SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project

What's the length on the USB 3.0 cable? I realize it needs to be long enough for it to work with most/all motherboards, but I'm planning on buying one (if possible) that wouldn't leave so much extra cable left.

I really appreciate all of the photos you guys took. It's a lot easier to figure out what parts to buy when you have so many angles. It's like night and day looking at the previous gallery and the current one.
 
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With the brackets visible on the lower left of last photo in the gallery you can stack up to 4 2.5" drives in front of the ITX gpu. You'll have to use the short screws for the bottom drive though since the bracket is quite simple and uses threads of the drive itself - both vertical all horizontal.

Great. Looking forward to place the order when it is out.
 
For those who didn't notice - We've updated the gallery with photos of the prototype V. Thread OP was updated as well.
 
The photos look great, really nice to finally see how everything works. The only gripe I have is the abnormally long USB3.0 cable, there's no board to my knowledge that justifies such a long cable. I guess you could only get one in a predefined length and this was the best one you could find?

What is the spot-welded elevation part on the top panel? Is that used to support the GPU if the case is used upside down?
 
The photos look great, really nice to finally see how everything works. The only gripe I have is the abnormally long USB3.0 cable, there's no board to my knowledge that justifies such a long cable. I guess you could only get one in a predefined length and this was the best one you could find?

I think I've talked about this but not sure whether here or on LTT forums. Problem of USB piece is that there's not many manufacturers keeping the original reference size of those connectors since they are meant for bracket mount and it's not really relevant. Reusing the old molds that are cleaned make additional milimeters and those supposedly 60mm ones are getting like 68-72mm big. There's also trend of making generally wider USB3.0 baffles using newer design for the increased space between possible two fat pendrives plugged in. We've found only one manufacturer willing to sell us such reference units of USB3.0 while keeping low minimum order quantities that fit our project.

What is the spot-welded elevation part on the top panel? Is that used to support the GPU if the case is used upside down?

I've answered on the last page to this question

It's an internal piece that partitions the space above the gpu. It takes the heat on itself so the cover is safe to touch and hot spots are really small where it's weld to the cover. Shrinking the space above the gpu to the minimum makes it hard for hot air from the gpu gather there so its additional gain for the thermals.
 
wow! I need this! Congrats! awesome Work!

I just saved a small pc from getting thrown away. It works fine so im hesitating slaugthering it to put my gaming components in. But I need my gaming station, also I cant leave it in cardboard! :D

So watcha say, how long approximately, till you order the first 100 ?

edit: Damn that finnish is just absolutely stunning!
 
wow! I need this!

Not only You. After the Sentry's photo-session Saper came with his 17'' laptop bag and he took it (Sentry) from me for benchmarks :(

So watcha say, how long approximately, till you order the first 100 ?

My brother wrote it somewhere before. I just sent another order for another white prototype, which will be sent to Canada to Linus from LinusTechTips. After his benchmarks, we'll try to make tweaks he'll suggest, and after that we'll start our preordering stage. I can't say anything more.
 
I just paid for another white version (with grainy structural powder coating) of production prototype V, which will be sent to Linus.
Things are moving forward...
 
Well I just sold my 970 for a 780 ti since I play games at a higher resolution then 1080p, but Id like to know if the blower type fan will fit inside the case.
 
The reference GTX780TI will fit - it's 10.5" and we're supporting cards up to 12".

By the way I've ordered more toys for performance testing today: E3-1231v3 along with Cryorig C7 will replace [email protected] running on box in test unit.
 
Hope that Cryorig C7 works well because that's the cooler I bought in anticipation for your case.
 
Cryorig is promoting C7 as the same outline as the boxed cooler so it shouldn't be a problem if you're having motherboard in the same layout as the one on the photos (in terms of chipset location).
 
I think we should once again talk about one more thing. I'm pretty sure my bro wrote this somewhere, but ok. In the last few days we're getting some pm's and questions in other forums what will be the additional price for the pci-e riser, power cable, rubber feet etc., or how much more You will have to pay to get everything we show in the photo-gallery? Some of You even ask if they can pay some more than standard SENTRY price for getting screws to assembly our PC-case.

I answered in LTT forum so i will just copy my post here:

ZombiPL said:
s90011 said:
Substantially fixed screws will be attached it? Chassis assembly screws.

I'm also not sure if this is what You want to know, but i will try to reply.

