Project: Full shoebox (PICS-56k no)

[koma_white]

Project: Full Shoebox

Progress update - 14/05/2010 - New loop completed, pump relocated.

After spending years with modest but full house systems and adding more and more hard disks, my computer reached a critical mass about a year ago when i was sick of lugging that mass to LAN's when i just didn't need it. I downsized from a CM Stacker to a Lian Li PC60 which was a step in the right direction, but when i saw how much of the case space was empty i realised i could do much better. So i looked at a few of the Shuttles and looked at mATX cases but nothing really fitted what i wanted. I could go custom, but lack of time and effort probably meant that it would be yet another project that was never completed.

So mITX was the way to go. It should be small and light enough that i can carry it around to LAN's and be able to take it to work in a hurry as a backup workstation and rendering box.

Parts list:
Intel i5-750
DFI P55 mITX mobo
4gb DDR3 GSkill Ripjaws 2000 RAM
Sapphire HD5850
GSkill Falcon 64gb SSD
Seagate 1Tb Barra12 HDD
EK Supreme LT
XSPC 120.1 radiator
MCP350 pump
... and last but not least the tardis that was to contain all this...
Silverstone SG06

Due to supply issues with the Silverstone case i ended up being forced to source one from the only place that had them still in stock, New Zealand. For anyone contemplating doing this, it wasn't as painful as i had expected but i did end up paying a premium for my impatience.

Case arrived with all the usual frills, extra's and bits & pieces ready to be removed to let me cram in my hardware. First step was to strip it down, remove the optical drive tray and hard disk rack from the front of the case. It's designed to fit a single 3.5" HDD, a single 2.5" drive and a slimline optical drive in there... if your sticking with stock cooling.
The case was cleaned up and then painted in a satin black. I've done matt black on a previous case and it ended up looking like a chalk board after a few weeks. The satin finish makes it look a little more like the exterior of the case.

I received the CPU, mobo, RAM and graphics card the week before the case arrived due to the stuffing around, so i've had all the hardware test benching for stability purposes. The only modifications that i've made to the hardware were to fit some additional heatsinks to the volt regs around the CPU socket and on the back of the motherboard. Yes, the DFI P55 ITX board has volt regs on the BACK of the board. They would be fine if i wasn't planning on using an i5-750 overclocked. Without the heatsinks the VRM temp would skyrocket to ~90º before levelling out, with the heatsinks it levels out at ~70º, and only 45-50º if i can get even a miniscule amount of air flow over them.

Case stripped and painted, now test fitting for placement...

As you can see, the HD5850 fits in quite comfortably despite it only being rated to accept cards up to 9" in length. The reference HD5850 is 9.5" with it's power connectors on the end of the card... this reared it's ugly head later on in the build.


I've removed the stock fan from it's 120mm mounting onto the front of the chassis. The stock filter can remain in place. Clearance between the graphics card and radiator was always going to be an issue. Thankfully with the XSPC radiator standing upright and sitting on a small strip of closed cell foam it was at the perfect height. No case cutting required. I've put a strip of the same rubber between the back of the graphics card and the radiator just in case it decides to move.
The radiator is mounted in place using my favourite flexible mounting hardware - industrial strength adhesive velcro! It's certainly not moving from there, as even without the velcro it's a friction fit.


This will give you an idea of where the watercooling routing will be going. The MCP350 fits next to the stock SFX power supply, just above the graphics card. It's all a bit of a tight fit with about 3-4mm clearance all round, just enough to get some more velcro and rubber strips in there to isolate it from the case for vibration reduction, whilst still getting a nice secure mount.


Watercooling loop in place but not installed. As you can see i'm currently running a T-line in about the only convenient place i've got; unfortunately at the outlet from the pump / inlet to the CPU block.


Showing the width of the MCP350. The astute readers will also notice that the side mounting brackets for the MCP350/355 are no longer there. Due to the location of the side rail of the case i had to remove them. Not to fear as i'll be using velcro to mount the pump to the side of the PSU and back of the case.


Bad photo but it shows just how small this case really is. That ITX motherboard is 17x17cm, and there's JUST enough room for a standard depth 120mm Noctua fan and the rather thick XSPC radiator in front.

