SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project

So, I have a question for you guys who are considering i7-7700k's, which will hopefully at least get some thoughts rolling:

Why?

What benefit do you get from the 91w K sku that you're lacking from the 65w locked sku?

You're not going to be overclocking, given the coolers available today, so is the 300-800 MHz you gain really worth it in trade for the extra heat, noise, and trouble you'll get?

Well, you do get a few things

1. Multiplier underclocking
2. Not going to need the box cooler included
3. Futureproofing, when I decide to put something else in the Sentry down the line
4. Maximum power in minimum space
 
Well, you do get a few things

1. Multiplier underclocking
2. Not going to need the box cooler included
3. Futureproofing, when I decide to put something else in the Sentry down the line
4. Maximum power in minimum space
I second this. The whole reason I rather get the 7700k is because the price difference is small enough to justify the investment. Its about the future. Tomorrow a better chipset comes out and I can use my 7700k on a different build or if a better cooling solution comes out, I might be able to overclock even in this little device. Five years ago, it was impossible for a sentry build to run anything at 4k. today graphic cards are powerful enough where we can create a small computer that can run VR. I don't expect that to change in the upcoming years.
 
Yes I was thinking of putting an extra hdd (or 4, given that the intended motherboard has 6 SATA ports, but not at first in any case) in the GPU compartment, and I realize doing so would not be optimal for its life expectancy. However I think I remember reading that it was possible to put (wedge) at least one extra hdd in the GPU compartment if one were to use a blower style cooler. Anyone else remember that?

The point of using a K CPU is to get the fastest single thread CPU available. Some interesting algorithms are still only single threaded. In terms of thermal load, some task might benefit from a faster CPU as well, given the concept of "Race to Sleep" (Turbo boost for a batch and cool down while waiting for the next one). And some task are alternating between the CPU and the GPU, maxing them out in turn. However I would happily trade a 7700K for a slower but twice as many thread 6900K or even 6950K if they were within the same ballpark in terms of price and TDP. But there is no free lunch so the TDP on those beasts is 140W and the price per core is pretty steep increase over the 7700K. On the low core 7700K it is at $84 per core, whereas the 8 core 6900K is at $136 /core and the 10 core 6950X is at $172/core.

In theory I would love a Ryzen 8 Core, given that it seems to be 40 / 45W better at TDP than the 69xx at equivalent performance, but the TDP is a guess, the price is unknown, and there are no ITX boards announced. AMD needs to finally eat, so the price is unlikely to be cheaper than the $84 per core of the 7700K for their flagship, which means at least $672. Which would be a good price, and I'd happily stretch my budget to $700 for an 8 cores, but it's more likely to be closer to the $136 per core of the 69xx if they have good performance.

I'll see if there are any announcement of at least an X300 ITX motherboard by the time the Fatal1ty Z270 is available in stores to entice me to wait, but more core is more $ any way you slice it, and likely more Watts to dissipate.

For the "fit-ability" of the Zotac Mini 1080 I remain unconvinced, as the Mini 1070 is marked as "does not fit" whereas it is smaller on paper than the 1080.
Zotac Mini 1070 : 210mm x 122mm
Zotac Mini 1080 : 211mm x 125mm

My guess is the actual height of the cards with regards to the PCI holder is the real blocker, but no one seems to have both a GTX 1080 mini and a caliper to measure the oversize area compared to the 1070 Mini.
 
So, I have a question for you guys who are considering i7-7700k's, which will hopefully at least get some thoughts rolling:

Why?

What benefit do you get from the 91w K sku that you're lacking from the 65w locked sku?

You're not going to be overclocking, given the coolers available today, so is the 300-800 MHz you gain really worth it in trade for the extra heat, noise, and trouble you'll get?

I have both a 4790S and 4790k and I can say the K, at stock, is a noticeable jump. The 4 core turbo of the K is higher than the single core turbo of the S. The 4 core turbo on the S is down around 3.4 ghz vs 4.2ghz on the K. The K is ~25% faster when comparing 4 core turbo. At 88W stock its the upper end of acceptable for temperatures during gaming with a noctua nh-l9i. I can only hope a different heatsink will help.
 
I can definitely see unlocked CPU's being used. Graphics cards are getting smaller and smaller, it's only a matter of time before you can fit a AOI cooler with a pretty decent graphics card, if you can't already(depends on your opinion of the 1060)

An AOI cooler actually sounds pretty cool, assuming you can lay the Sentry flat so the motherboard faces the ground. Any leak that occurs will just fall down on the case wall, away from any parts... This is actually a interesting concept I wish I would have thought of sooner.
 
