Anandtech Small Form Factor Buying Guide

I saw but I think small builds are over rated.

It's easier to locate a PC in a place you don't see or hear it than it is to build a small quiet and cool pc for display.

Unless you want to see it that's my advice.

My HTPC is totally invisible and cool and even silent when the fans are on high. My solution was put it in a closet.

My dads house I put it in a bottom cabinet. Drilled a hole in back and added a nexus fan to cabinet running off a fan header. It's totally silent too in a small mATX case.

surprised we don't see more active effort into room integration or system integration around here.

I guess it's cool to build a slick little HTPC you can show off on display. If you don't mind it not being in display there's better options.

my server runs on a shelf in my basement under the floor if my office. Cat6 running up to the switch above.

Im just playing devils advocate here.

Truthfully I think a couple of the ITX builds I've seen are mega cool. I'm partly jealous.

Nice! The article validated my choices - identical MB / cpu choice for the server, and my htpc has the same MB as their gaming rig, albeit without the core i5. Though I guess that may be due to the relative dearth of mITX MB's available...

Re: placement, I wanted to see my HTPC, which is why I spent more for a case I think is gorgeous.

Moving back from using laptops in the past ten years, I'm pretty much all ITX except for servers. In the interim years, desktop boards and cases made a lot of progress in formfactor, power consumption and quietness.

It's true but if you can pull it off matx and atx offer better value sometimes. Plus I like the room to build or choose wider selection of products.

Built my first HTPC in a mni-ITX Antec ISK case, building my second in a Silverstone GD06. If I had the room, I'd stick it in a HAF case. One thing PC's will always have: flexibility. No soldered RAM, no cut back restrictions.