The goal of this project was to build a pc smaller than possible with the usual mini-itx small form factor motherboards.
This was accomplished by using the motherboard of an Asrock x300 barebone kit which uses the very uncommon mini stx form factor.
The only way to connect a dedicated graphics card to this motherboard is through an m.2 to PCIE adapter which sacrifices some performance. A worthwhile tradeoff for a more compact machine in my opinion.
To accomodate the additional components, my case is quite a bit larger than the original. It is however still small enough to fit into a backpack quite easily.
A removable GPU door enables the fitment of various sized graphics cards, even exceeding the regular volume of the case
In the original configuration an Nvidia GTX 1650 was choosen for its short length and low power consumption. This allows the pc to be used for fluid 1080p gaming at reasonable settings and speeding up blender renders.
The graphics card was later upgraded to the much more performant Nvidia RTX A2000, adding ray tracing capabilities and enabling fast renders and heavy gaming workloads.