Hmmm. Thanks for all your replies, guys, it's actually really interesting.

In my case, I'm committed to a gtx 1070 with a 1080 cooler, and I'll let you all know how that performs just as soon as school loans are paid off and I can afford the upgrade. :)

As for the CPU, several interesting points were raised:

1) Undervolting. I actually really get the appeal of this. I used to watercool for performance and silence; nowadays, after having to troubleshoot far too many computers, I want something that I don't have to worry about the stability of.

2) Stock speeds. This is also a very fair point, depending on the usage and applications. However, I'm going to be upgrading from an i5-3570k that was sold and downgraded to an ivy bridge pentium about a year ago... I suspect an i7-7700 is still gonna be a noticable upgrade. ;)

3) I'm going to go ahead and put my own consern here: Noise. Yes, you can undervolt your cpu, but not down to 65w, and nothing can reliably cool a ~85w cpu right now in the form factor we're looking at without a hell of a fast RPM.

So what does it boil down to? I got my answers; there are a lot of reasons to go with a "k" sku. For what I plan to do, which is mostly gaming, plus a fair bit of audiophile work, I think the lower TDP processor makes sense...

But y'all have done a good job convincing me and I'm not entirely certain it doesn't make sense not to get an i5-7600k and undevolt it, just in case.

Thanks!

Edit: although for gaming, the "60w" i3-7350k seems awfully attractive. I'm gonna have to research a little and see if it can stand up to the 1070.... That begin being said, that's on the very big dependency that ryzen will drive its price down to about $150, otherwise a locked i5 makes much more sense for $20 more.
 
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I'm sitting here with a 4690k and not sure what I should do
Wait for Sentry to actually arrive, by then AMD will hopefully have launched something - and then decide if it's even worth upgrading your perfectly capable 4690K at all - for gaming, it probably wouldn't make a difference :p
 
My plan:

- Intel i7 7700 (non K)
- EVGA SC ACX 3.0 1070

But i´m still very unsure which CPU cooler i should use...

- Cryorig micocr-c7

- SilverStone SST-AR05

- Noctua NH-L9i (maybe with an bigger Fan)

Can please anybody give me a recommendation ?
 
My plan:

- Intel i7 7700 (non K)
- EVGA SC ACX 3.0 1070

But i´m still very unsure which CPU cooler i should use...

- Cryorig micocr-c7

- SilverStone SST-AR05

- Noctua NH-L9i (maybe with an bigger Fan)

Can please anybody give me a recommendation ?

1) If you don't have to buy hardware now - wait for ZEN. We may get something similar in performance of 7700 with lower tdp and lower price. it should show up somewhere in February. Also if AMD wants to push 95W SR7 into the mITX market with X300 chipset then they might bring it with some kind of interesting cooling solution, maybe even something with vapor chamber.

2) Don't take the Cryorig C7 - its mounting is simply badly designed and it makes problems with some motherboards. Both noctua and silverstone should be fine with 65W CPU, however I've seen quite a lot of people liking noctua fans including Linus while I don't think the silverstone fans have such fan base :)
 
a fool has more hope than the wise :) i don't belive low pricing of zen cpus. it will be like polaris gpu. rx 480 release price 200usd. where?
 
Damn, that's a good price. Is this the only mITX motherboard that has TB3?
So far, yea. I've tried looking for others.. I heard of Gigabyte offering a upgrade last year but those are z170 and ew Gigabyte boards.

I wish EVGA had it on their newest ITX Stinger.. that board is nice, too.

I'm surprised Asus is missing TB3.. With their whole ROG stuff acting like the best(and granted, sometimes they are close. yes im looking at you, VIII Impact)
 
a fool has more hope than the wise :) i don't belive low pricing of zen cpus. it will be like polaris gpu. rx 480 release price 200usd. where?

That's a good point, except with GPUs there was some competition on the AMD side. With CPUs they left whole market to intel by releasing the junk over and over. If they go and launch with similar prices to intel then noone will care. They only can take the market by bringing their 8-cores to people who would be buying quad core i7s now - the ones with lots more cash have X99 platform already and they won't be moving to zen anyway.

What AMD did with GPU prices was reaction to nvidia plot on exactly the same thing - nvidia showed off the awesome pricing and said that they are going to be releasing founders edition that is more expensive due to high quality than MSRP and obviously that plot was show off virtual pricing and put the burden of overpricing on card vendors and retailers... AMD just figured out that plot and thought - Lol, let's double on that :D
 
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My plan:

- Intel i7 7700 (non K)
- EVGA SC ACX 3.0 1070

But i´m still very unsure which CPU cooler i should use...