Probably You saw that some of the pc-case designers give a price for their pc-box, and after that they say it's only price for metal parts, and to make Your pc-case usable You have to additionally pay for screws, stand, switch, pci-e riser, etc, etc. We're not going to go that way.



When You will buy our SENTRY pc-case, You will get:

- body of SENTRY,

- top cover,

- stand for vertical installation,

- hdd/ssd mounting for GPU chamber,

- pci/gpu slot covers,

- rubber/plastic feet for horizontal installation,

- some additional rubber/plastic feet (in case You will lose one or two),

- plastic covers for the holes if You use a stand instead rubber feet,

- assembly screws (for the case itself, for motherboard, ssd, USB 3.0, pci-e riser, etc.),

- some additional assembly screws (in case You will lose some of them),

- screws for the stand,

- additional screws for the stand (in case You will lose some of them),

- rubber O-rings for the stand,

- additional rubber O-rings for the stand (in case You will lose or damage some of them),

- rubber feet permanently attached to the stand,

- power switch,

- high quality pci-e shielded riser,

- USB 3.0 cable,

- USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 adapter,

- internal IEC C13->C14 power cable,

- manual including CE declaration (paper, cd or digital version on our website. We still didn't decide),



I hope this answer satisfies You.

And one more thing. Don't be afraid to ask. If You don't know something or can't find the answer in the forum, just ask. There are no stupid questions, but only stupid answers. This is a community project, and it is better to ask now, than when we'll be at the full-production stage. We won't be able to improve something if You'll somewhere find we've made a mistake and You won't talk about it. You are also a designers of this case, so Your questions "shape" our case.
 
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Since im planning to mod the side panel and if i just so happen to mess up, would you guys be able to sell me a side panel only?
 
Since im planning to mod the side panel and if i just so happen to mess up, would you guys be able to sell me a side panel only?
Technically that is possible for us to make an additional panel but I'm not sure about shipping since it won't fit inside the boxes we're going to use for shipping with the case so it would be another box and additional shipping cost.

Can you explain what are you going to do with the cover? I don't think there's much room for modding and the only thing you could do is a small plexi window over the motherboard BUT that would need to be perforated and it would force you to use low profile cooler.
 
Sorry if you have already covered this but I couldn't find it when using search. Will this support 2.5" HDDs that are 15mm in thickness or just the slimmer drives?
 
They won't fit in main drive bays above motherboard and in front of the SFX psu but if you're using short gpu they should fit. The problem remains the type of the drive you want to use. I'm guessing sata express but that one has quite big plug and the motherboards using it have those connectors angled in direction of PSU in our case.

The main bay will fit slim 9.5mm drives.
 
What are the dimensions of the GPU area? Also, there won't be any kind of problem with GPU backplates, correct? I would be surprised if there was a problem, but I don't remember that being asked yet.
 
No, backplates aren't going to be a problem. About the space in the GPU Saper or Zombi have to confirm, but I don't think anything wider than reference will fit if the GPU connectors are on the side of the card.
 
Backplates are usually level with the gpu radiator screws coming out of the back of the pcb so we have to take that into account anyway and that's reference design. Apart from that we have additional 5mm of clearance between that and the internal piece inside the cover so it's not a problem.

The GPU compartment is 306mm long and any other dimensions won't tell you anything apart from that there's 19mm clearance from the reference width pcb to the outer wall for stuff like heatpipes but the pcb can't be oversized this much due to space required for the PEG connectors.
 
Backplates are usually level with the gpu radiator screws coming out of the back of the pcb so we have to take that into account anyway and that's reference design. Apart from that we have additional 5mm of clearance between that and the internal piece inside the cover so it's not a problem.

The GPU compartment is 306mm long and any other dimensions won't tell you anything apart from that there's 19mm clearance from the reference width pcb to the outer wall for stuff like heatpipes but the pcb can't be oversized this much due to space required for the PEG connectors.

Fantastic. Thanks for the info. I wouldn't have bothered to ask about the backplate except that I couldn't tell how much space was left due to the internal piece inside the cover.

Thanks also for the info on the gpu width. I've been trying to figure out what GPU I want to use for this case.
 
I think that should explain what you asked more precisely:

94rtEA3.jpg

But I think I've showed something like this already here few pages back before the forum update...
 
Hey guys, everything is looking incredible!

Just stopping in with a question and a side note:

1) Since I didn't get any response to my first request, is it okay if I write a review of this case when I buy one? I can't guarantee it'll get published, but if it does, it'll be on Tom's Hardware.

