"Poor man's" is in quotation marks, because I know I'm not really poor if I can afford a high performance PC, so let's rather call it a budget build.

I have wanted a true SFF PC for a long time, but in South Africa the available SFF cases/hardware have always been very limited, and importing is very expensive. I bought a 2nd hand PC in a Phanteks Shift X almost 3 years ago, and was never happy with the cooling performance on air. I was excited to get a NR200 when it was released last year, but after a while went by, some local retailers confirmed that the suppliers were not planning on importing it here. Saddened by the news, I decided to try and build a case with Lego I already had from childhood, and if it proved successful, I would consider rebuilding it with new matching color blocks.

I started off with only a rough plan and dimensions in my head, and it took me a few evenings to finish it - longer than I expected. While I was busy with it, the NR200 suddenly popped up on my favorite retailer's website and I immediately ordered it, but I went on with the Lego case just for the fun of it while I waited for the NR200 to arrive. I was quite pleased with the result. I ran my PC in the Lego case for a few days, and especially my Vega 56 was running much cooler and quieter than in the Shift X.

The dimensions of the case ended up at 352 x 160 x 240 mm - 13.5 liters total volume. Standard configuration - no GPU riser - with the PSU mounted vertically at the front with its exhaust to the top. The only component I bought new was the CPU. Hope you like it, even though it's ugly!