- Cryorig micocr-c7

- SilverStone SST-AR05

- Noctua NH-L9i (maybe with an bigger Fan)

Can please anybody give me a recommendation ?
Ej24 will soon get 2 fans for testing. Wait for him to test those fans. He will tell you which one performs best, then you will know what the best option is.
 
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Ej24 will soon get 2 fans for testing. Wait for him to test those fans. He will tell you which one performs best, then you will know what the best option is.

Specifically the Thermolab itx30, and lp53. I'll try with the stock fans as well as noctua fans in configurations that would be relevant for Sentry. I hope I'll receive them soon! Probably sometime in the first week or two of February I should have them. I can't wait to try them out and compare to the Nh-l9i. I also have a stock Intel copper core heatsink if anyone is interested but it's already known that it's not that great. I'll test with multiple cpu's from 65-90W.

Hopefully I don't get busy with my real experiments at work (I'm a scientist) so I can do my heatsink experiments at home haha

Edit: just checked tracking info for the heatsinks. Still unknown as they haven't landed in the US yet. Ebay says it could take until March 1 :(. I've had stuff from sketchy shops in china arrive faster than this.
 
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With CPUs they left whole market to intel by releasing the junk over and over.

Yes when it comes to higher end machines. But you would be very hard pressed to build a more efficient lower end gaming / HTPC machine than the A10-7860K.
 
Yes when it comes to higher end machines. But you would be very hard pressed to build a more efficient lower end gaming / HTPC machine than the A10-7860K.

I think that with 7860K pricing including the limited itx boards for this platform is not necessarily the best option in comparison to mainstream 115x with pentium AE and low profile dedicated GPU on the cheap which could be better choice than 7680K in terms of small itx / HTPC. But that depends of course on the moment you were making your build because pentium AE is dual core only and at some point games started to launch in a state that doesn't support less than 4 threads on launch day.
 
I think that with 7860K pricing including the limited itx boards for this platform is not necessarily the best option in comparison to mainstream 115x with pentium AE and low profile dedicated GPU on the cheap which could be better choice than 7680K in terms of small itx / HTPC. But that depends of course on the moment you were making your build because pentium AE is dual core only and at some point games started to launch in a state that doesn't support less than 4 threads on launch day.

The new Kaby Lake Pentium fixes that by giving you Hyperthreading. Anyways, the very point of building on the A10-7860K is to use a chassis which is too small even for a low profile. Of course, you are the grandmaster of squeezing big performance in a small place (deep bow) but I am thinking more mainstream cases like the Inwin Chopin.
 
I was thinking about this segment as well like this:

05.jpg


With low profile single slot GPU. I think I've see such cases with two slots as well.
 
I was thinking about this segment as well like this:


With low profile single slot GPU. I think I've see such cases with two slots as well.

The problem with the Chieftec case you mention is the drive bays. Who needs drive bays these days? That's why I mentioned the Inwin Chopin, it doesn't waste space on such nonsense. Check http://www.geeekstore.com/store/p34/GEEEK_A10_Mini_ITX_Case.html this case, the only problem it's too deep at 234mm, the Silverstone ML-06E is only 205mm deep which means it's almost as big volume wise as the ML-06E which on the other hand supports SFX PSUs.

For me, for low end gamers, these cases no longer have any appeal. Either go APU or wait for the Asrock MXM STX machine and hope they will have an 1050 based version.

For higher end, there's always the Sentry :)
 
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Specifications
  • GPU
    GeForce® GTX 1080
  • CUDA cores
    2560
  • Video Memory
    8GB GDDR5X
  • Memory Bus
    256-bit
  • Engine Clock
    Base: 1620 MHz
    Boost:1759 MHz
  • Memory Clock
    10 GHz
  • PCI Express
    3.0
  • Display Outputs
    3 x DisplayPort 1.4
    HDMI 2.0b
    DL-DVI
  • HDCP Support
    Yes
  • Multi Display Capability
    Quad Display
  • Recommended Power Supply
    500W
  • Power Consumption
    180W
  • Power Input
    8-pin PCI-E
  • DirectX
    12 API feature level 12_1
  • OpenGL
    4.5
  • Cooling
    Dual Fan
  • Slot Size
    Dual Slot
  • SLI
    Yes, SLI HB Bridge Supported
  • Supported OS
    Windows 10 / 8 / 7
  • Card Length
    211mm x 125mm
  • Accessories
    Dual 6-pin to 8-pin PCIe adapter
    Driver Disk
    User Manual
https://www.zotac.com/us/product/graphics_card/zotac-geforce-gtx-1080-mini#spec

