For much of 2019, this humble writer commuted between the far north and southwest of England. Among the many logistical headaches that ensued, not to mention finding something to eat other than a depressing buffet-cart sandwich or procuring earphones to drown out the jabbering of the most determinedly quiet bus, was the transportation of a PC.

Thus, I joined the ranks of small form factor enthusiasts, road warriors, office machine builders, and retro gamers in search of a dedicated emulator machine. Personally, I needed something that could run an RTX 2080 Ti and then fit in a suitcase.

However, the DeskMeet B660 (open in new tab), despite being designed with an emphasis on a work machine, can be equipped with some pretty powerful gaming specs.

Dimensions are very small at 168 (W) x 236.1 (D) x 221.6 (H) mm. Serious thought has been given to the internal layout to allow for a reasonably large GPU, although some compromises must be made if a proper gaming machine is to be mounted. At least airflow is ensured.

Officially, the case supports discrete graphics cards up to 200 mm in length, but there is a bit more room. So even if your intended GPU is a few mm longer than the specified length, you can still just barely fit it in. I was able to fit ASRock's RX 6400 Challenger ITX model without any problems, but for higher performance and cooling capacity, you can also fit in a powerful dual-fan card like EVGA's XC2 3060 TI.

As for the CPU fan, there is not much room to spare as there is only a 54mm gap. Basically, you are limited to the stock cooler for the Intel LGA1700 chip unless you choose a different power supply than the custom unit provided by ASRock.

This orientation is intentional and can be very important to keep temperatures low, so choosing a different PSU to accommodate a slightly larger CPU fan could negate the entire point of this attempt.

However, given that this PSU is custom-built, we would have liked to see a little less extra wiring and a modular cable design.

This is not a windowed case, so aesthetics are less important, but bulky cables affect airflow, dust buildup, and ease of construction.

Poor, poor fingers.

Storage options are surprisingly diverse, accommodating one old 3.5" HDD, two 2.5" SSDs, or M.2 storage through the front and back of the motherboard. Aside from the read/write advantages of the latter, it is also much easier to build a system inside this 8L block using small M.2 sticks. There are no additional cables, nothing to mount.

In contrast, mounting a 2.5" SSD and trying to properly connect the SATA and power connectors is much more labor intensive.

It is certainly not the easiest barebone system to build inside, but at this size, that is not an option. Once each component was installed in the correct order, there was always enough space to secure it in place. Cable management, however, remained a problem.

At the very least, the outer case is easy to attach and detach: a single screw secures the black shell, and the frame simply slides out. The build quality is somewhere between a workstation PC and a mid-range gaming case, with beautiful detailing here and there and a matte finish on the front panel.

It also conveniently has many connectivity ports on the front, including two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0, USB Type-C, and a 3.5mm audio socket. Unless, of course, you think the old D-Sub monitor connection is really important.

However, the power switch feels a bit loose and the overall quality of the finish feels low-budget. At $224 (open in new tab) (£242 (open in new tab)) for the case, B660 motherboard, and PSU, there is a real value proposition here. And that means you'll want to allow for a few button wobbles here and there.

Significant fan noise is to be expected, as the acoustic damper is one of many things removed to reduce dimensions. Especially if, like this foolhardy lighter, it is used on the hottest day ever recorded in the UK. There were no crashes. Mainly because playing games indoors next to an increasingly hot exhaust fan was no longer a priority over going outside to buy a popsicle.

Whether or not it's the place to put exactly 8 liters of components depends on how prepared you are to make the tradeoff between size and gaming performance. mini-ITX barebones like NZXT's H1 (opens in new tab) have room for a more powerful GPU, and the CPU The mini-ITX barebones like ZXT's H1 (opens in a new tab) have room for a more powerful GPU and a motherboard that can handle a larger power draw to the CPU. Plus, they look fabulous and you can wave your hand over the parts through the window. However, it is slightly larger.

By contrast, ASRock's quasi-workstation B660 barebone can't be equipped with anything that can run Cyberpunk 2077. Instead, it feels like a solution to more specific problems, such as precise portability requirements, a stealth workstation with enhanced gaming muscle, or an emulation platform.