2) For anybody else who is excited about this thing because they travel to LAN parties or friend's houses with their computers, I have a little bit of news. I'm a motorcyclist, and have been shopping around for a decent messenger bag for about a year now, bearing in mind that I'll probably be carrying my computer in it.
(Yeah, I know, I probably just made half of you cringe at the thought of an unintentional dismount with your $2000 computer on your back.) Even if you aren't as foolhardy as I, there's a bag out there that is practically custom-made for this case.

The Kriega Urban Messenger bag has internal dimensions of 317.5mm x 400.5mm x 127mm (Height x Width x Depth) compared to the 320mm x 340mm x 74mm total dimensions of a SENTRY on its side. The 2.5mm sticking up is easily accounted for because it's in the vertical dimension and this is a messenger bag - it can be adjusted to cover that quite easily.

That means that you can include some padding in the bag along each face of the computer to protect it fully (AND your keyboard), and you'll have 60mm for your cables. In addition, the bag can have two additional add-ons that could easily hold a mouse and more cables. Oh, and it's all 100% waterproof. All you'd have to do is carry your monitor or have a second one set up at your alternate location.


I totally get that this isn't going to be for everybody, but one of the things that makes the M1 so swanky is its custom case, and it's nice to have an option for the SENTRY that's almost there, even if it's over-engineered and on the pricey side.
 
Hey guys, everything is looking incredible!

Just stopping in with a question and a side note:

1) Since I didn't get any response to my first request, is it okay if I write a review of this case when I buy one? I can't guarantee it'll get published, but if it does, it'll be on Tom's Hardware.

2) For anybody else who is excited about this thing because they travel to LAN parties or friend's houses with their computers, I have a little bit of news. I'm a motorcyclist, and have been shopping around for a decent messenger bag for about a year now, bearing in mind that I'll probably be carrying my computer in it.
(Yeah, I know, I probably just made half of you cringe at the thought of an unintentional dismount with your $2000 computer on your back.) Even if you aren't as foolhardy as I, there's a bag out there that is practically custom-made for this case.

The Kriega Urban Messenger bag has internal dimensions of 317.5mm x 400.5mm x 127mm (Height x Width x Depth) compared to the 320mm x 340mm x 74mm total dimensions of a SENTRY on its side. The 2.5mm sticking up is easily accounted for because it's in the vertical dimension and this is a messenger bag - it can be adjusted to cover that quite easily.

That means that you can include some padding in the bag along each face of the computer to protect it fully (AND your keyboard), and you'll have 60mm for your cables. In addition, the bag can have two additional add-ons that could easily hold a mouse and more cables. Oh, and it's all 100% waterproof. All you'd have to do is carry your monitor or have a second one set up at your alternate location.


I totally get that this isn't going to be for everybody, but one of the things that makes the M1 so swanky is its custom case, and it's nice to have an option for the SENTRY that's almost there, even if it's over-engineered and on the pricey side.

hi darksable,

i'm preparing a little update, not only for You, but also for other people who are sending private messages to us. It will include the answer for Your questions.
 
***Q&A UPDATE***

Hi guys,
We recived some questions in forums and by private messages, so we decided to make a little update. Below You will get answers for some of Your questions.

Q: When i will get my own version of SENTRY, can i make a review of it and publish it somewhere?
A: We can't imagine how we could forbid doing something like that. If You buy our PC case You can do with it whatever You want (within the warranty:)).

Q: Will You be making or selling Your own backpack/bag for SENTRY?
A: Probably not. Adding a bag or backpack to the package will increase the price of shipment so bad, that it won't have any sense.

Q: If You're not selling a bag/backpack for SENTRY, are there any bags on the market, which i could use for this case and they won't cost ~$200?
A: Sentry was designed in the way, that it should fit in many 17'' laptop bags which You can find on the market. And they don't have to be expensive. For example we bought one 17'' laptop backpack and one 17''-18'' laptop bag, $10 each (yes, $10). The only thing You have to check before buying a bag for SENTRY are internal dimensions of the bag.
Below You can see the photos from our gallery with those two bags.



Q: I want to buy a Cryorig C7 cooler for Your PC case. Will it fit.
A: Yes, it should fit. Everything depends where on the motherboard is Your CPU located. If it is far from the PCI-E slot, then there won't be any problems. Below You can find photos with Cryorig C7 installed in SENTRY.



