Chassis choice gets picked last and thought about least, but it quietly caps almost everything else in a custom build — how many GPUs actually fit, how much airflow the cooling guide's advice can even work with, and whether the build can be upgraded in two years or has to be replaced outright.
Fits on a desk without dominating it, and modern Mini-ITX boards support surprisingly capable single-GPU builds. But there's usually room for exactly one GPU, one or two storage drives, and a single tower cooler or small AIO — no path to add a second card or extra drives later without a full rebuild.
Enough board space for a full-size GPU plus a modest second expansion card, more storage bays, and better airflow paths than most Mini-ITX cases without stepping up to full-tower dimensions. This is where most single-GPU AI/render/virtualization builds that still want future headroom actually land.
A compact case is the right call for a fixed, single-purpose build that will never be touched again. Anything expected to grow — a second GPU added later, more storage, a cooling upgrade — is worth sizing up front, because retrofitting a bigger case after the fact means a second build, not an upgrade.
ProStation specs chassis to the actual workload and its likely growth path, not the smallest box a component list can be squeezed into — see our AI/ML and storage/NAS builds for how this plays out in practice. Configure your build with the right form factor from day one.