Based on these specifications and the 112mm + 18mm(possible oversized area) listed on Sentry's Indiegogo page, this GTX 1080 will indeed fit. Congratulations. XD

With a 92mm radiator(assuming you can also find a 92mm fan..) you will have 213mm(305 - 92) for a GPU and this newest ZOTAC one is 211mm so you are literally left with 2mm but in theory it can work.
 
With a 92mm radiator(assuming you can also find a 92mm fan..) you will have 213mm(305 - 92) for a GPU and this newest ZOTAC one is 211mm so you are literally left with 2mm but in theory it can work.
Challenge accepted :D
 
I ordered the Fatal1ty Z270 gaming ITX motherboard from germany (caseking.de) and the 299th white sentry, will order the rest of the parts in country over the week end. The only part I am having trouble deciding on is the cooling for the i7 7700K.

I'm hesitating between a Cryorig C7 as it fits in the case without modification and can be readily ordered, and a Thermolab LP 53, which is harder to source, and then I have to find a low profile fan that fits (granted, I have at least two months by the time the sentry arrives). I read a positive review on a dancase thread of a LP 53 with a Thermalright TY100 low profile fan, but it's not for sale as standalone fan on their website, and I don't feel like ordering their full cooler just for the fan. Maybe I can replicate Ej24 tests with a different CPU.

Right now I'm leaning towards a LP 53 if I can source it in europe by the end of the week end.
 
I would just like to comment that the indiegogo page is really weird. The campaign right now sits @ 924%, but in reality only 876 cases are sold. So it should be @ 876% as there are only 1,000 cases available. Therefore the indiegogo page took into account the shipping cost and added it into the total. Just a rant. Bye!
 
I would just like to comment that the indiegogo page is really weird. The campaign right now sits @ 924%, but in reality only 876 cases are sold. So it should be @ 876% as there are only 1,000 cases available. Therefore the indiegogo page took into account the shipping cost and added it into the total. Just a rant. Bye!

Uhhmmm....


"$180,867 USD raised by 768 backers

928% of $19,500
fixed goal"

928% OF 19,500. Meaning 100% of 19,500 is... 19,500.

If you multiply 19,500 by 9.28 do you know what you get? 180,960 and I doubt that is coincidence.
 
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I would just like to comment that the indiegogo page is really weird. The campaign right now sits @ 924%, but in reality only 876 cases are sold. So it should be @ 876% as there are only 1,000 cases available. Therefore the indiegogo page took into account the shipping cost and added it into the total. Just a rant. Bye!

% and amount of rised money are OK. Number of cases in perks is not 100% true because of indiegogo bug. But that is nothing.... there are other more weird things. For example: White Single cases are SOLD. If now someone from people who bought white single Sentry will change his mind and decide he wants to take a refund to buy black Long Run Sentry, the SOLD sign under White Single Sentry units won't disappear after taking this Refund. In theory he should leave the empty spot, and current sign 300/300 SOLD should change to 299/300, but it won't. We made a ticket on indiegogo helpdesk to bring us back those empty orders, so other people will be able to buy them, but the only answer we got was something like: Everything is fine. It supposed to work that way. Sorry. Make another perk.

Indiegogo has many bugs and we are fighting with them from the beginning. You really don't want to know how the whole process of setting up the campaign looked like
 
Uhhmmm....


"$180,867 USD raised by 768 backers

928% of $19,500
fixed goal"

928% OF 19,500. Meaning 100% of 19,500 is... 19,500.

If you multiply 19,500 by 9.28 do you know what you get? 180,960 and I doubt that is coincidence.

I just think that the percentage is a false percentage. I added every case sold from the perks and multiplied it by 195 usd, and it doesn't add up, it should never total to something like 181,107 which is what the total amount right now. It should not have the 7 usd at the end. Which tells me that they INCLUDE the shipping money which doesn't even go to the zaber guys.

Oh! It was already clarified, indiegogo is buggy af.

At a glance you see 929% and assume 929/1000 cases sold, but NOOOOO it's more like 800+/1000 cases sold.

I just want the cases sold out and the campaign over ASAP! Just so excited, and this percentage is ruining it!
 