Q: I have a short GPU. Can i insert some additional drives in the GPU compartment?
A: Yes, You can. With SENTRY we'll send You 2 steel frames for Your drives. With 2 steel frames You can stack up to 4 x 2,5'' drives in a GPU compartment, while You will have a short graphic card. Photos below.



Q: What for are those 3 holes over the I/O shield?
A: Those holes are made for wifi antennas connectors. There can be some wifi cards or motherboards with such cards, which can have up to 3 antennas, so SENTRY is prepared for such situation.

 
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Firstly I would just like to say great work, it looks like its coming along well, this is exactly the case I've been looking for. It looks very promising, especially if you can keep it affordable.

Secondly, I was wondering if you plan to release a stand for vetical position similar to that of the ps4

Thirdly, could you possibly make the usb3 at the front black or grey, or have a cover for it so it doesnt show that ugly blue :)

Thanks
 
This weekend I've installed my new E3-1231v3 and Cryorig C7 (as you can see on the photos). I'll be testing it out starting this week and you'll get some fresh performance data on newer games, i7 class cpu and that internal part of the case cover.

By the way I want to share some thoughts on the C7 - it's not perfect and it might be a flawed design:

1) Mounting system takes more than ATX reference 6.35mm under the motherboard (even over 8mm depending on how far will you tighten it's nuts) which can make it impossible to install in cases that have those low 6.35mm ATX stand-offs.

Our case however has 7mm standoffs + central cut-out that gives you additional 1mm of space out there so this kind if cooler mounts should fit.

2) There's no info in the manual how much you need to tighten those mounting nuts nor there's any mechanism preventing going overboard.

3) The idea of making something in intel's stock cooler form factor is nice but if the target is small form factor like our case, dondan's A4 and those small motherboard only boxes then mounting the fan on the top of the package is ludicrous - fan blades next to air inlet perforation can make it even louder than stock intel cooler under load

Also, by chance, I got to check out if Asus GTX 970 Mini fits - the card itself fits but the plastic piece of PEG8 just barely fits between the pcb and case side bracket so it looks like it should be possible to install those with the angled cables we mention before.

Firstly I would just like to say great work, it looks like its coming along well, this is exactly the case I've been looking for. It looks very promising, especially if you can keep it affordable.
Thanks, I'm glad You like it.

We're trying to make it as affordable as possible but at the same time there are reasons why the production cost jumped a bit recently because most of the people on the forums here and in the other topics preferred complete package with high quality risers and finish so we went that way.

Secondly, I was wondering if you plan to release a stand for vetical position similar to that of the ps4

I don't think we could do that easily because PS4 is plastic and it's stand is plastic.

We're doing our case out of metal and making something like that ps4 stand from plastic cost way more and makes it feasible for mass production only because you need to make high quality moulds for plastic injection forming. 3D printing on the other hand could be cheaper but it would take a lot more time printing and clearing out those prints. If we were to make it out of metal somehow it would also require moulds for metal bending and that's again only feasible for mass production.

Thirdly, could you possibly make the usb3 at the front black or grey, or have a cover for it so it doesnt show that ugly blue :)

Thanks

USB 3.0 blue colour is a reference and I've already asked if it was possible to get it in black - the answer is simple: 10 000 pcs minimum order quantity :)
 
Saper told me, some of you asked about a photo under a TV, to see more perspective view, so here you are :)
(next to the SENTRY is our satellite decoder):

 
If for some reason this whole project ends up falling through, I am going to be supremely envious that I know such a beautiful piece of hardware exists and you have it all to yourself.
 
Any new info regarding the performance data with the C7? I also am curious when the case you are sending to Linus is estimated to be manufactured. Is by the end of this month a possibility?
 
Not yet. I didn't have too much time over weekend for that. I just put up that render queue for the 360 view of final design to check how the xeon works.

I'll try to run some tests over this week. I have some better setup for gathering data than on the previous prototypes as well.

So far I'd say that performance-wise it can run 8-10 degrees cooler on idle but is significantly louder at full loads than intel's box.

As for the final prototype (white) unit, sadly we're still waiting for it.
 
Saper told me, some of you asked about a photo under a TV, to see more perspective view, so here you are :)
(next to the SENTRY is our satellite decoder):

Damn, that's a nice looking setup you got here.

In general, new Prototype looks fantastic. Keep up the good work!
 