The final challenges were installing the PSU, mouting the HDD and SSD, then cabling it all up. This is where i'm going to hold off on the photo's until i get a chance to sleeve the PSU and neaten things up inside A LOT! At the moment there's a nice little cavity running from the 120mm radiator fan over the RAM and CPU block / VRM heatsinks, then up into the 80mm PSU fan and out the back.

A word of warning, installing the 5850 with the two PCIE power connectors attached was a horrible multi-axis game of Tetris. If i had small child hands then i would have been able to plug in the PCIE power connectors with the card almost in place, but as i have giant man hands i had to negotiate the issue with some strange angles and a little bit of 'convincing'. Eventually it fit - end of discussion. Just take this as a warning that whilst it does fit, it's not an easy thing to do.

Mounting of hard disks was a minor hurdle, which i've only temporarily resolved. There is just enough room to have the 3.5" disk sideways running along the side of the case, and the 2.5" SSD can either be piggybacked to the HDD, or can be wedged in between the PSU and case side which will cover part of the ventilation holes on the right hand side of the case. If money were no object (and SSD's were larger capacity) i'd definitely say that putting 2-3 SSD's in there would be the way to go. Possibly future upgrade noted.

For now, this is all your going to get.
Evidence that it all fits in there and it runs!


Overall weight of the system even with the watercooling is honestly astonishing even compared to the Lian Li aluminium case my previous build was housed in. Definitely a LAN worthy box, and very easily disconnected and thrown in the car for work purposes.

Overclocking and temperatures
Stock - 2.66ghz (IDLE 24º, LOAD 38º)
Stable and reliable OC - 3.16ghz (IDLE 24º, LOAD 49º)
Max overclock ~3.6ghz (ITX mobo voltage limited) (IDLE 26º, LOAD 57º)

You ran all that with a 300w power supply?!
After a lot of research, i determined that the i5-750 and 5850 was the absolute limit that the 300w PSU could handle. The PSU is definitely a well built one and Silverstone state that it can handle a continuous 300w load, but i really am at the top end of what it can do. Silverstone have recently released a 450w version in the same SFX form factor that i'll look into getting in the future just as a bit of piece of mind. At the moment the machine is perfectly stable (18 hours of Prime95 last night).

12v rail measurements through SpeedFan:
(I'll plug my multimeter in tonight to confirm them)
Idle: 11.97v
Prime 95 load: 11.82-11.8v
Prime95 + FurMark: 11.65-11.8v

Thoughts, limitations and compromises
The main limitation in this system is the DFI P55 ITX motherboard. I have no doubt that with even this modest watercooling setup and a full sized ATX motherboard that this combo would happily top 4ghz without so much as a blink... but this is the compromise i've chosen to accept.
At 3.16ghz it still runs a 1mb SuperPI calculation in ~11 seconds, and runs all games that i'm playing at the moment (L4D2, Just Cause 2, BF BC2) at very playable frame rates at 1920x1200 on my Dell 2407.

For anyone considering building a mITX rig i'd say go for it, BUT don't expect the same headroom as associated with a full size ATX or even mATX rig. If your willing to compromise a little bit on the size then it'll open up another 700-900mhz on the CPU overclock, but what will that achieve? For me, what i've built here is the sweet spot between speed, portability and price.

PROGRESS POSTS:
14/05/2010 - New loop completed, pump relocated.

Future mods:
- Sleeving PSU and all other cables. (DONE)
- Some hardcore cable routing to neaten things up. (DONE)
- Extend front panel audio cable so it can be routed and hidden. (Sleeved instead - DONE)
- Permanent mounting system for the HDD & SSD. Work in progress - plans have changed.
- Replacing stock cooling on HD5850 with something quieter, but same dimensions to allow it to fit in the case. Investigating TRad2.
- Paint stock 300w PSU in satin black to match case interior. Not sure on this one.
- Upgrade PSU to Silverstone 450w SFX for a bit of headroom.

[Avariel]

Very nice little case you have built there mate and the oc results seems pretty reasonable, good work :P

[MoonShadow]

Wow, thanks for that. I wrote up a list about a week ago with almost exactly the same parts for a mITX PC. It's nice to be able to see what it would look like. I decided against it though because at the moment there is no real future expandability with-out SATA/USB 3.0 boards and such a limiting chip-set.

[ascl]

Nice work! Looks very neat.

[Goonit]

I'm very surprised at the temps.

I think you need to power-coat the lot, and get your sleeving on!

