Before this case, I mostly used a Razer Blade Stealth with the external GPU case since I moved continents and did not want to bring my old gaming rig along. Work at the time had a lingering notion that I might have to move again, at least for ~6m at a time, so I did not want to invest too heavily into another rig. I was mostly oblivious of SFF at that time.

The relocation topic was no concern for a while when the pandemic hit, so I thought it was kind of the right time (as everybody else's) to build a gaming and coding rig myself. I did so a lot, partly as a side gig at a small computer store while I was in school. This was over 20 years ago (Yes I'm that old ^{^).}

My requirements were as follows:

• Lots of cores so compilations go fast (quite a bunch of languages, mostly Golang and Rust, but also some Java)
• Lots of memory so I can run tons of containers on Docker and/or Kubernetes locally.
• Reuse my "old" GTX1080 as the GPU prices were already insane when I started planning.
• Around ~$2k budget for new components, as approved by my boss/wife (Finance background and no interest in gaming).

A CPU from AMD was set early on as they offer more cores than Intel nowadays and the single-core performance is still decent. The 5950 was mostly unavailable and was then (and still now) somewhat too pricy for my taste.

As for other components, I was browsing other completed builds here on PCPP, watching a few YouTube videos and browsing a few subreddits. As I explored I learned there is a thing now called SFF, and that kind of fit my use case, as I have a ~2.5year old kid that I don't want to crawl under my desk and pulls cables or spills something on the computer, so keeping a small case on my desk is much preferable. I found the NCase M1 to fit my sizing requirements, and it looked nice and did not need a riser cable for a decent build. My absolute dream case would have been the NFC Skyreach 4 Mini, but that didn't fit my current GPU that I wanted to keep using for now.

I found a page that listed ITX boards that offer a port for the front panel USB 3/USB-C ports that the NCase M1 has and picked the medium-priced Asus ROG STRIX B550-I for no particular reason.

Noctua coolers and fans had consistently good reviews, I picked the NH-U9S after reading a few recommendations and reviews on various forums and planned the airflow after watching a few M1 builds on YouTube: 2 Intakes on the bottom, 1 on the side, CPU cooler pushes air through the cooler tower fins. A smaller 92mm exhaust fan pushes the hot air out in the back. Together with the M1's perforated panels this should result in decent airflow from the front to the back and maintain slightly above-environment pressure inside the case, so dust-collection should stay reasonable. After reading some reviews, I switched my plans from the A12's for intake to the F12's, which are supposed to be better for maintaining pressure in a case.

I don't have much to say for the other components: Corsair SF600 had good reviews and was supposed to be somewhat silent. I was considering an even smaller power rating than 600W but wanted to have some headspace should I decide to upgrade the GPU at some point.

For storage I wanted to use an NVME as primary OS, so I was browsing the price/GB ratio with still good performance here in PCPP first, and was confirming ratings and other feedback from other sites. I had already another SanDisk Ultra II that I used before as USB3 storage for games on my laptop. I wanted to reused that one. for game storage.

I first planned to go with Crucial Ballistix memory, but as that one was sold-out when I wanted to order, I settled for my second choice, the G.Skill Ripjaws V.

The build went fairly straight forward - This is my first SFF build and I didn't really know what to expect - back in the day I mostly did regular old-school grey utility-style Tower- or Desktop PCs with ATX boards.

With a bit of planning ahead and MB prep-work outside the case, I didn't have to re-do a lot initially. For a first time SFF build I think I did an okay job with cable management. The case is fairly easy to work in I found. Some corners are hard to reach with all the stuff pushed into the case.

I did have one little shock though: Upon first boot the MB did not detect my NVME. As this was my first one my guess is I didn't put it in hard enough, not wanting to break anything. That made me remove the GPU once so I could reach the slot. After removing and resetting it once, I got it right.

Besides that, no complaints from myself!