So far I'd say that performance-wise it can run 8-10 degrees cooler on idle but is significantly louder at full loads than intel's box.

Noise is a large factor for me so I will be looking at the best balance I can find.
From what I can gather, the stock intel cooler is 45mm vs the 47mm C7 and that the 2mm difference between them is enough to increase the noise by a fair margin.

For targeting an upgraded cpu cooler, do you think it should be no taller than the stock cooler height of 45mm to keep it quieter?
 
I've got some test results on my GTX 970 running in horizontal position.

Tests were run on max settings at 1920x1200 minus VSync which might've capped the framerates for all games on the list.

Pentium 3258 Anniversary Edition was overclocked to 3.6Ghz which is the same clock speed as Xeon E3 -1231v3 turbo mode on all cores. Xeon E3 was cooled with Cryorig C7.

Data was captured with MSI Afterburner and then averaged for each application

kDB1vha.jpg


Note the fact that Source Engine might be more cpu dependant so dota and counter strike were bottlenecked by Pentium 3258

Average results:
b19ArQz.jpg


Additionally I put a constant load on the Xeon with Cryorig C7 to render frames for this 360 degree animation:

W2OOwSP.gif


It was rendered in higher resolution than this gif, it took 2 hours and the CPU temperature spiked to 79 degrees with average of 70 degrees.
 
I've got some test results on my GTX 970 running in horizontal position.

Tests were run on max settings at 1920x1200 minus VSync which might've capped the framerates for all games on the list.

Pentium 3258 Anniversary Edition was overclocked to 3.6Ghz which is the same clock speed as Xeon E3 -1231v3 turbo mode on all cores. Xeon E3 was cooled with Cryorig C7.

Data was captured with MSI Afterburner and then averaged for each application

kDB1vha.jpg


Note the fact that Source Engine might be more cpu dependant so dota and counter strike were bottlenecked by Pentium 3258

Average results:
b19ArQz.jpg


Additionally I put a constant load on the Xeon with Cryorig C7 to render frames for this 360 degree animation:

W2OOwSP.gif


It was rendered in higher resolution than this gif, it took 2 hours and the CPU temperature spiked to 79 degrees with average of 70 degrees.


Hey Guys,

I just want say that you guys are doing a Fantastic job! This masterpiece will definitely be very competitive in the market. I've been waiting for 10 years for a case this slim and you guys are on the right track! Thanks for all your hard work! I cant wait to pre-order - any thoughts on when that will be available for pre-order?
 
Hey Guys,

I just want say that you guys are doing a Fantastic job! This masterpiece will definitely be very competitive in the market. I've been waiting for 10 years for a case this slim and you guys are on the right track! Thanks for all your hard work! I cant wait to pre-order - any thoughts on when that will be available for pre-order?

We're glad You like it :)

At the moment we've changed our powder coating to also structural one, but with higher graininess. We want to eliminate fingerprints and make our pc-case more scratch-resistant.

We know we promised to release Sentry a long time ago, but we're still finding some little things we can improve, and also You (as community) gives us so many new ideas, so we want to check what we can do with them. All in all we don't want to start selling pc-case, that we know we can make better. We are aware that we are very pedantic (better stiffness, better venting holes, better hdd support, better power cable, better usb 3.0 cable, better pci-e riser, better stand, etc., etc., etc.), and this is the main reason why we have such big delay. Sorry for that.

Right now we're waiting for our white Sentry with grainy structural paint, and if it will be ok, we'll immediately order another one in black colour. We have to be 100% sure of our manufacturers repeatability. If both cases will be ok, than we'll send one to Linus from LTT for a roasting in a video review. We should do it faster, but as i mentioned before, we decided to change the paint.
I hope You all can wait a little bit longer. We're doing our best.
 
Do you know what price will the case have? And shipping costs for Europe?
 
shipping cost for Europe will depend on the country, according to quotes I got last year it's from ~13$ (to Germany) up to ~26$ (Greece, Portugal)

Until we get final unit and 100% repeatability assurance from the metal parts manufacturer we can't calculate the final price for sure. We'll try to cut down the price to something proper while trying to make the business sustainable if we want to make more than a one-batch serie of cases.
 
So I just bought me a intel 750 u.2 SSD and was wondering if it can fit in the 2.5 slot without having to remove the heatsink since its size is a little thicker than a normal size SSD.
Height
15.00mm
Width
70.00mm
Depth
101.00mm
 
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