I built a tiny 2.9L “glorified milk carton” gaming PC for about $560, and then turned it into a whole portable setup that came in under $1,000. The goal was simple: 1080p gaming-capable, low power (around 150 watts), and small enough to toss in a backpack for LANs or travel. I used a 3D printed case design from makerunit, and I printed it myself (which was honestly way easier than I expected once I got rolling). For parts, I went with the Ryzen 5 8600G APU (so CPU + iGPU in one), fast DDR5 (APUs love fast RAM), a basic 1TB NVMe, and a tiny Pico PSU with a power brick. It booted, it ran, and it even powered the portable monitor, which means one less cable/outlet to think about. But yeah… it didn’t come without issues: I hit clearance/threading problems on the case, and I also had a crash during gaming that ended up being my RAM overclock being a little too spicy. Once I backed that off, it was smooth sailing. I tested a bunch of games at 1080p low settings, saw temps peak around 89.6°C in Siege (not ideal, but no throttling), and then I did the real test: backpack + coffee shop. It survived the ride, booted first try, and actually felt like a legit portable desktop setup.