THE TRANSPLANT BUILD

Zak Storey takes the RX 7900 GRE out for a spin in a tiny E-ATX Tower

WHEN IT COMES TO the ITX form factor, most will end up in one of two camps. Either you love them because of the minimalist aesthetic, small footprint, and that basic concept of absolute power in a ridiculously small build. Alternatively, you hate them because of the lack of connectivity, limited case choices, and often poor cooling as a result.

It’s one of the most controversial form factors out there. With components getting larger, more power hungry, and requiring more cooling to get the most out of them, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find support for it across the board as we move from generation to generation.

But what if we were to tell you there was another way? What if we could mix the very best of both worlds? A small form factor case that didn’t compromise on cooling, with full E-ATX motherboard support, and an intuitive layout that allowed you to squeeze in some serious power, without sacrificing in any one area? Well, that would be perfect, right? But surely it doesn’t exist?

Well then, with 24 cores, 32 threads, 32GB of 6,000 MT/s memory, one of the best value 4K GPUs you can pick up right now, a super-premium cooling solution, 1200Ws of power delivery, and no less than 6TB of PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 storage, all cooled via six 120mm fans and a 360mm radiator, this build here ticks all of the above boxes and then some. What’s more impressive is that it fits all of that in a tower chassis that measures, at its smallest, just 15.6 x 8.5 x 16.1 inches. To put that into perspective, at Maximum PC, our first ever ITX liquid-cooled PC was built inside the incredible NZXT Manta, a case that by contrast measured 16.7 x 9.6 x 17.7 inches—over an inch larger in every measure.

Well then, ladies, gentlemen, friends, colleagues, and everyone else in between, Maximum PC is proud to present the Tiny Tower Ultimate Power build. Let’s geodesically weave our way into the feature, shall we?

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POTENT PC PART PICKS FOR PREMIUM PERFORMANCE

CPU

Intel Core i9-14900K $549

www.intel.com

Time and time again, we keep coming back to the Intel Core i9-14900K, and with good reason. At its core, this build is the very heart of the MaximumPCtestbed. It’s our go-to chip for GPU, RAM, and SSD testing, and delivers incredible performance for the price. It’s effectively the pinnacle of what Intel has managed to achieve with its Rocket Lake architecture.

It’s not perfect, and if you’ve kept your ear to the ground on this one, you’ve likely seen news articles regarding motherboards producing pretty aggressive over volts and clock-speed boosts. However, you can now pick up an Intel default performance profile in most mobo BIOSes, and even with that slight drop in overall potency, the 14900K still delivers supreme CPU performance, circumnavigating any potential bottlenecks you can imagine for any other component in your build. You’re still likely to see those 100 C running temperatures and high clock speeds, but it’ll at least be a touch more stable.

Fun news cycle data aside, the 14900K has some serious hardware at its core (ha, puns), including eight performance cores, with hyperthreading, plus 16 efficient-cores, for all of those low-priority application processes that need managing. Combine that with 36MB of mixed smart-cache, and the 14900K quite happily dominates any task you throw at it.

Motherboard

Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero $595

www.asus.com

It’s a bit odd when your motherboard costs more than your CPU, and this one has arguably been the cause of a number of headaches for us lot in the labs over the last few months.

On the surface, it’s an incredible piece of hardware. One PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot, four PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, a phenomenal amount of USB connectivity both in the rear I/O and on the board itself. Wi-Fi 7 as standard, 2.5Gb Ethernet, and a seriously hefty 20+1 VRM solution as well. It’s given Asus the opportunity to push these chips to the nines when it comes to performance, and that has certainly come with some drawbacks in terms of system stability (we’re looking at you, Core i7). Still, with a few tweaks here and there, and some adjustments to some of the Asus AI auto-overclocking nonsense in the BIOS, the Z790 Dark Hero is a great board for any connectivity aficionado.

The only thing that does look a bit awkward (for a $595 motherboard) is that weird ‘Aura Grid’ rear I/O LED thing. It’s not a display, so don’t get your hopes up— this isn’t a Formula board, unfortunately— but you can turn it off in the BIOS, and leave yourself with a clean mirrored finish here instead.

CPU Cooler

Phanteks Glacier One 360D30 $170

www.phanteks.com

For this build, we wanted to step away from all of the crazy display AIOs currently out there topping $300, complete with messy cable management systems and nightmarish surrounds, and instead opt for something a little more low-key. This time, we’ve gone for the Phanteks Glacier One 360D30 in white.

There’s no pomp or fanfare here—just simple, clean, elegant design, mixed with an intuitive mounting system, and one seriously hardcore backplate. It comes with support for pretty much every socket since the LGA115x series and above, and also includes a set of Phanteks’ daisychainable D-RGB fans.

It’s a fantastic pick, and performance on those fans in particular is killer, clocking in 3.01 mmH2O and 64.3 CFM at full tilt, while still only registering 30.2 dBA at maximum RPM. That’s not too shabby. Impressively, we found that the pump was actually the noisiest element once we had it all set up to our fan curves correctly, and even then, once the system got a little settled, it soon faded away. We’ve gone with white this time to provide a little contrast against the dark black of the motherboard and its supporting components. It’s a small change, but it really gives the build a bit more of a three-dimensional feel because of it, particularly when you start illuminating that interior with a touch of LED lighting.

RAM

32GB (2x16GB) Crucial Pro Overclocking DDR5 @ 6000 C36 $109

www.crucial.com

It was only the May 2024 issue that we used this same Crucial kit in another build, that one featuring the RTX 4080 Super among other things, and we’ve turned to it and Crucial once more for one simple reason: memory profiles.

Sounds mundane, right? We’ve got all these illuminated parts internally, and so much going on, and yet, somehow we’ve gone with a bland low-profile memory kit that clocks to just 6,000 MT/s? Well, as this build is more transplant than a fresh take, and its core is predominantly our testbed, versatility is key.