Well done mate!

[koma_white]

Originally Posted by MoonShadow

Wow, thanks for that. I wrote up a list about a week ago with almost exactly the same parts for a mITX PC. It's nice to be able to see what it would look like. I decided against it though because at the moment there is no real future expandability with-out SATA/USB 3.0 boards and such a limiting chip-set.

I've honestly given up building systems with upgrades in mind as i never end up upgrading, i just buy newer hardware! SATA3 isn't a big concern to me given the speeds the current SSD puts through keeps me happy. USB3.0 would be nice, and i'm sure it will be on my next builds wish list.
In this specific implementation the chipset isn't limiting anything in this system, the primary limitation is the PSU and the voltage regulators on the motherboard... but i know what you mean.

Originally Posted by Goonit

I'm very surprised at the temps.

I think you need to power-coat the lot, and get your sleeving on!

Well done mate!

The temps are very respectable and i attribute that to the large amount of mesh area on the case being able to 'vent out' from the 120mm radiator fan. With the 80mm PSU fan it's ever so slightly positively pressurised. The GPU tends to run in it's own little climate zone as it draws air in the side of the case and exhausts at the rear.

Yeah, as always my impatience to 'get it done' resulted in some light orange peeling in the paintwork of the chassis internals. That said, i'm not planning on taking the case off all that often so it's only for my own piece of mind.

I'll be ordering a few bits and pieces in the next week, probably swapping to white tubing and putting in some 45º fittings on the CPU waterblock to neaten it up a bit. Still no idea what i'm going to do in terms of t-line vs res; the t-line as it is annoys me but i can't figure out another way to do it.

Oh, and i forgot to mention... the best way to explain the size of this thing is that it's slightly smaller than two 330ml bottle 6-packs. It may sound larger than you'd think, but as soon as you sit it next to even a small tower you realise how little volume it takes up.

[dembones]

looks great, you're temping me to build something similar

[_makio_]

That's looking really nice. How much was that case? Traditionally I have found Silverstone to expensive to be bothered with...

[koma_white]

Originally Posted by _makio_

That's looking really nice. How much was that case? Traditionally I have found Silverstone to expensive to be bothered with...

If or when they eventually come back into stock in Australia they'll be ~$120.
PCCaseGear link

I've become quite a fan of the Silverstone cases recently since swapping my HTPC to an LC17, and building a Raven02 for a friends system. They still have their quirks and faults but overall they're good value for money.

[garfield2k]

looks good mate...no optical? not that you need one anyway....

these mini-itx cases are quite good, very small compared to even a matx case as well.

how come you decided to go with that pump/rad etc? would be easier to get a h50? specially for a small case.

[koma_white]

Originally Posted by garfield2k

looks good mate...no optical? not that you need one anyway....

these mini-itx cases are quite good, very small compared to even a matx case as well.

how come you decided to go with that pump/rad etc? would be easier to get a h50? specially for a small case.

No optical. When i realised that i haven't ever used the DVD burner in my main rig since i bought assembled it ~2 years ago, i didn't feel as bad about leaving it out given the space restriction and having to mount the radiator vertically.

I really dislike the Corsair H50's. IMO they're one step up from a Thermaltake watercooling kit, and that's something i just couldn't pay money for. Yes, it would have been easier... significantly easier, but then this build would be exactly the same as all the other peoples SG05/SG06 builds.

[Linkin]

Nice work man. I don't move my computer around much but i ever needed to something like this is a great idea

[koma_white]

Ordered placed with GAMMODS for the rest of the gear for this build.
Sleeving, barbs and a few little extra bits to be added soon.
Probably have the final build update by the end of next week.

[garfield2k]

Originally Posted by koma_white

I really dislike the Corsair H50's. IMO they're one step up from a Thermaltake watercooling kit, and that's something i just couldn't pay money for. Yes, it would have been easier... significantly easier, but then this build would be exactly the same as all the other peoples SG05/SG06 builds.

..hides h50 away..

i suppose it is only a little better than a TT product, but i suppose its the convenience. after my last WC setup i cant be arsed doing it from scratch, as my current build is a little light on space (not as tight as urs tho )

anyway, cant wait to see how u went bout the cbale management in this

[gazzamcgazza]

Oh why didnt I buy this case over my Lian-Li PC-Q07???

Very nice build, I likes very much!!!!!