Thermaltake Lanbox-Lite Computer Case/Chassis

A Closer Look:

The entire case is modular, every component can be easily taken out or place in for system maintenance.

You can see the two case fans at the back of the mother board tray. the overall design of this case is to utilize a directed airflow. the side and top ventilation serve as outputs for the processor cooler, and the video card respectively.

The case is designed to handle a full assortment of accessories including two optical drives a floppy or media card reader, and even the 8000 series full sized graphics cards. It is uncommon that you find a small form factor case designed to accept a full height graphics card, trust me I looked.

Installation:

I had very specific intentions while I was drooling over this case. It is a widely held misconception that with a small form factor comes severe limitations. And that a mid or full tower case is required to get any performance. I laugh at this misconception.

Test Rig:

Motherboard: Gigabyte H55N-USB3 Mini-ITX
Disk Drive: OCZ Agilty II SSD
Ram: 4gb Patriot Sector 5 Viper II
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate
Processor: Intel I5-750 2.6ghz Quad core
PSU: OCZ ModXStream modular 700 watt
GPU: Sparkle GTX 480+

Gigabytes release of the Mini-ITX spawned some very interesting debates about the capabilities and traditional roles of a “small form factor” system. The fully featured board allows me to completely take advantage of the space within this case as well as completely take advantage of my opponents assumptions.

The motherboard installation was very easy. The motherboard fit perfectly in the space provided with room to spare.

The Optical drive was also a very straightforward installation. The instruction manual had some helpful tips if your into that sort of thing…

Due to the space constraints I was forced to use the Intel stock heat sink. While this does an adequate job I will be replacing it when I find a suitable option.

The power supply mounted seamlessly into the bracket and I was able to remove it from the frame so I could easily complete the wiring.

The installation of the GTX480 proved to be a bit of a situation. The case is designed to house the entirety of the 8800GTX, which is unfortunately 9 inches long as opposed to the 10.5 ” of the GTX 480. This was easily remedied however. I simply removed the hard drive cage from the floor of the case. It allowed for the extra room the card needed to fit. Because I am using an SSD I was able to mount the drive to the secondary optical drive bay. The SSD is neither heavy, nor subject to vibration so I feel there is no danger with this option.

The other concern with putting this beast of a graphics card in such a cramped space is heat. The ventilation on this case with the included three fans is quite adequate for the intended running temperatures, however I have seen this card heat up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. To combat this potential disaster, I installed a Thermaltake PCI slot fan. The fan removes air directly from the heat sink of the video card and helps to keep the entire case very cool.