Edit; September 2019 upgrades. I ordered a Corsair Gold SFX 600, 16 GB of low profile RAM, a 1TB Crucial M.2 SSD and a Zotac mini 1070ti card.

I cloned the 2.5mm SSD to the M.2 and disassembled the little PC.

The components came out as expected with the one stripped cooler bolt breaking the plumber's epoxy I had used to secure it 4 years ago. Had to reapply that to the threads and let it sit overnight to harden up after reinstalling the cooler.

Ok, so I installed the M.2 SSD and low profile ram. I removed and stored the GTX 970 and Corsair CXM 500 PSU.

I saved the old RAM, but one of the 4 GB RAM sticks is missing three cooling fins (where I cut them off to make the CPU cooler radiator and fans fit over the RAM). The old RAM works fine, but probably will never use two 4 GB ddr3 RAM sticks again.

I cleaned up the old CPU thermal paste and replaced it with Thermal Grizzly.

I had to remove the 80mm fan above the graphics card to get the Zotac mini GPU installed. Once I reinstalled the little fan I could only fit a business card between the fan housing and the top of the Zotac GPU. Tight fit.

Installed that tiny power supply and reworked the cables. I gave up on the two bottom intake fan wiring. I decided to tie it up out of the way and keep moving forward.

Finished reassembly and fired up the PC. Boom sucess! No problems.

I reset the CPU overclock to 4.5 and set the overclock on the GPU mildly to +100 on the core and +200 on the memory once in Windows. I reset the CPU overclock back to 4.6 after realizing this processor was previously running at that for quite a while without issue.

This little joker runs like a champ and is still quiet as a church mouse on Sunday. Got it together for my oldest son's birthday. Should make an easy to travel gaming PC now. Have a great one and thanks for reading. Gooberdad out.

Edit; August 2017. While setting up my son's college pc, I adjusted his overclock to 4.6Ghz at 1.275v. Working great. Have him a little boost over the 4.3Ghz it was at before.

Edit; July 2016 I purchased a used GTX 970 that looked like new and replaced the old GTX 660ti. Wow what a difference. My oldest tested it and was surprised at how much of an improvement it was over the old GPU. Using my wattage meter I loaded the GPU and CPU getting a total of 324 watts. This is lower than with the old 660ti. I am relieved since i went so cheap on the PSU. Glad the new tech made last year's tech prices plummet. Now it's a proper little gaming machine. No I am not changing the little Corsair CX for a better PSU since my testing shows substantially less watts than it can sustain and due to my case modifications the psu will always have nice fresh cool air coming in from the side porthole. Besides, my son loves it and that makes me smile.

For my son. You're working so hard in college to get great grades. Here is something to relax and game with.

I needed something small enough to fit on a shelf, but still wanted performance. The smaller I got, I noticed that the dimensions just got switched around. Either longer, wider or taller than I wanted. The PSU was moved, or the cpu cooler was given lots of space, etc. I couldn't get myself to do a 90° laying over graphics card htpc build. I decided to write all the component sizes down and check them against the inside case dimensions. That's when I hit gold and chose the "incompatible with the listed components.." Rosewill Legacy V4-S mini tower. Once I received it, I verified the internal dimensions and mapped out the positions. I wanted it quiet for the dorm room, but still able to move air.

Overall I'm so pleased with this setup. I really like the look and foot print. This was the most fun design so far. I think I will build it again for myself with different design fan grilles and guts.

Ok, I built this as a modifiable gamer. Small form factor pc with water cooling added. Air cooling in this case wouldn't work with any over clocking due to the very limited space between the cpu and the psu. I flipped the PSU inlet to face the left side (as seen when facing the case) and added a porthole to the side for it to breath. I added a porthole to the top of the case to hang the CPU radiator and fans. I added two portholes and filters to the bottom of the case with two silverstone ap122 fans staggered around the hard drives cage to push air to the video card and past the video card to the cooler fan inlet. I replaced the small factory base feet with stainless steel drawer knobs to raise the bottom for more ventilation. I drilled the hard drive cage to add the mounting holes for the ssd. I had to really work inside of the case to get the wiring tied up tightly next to the access panel to make sure the cpu radiator, graphics card and fans could breath. I used my older 2GB gtx660ti graphics card for now. Now with a GTX 970 SSC as of July 2016.

This was a blast to put together. Going against recommendations of using a different case because of displacement and cooling is a thrill when it works. At one point trying to squeeze the radiator/fans and PSU in I realized my measurements were off. I had cut the four upper fan/radiator/grille holes just slightly too far to the right and forward causing the radiator tank to hit the ram cooling fins. When I turned the radiator 90°, the PSU wouldn't fit. I had to remove a small piece from the upper fan where it wasn't sitting flush. I had to reduce the height of three fins of the slot 2 ram heat sink. I over tightened one of the the fan/radiator/grille support bolts and stripped out the threads. Applying plumber's epoxy to the bolt threads and letting it sit overnight upside down after installation fixed that. Oops! I also forgot to install the main motherboard power connector before mounting the radiator and fans and using that epoxy. Double oops !! That power connector was terrible to get plugged in with all that cooler the way.

When I first started it up, my wife and I heard this obnoxious loud ticking noise. I found the front lower fan contacting a rough piece of the aluminum case floor. I had to smooth out the floor so the fan wouldn't hit. Fun fun fun.

I took it to my son at college and added an LG IPS 22" monitor and a set of speakers. He was super excited. I added a picture of the initial placement in his dorm room.

Oh man this thing is quiet. The fans and that Nepton 120xl are super quiet. I am surprised. I wish this cooler was still sold here in the USA.

I hope this inspires people to see beyond the limitations of a case, and feel free to modify one to meet their needs. Don't be afraid to get out the hole saw and cut that case up. They make a lot of great fan covers to protect fingers from getting into the spinning blades. Go for it!

Thanks for looking and voting.