supply. Oh, yeah, right. Sponsor of the video. Can't forget that. Yeah, we're done with the computer. No way to turn it on. In terms of orientation, we're going to put our SGX650 in with the fan up. So this is an SFX-L power supply, which means you get that nice 120 millimeter fan instead of the little tiny 92 mil. And we're going to pop it right there. Just do a quick little test fit. Oh, yeah. Nice. Oh, that looks great. So we're going to have just enough clearance between this fan and our power supply for our modular cables there. I'm a little worried about this power run going right next to the PCI Express cables. So I'm going to, I don't know, I might just leave it hanging over here. This is one thing they did not really account for. Once I plugged this 24 pin connector into my motherboard, unless I've got a real short cable kit, I don't know where I'm putting this. I think I got it. So I tucked it, if you know what I mean. Give it the old puck. Strapped it right here. And it looks like both my fans spin. So I'm just going to run this up to the graphics card and we're in pretty good shape here. It actually doesn't even look that bad. So David, what do you want to see in here? We've got a secondary slot that we could use for maybe a dual input capture card, RAID controller, high speed SSD. I mean, we already got a high speed SSD. Dual slot, yeah. We're doing the capture card, aren't we? Let's do the capture card. All right, cool. For those of you who don't know why you would want a dual input capture card, this thing is pretty cool. It's called the Live Gamer Duo. It's got 4K pass through or 240Hz 1080p pass through. So you can actually game at a higher resolution or higher frame rate than what you're broadcasting. But what it allows you to do is have one with pass through for your display. So that's what you'd use for an external device like an Xbox or PlayStation or whatever the case may be, another PC. And then you've got a second one that's just an input, no pass through for your camera. So you would have instead of like a webcam, you'd have like a mirrorless or a DSLR or something like that plugged into your capture card. So you can do the whole thing with just one card. Let's go ahead and throw our RTX 2080 Super up in this biz. Oh, yeah. Remember when this used to be sexy? You know, these are still going on eBay for like 600 bucks. I mean, you can't buy a 3000 series. So if you like actually need to play video games today, I guess I can see why you might buy one of these. But come on, guys, just wait a little bit. Just wait a little bit. Yeah, don't enable the scalpers. Let their inventory rot. So check this out, because at least in this configuration with the bifurcated slot, the graphics card is not right up against the motherboard tray. You might actually be able to get away with a Founders Edition card, and you could certainly do like a double or triple card here. There's enough airflow coming over this. I think it would be OK. It's freaking sick. Now I feel bad having a 2080 Super in here. Should I change it out? Should I put a 3080 in here? Yeah, yeah. Found one. This is like actually a blast getting all of this to go together. In goes the 12 pin connector. Let's just throw a little cable tie tie across here. Keep this out of our fan blades. And now the final piece. Holy crap. Why is this not fitting in here? I love small form factor cases. I hate getting stuff to fit in them. I can't even move it back far enough to not interfere. I have an idea. Oh, it's in. Well, it doesn't actually affect anything. Like it's not it's not even doesn't do anything. It's just and it's not even aesthetic. You can't even see it. Here we go, boys. Oh, I see it. I see it. Oh, my gosh. Is it in? This is dense. That's right. That's how confident I am. I'm using a thermal pad. It's like a good one, though. This is really not my finest cable management work, but there's nothing in any of the fans. Shoot. These won't close. I need to hammer the radiator some more. I don't even think I can get the front panel all the way on with how the radiator is right behind the the plate behind it. I mean, David, can we just say it's like PS5 inspired now? Yeah. I mean, off camera, I would definitely feel like I have to fix this. But like, can we test it? Yeah. OK, so you'll have to use you have to use an AIO that doesn't have like a really, really square profile. But let's let's give it a shot. Come on. Thirty nine hundred XT, 32 gigs of RAM detected. Everything detected. Very nice. What do you think? XMP just going to work for me. DDR4, 3200 CL14. Shoot, I kind of wish I had a 4K monitor. This is 1440p. We're going to run the game at Ultra Nightmare, but like I'm not expecting 3080 even break a sweat. I'm starting my min max average values timer. Let's jump in game here. I want to see what my max temps look like on CPU and GPU. Should I go get a 4K monitor? Yeah. I might have to. This is running at 220 FPS. Doom Eternal. Holy crap. You know what I just noticed, David? I noticed something I didn't notice. It's not even loud. GPU maximum 75 CPU maximum 73. This thing's awesome. All we can do now is try and push it harder. Let's step the game up to 4K. Actually, this is a really great visualization of how many more pixels 4K is compared to 1440p. Oh, I wanted to land on him. That sucked. This is amazing. We are gaming at 4K 120 FPS rock solid here. All right. I mean, if this doesn't drive up our temps, then I don't know what's going to do it. Let's all tab out and have a look here. CPU max 77. So we did hit it a bit harder there and GPU 75. That's it. We're maxing out our turbo and the GPU fans are running at 1800 RPM. It's still quiet. Oh, wow. It's heavy. I was like, and look how portable with this great handle. It's a lot of hardware in there. Look at that. It's all fan, only fans. It's great. I was expecting to have clearance problems with the GPU pulling air through the side panel and then not really having anywhere to put it. But these bottom fans make it like I can really feel the heat moving away. Like here's hot. Here's not. And fortunately, the radiator is still getting access to a decent amount of not like superheated air from the other side. That power supply fan is definitely working. It's still quiet though. So not only does this mini ITX case have better cooling than most of the other cases I've seen in this size class, it manages to have an expansion card in it. I mean, I think this thing's a big win, but I'll let you guys be the judge of that. Just like I'll let you guys be the judge of my segues to our sponsors. Seasonic is the beating heart of our system and you guys can check them out at the link in the video description. No matter what your PC building project is, whether it's a small form factor machine like this one or a gigantic RTX 3090 equipped monster, Seasonic has got the product for you. They've got units going up to 80 plus titanium efficiency and warranties that are so long, your power supply is probably going to live longer than your dog. So check them out again at the link in the video description. Thanks for watching and we will see you again on the next video. If you guys enjoyed this video and you love RTX 3000 content, maybe check out our 8K gaming experience with the RTX 3090. It's crazy.