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Good news everyone, I received the LP53 today! Ironic seeing as I was loathing the lack of shipping details just last night haha. I was going to test it as it came out of the box but I decided to skip the stock fan as it won't fit in Sentry anyway. So, I slapped a noctua NF-A9x14 pwm on it and started the tests on my 4790K at stock settings. I'm running the same tests with the NH-L9i back on and I have to say, the LP53 is looking very good. I'll make some nice graphs after I finish testing with this cpu. I'll repeat all the tests with a 65W i7-4790S tonight as well if anyone is interested, though to be honest, neither cooler has too much trouble with a 65W cpu.

Tests conducted include:
  • Cinebench R15
  • PassMark CPU Mark
  • AIDA64 (for 90 seconds only, you'll see why)
  • 3d mark Firestrike (at 1080 resolution b/c 1080@120fps taxes the cpu harder than 4k@30fps)
  • Grand Theft Auto V benchmark (1080, everything at ultra)
So far it looks like the LP53 has at least a 5C lead in every test. We'll see soon what it looks like.
 
Oh and before everyone runs to eBay to grab an LP53, be aware the 92mm low profile noctua fan is not a direct replacement for the fan the lp53 came with. The mounting holes are in a weird narrow pattern so the only way I could mount the fan was with zip ties. Also I'll have to check again but it seems it can only be mounted with the fins running perpendicular to the ram and rear i/o. This is not my preferred orientation as half the exhaust is blocked by the ram, heating the dimm unnecessarily and the other half is pointed at the i/o shield. I prefer the fins be parallel with the ram so at least half the exhaust going out what will be the side of Sentry. The other half would be towards the pcie slot but that's less worrisome than hot exhaust on my ram. I'll make sure to try again to see if I can orient the lp53 with the fins parallel to the ram but I think the cpu vrm gets in the way, similar to the cryorig c7 if I recall. Still it's an impressive cooler so far.

And yes I did mount the noctua nh-l9i in the same orientation as the lp53 for an apples to apples comparison.
 
Oh and before everyone runs to eBay to grab an LP53, be aware the 92mm low profile noctua fan is not a direct replacement for the fan the lp53 came with. The mounting holes are in a weird narrow pattern so the only way I could mount the fan was with zip ties. Also I'll have to check again but it seems it can only be mounted with the fins running perpendicular to the ram and rear i/o. This is not my preferred orientation as half the exhaust is blocked by the ram, heating the dimm unnecessarily and the other half is pointed at the i/o shield. I prefer the fins be parallel with the ram so at least half the exhaust going out what will be the side of Sentry. The other half would be towards the pcie slot but that's less worrisome than hot exhaust on my ram. I'll make sure to try again to see if I can orient the lp53 with the fins parallel to the ram but I think the cpu vrm gets in the way, similar to the cryorig c7 if I recall. Still it's an impressive cooler so far.

And yes I did mount the noctua nh-l9i in the same orientation as the lp53 for an apples to apples comparison.
Do you think that getting a different fan will help me with that issue? Maybe there is a fan that fits properly in the mounting holes. Well if you can't find any alternatives just please do us and favor and take as many pictures as you can and share them here with the community.

Edit: I found some great images in this forum from the creators of the dan's case testing it. They show why you have to use the zip ties and it doesn't look that bad: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=278212&viewmode=author

Also here are links to pictures of how to mount it https://hardforum.com/threads/dan-a4-sfx-the-smallest-gaming-case-in-the-world.1799326/page-85
 
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Phew it's been a stressful hour over here. After all the testing I decided to go with the LP53 with the noctua fan. Get everything together, which is difficult, the lp53 mounting isn't the best, and my computer wouldn't boot.

So, about that mounting of the heatsink. Like most downward facing coolers, the lp53 has four arms that flank the protruding cold plate which reach out diagonally to meet the mounting holes. From there, screw in some plastic grommeted screw from the back of the motherboard. Easy. Just like the noctua. However, unlike the noctua, the lp53 does not have a stop point designed to prevent over tightening. I just tightened until I felt mild resistance. Big mistake. It must have been putting an immense amount of force on the cpu and socket. I could see the cpu substrate substantially flexing so it must not have been making contact with the correct pins anymore. I loosened the screws to about one complete turn beyond the first bite of the threads and everything is fine now. PC boots fine again.

Seems a major oversight on Thermolab's part. Or perhaps I got one with bad tension arms. It's only a sample of one so it's hard to say.

For now it seems it's a great heatsink. Now that I'm done panicking over the thought of destroying a $300+ cpu, I can make some graphs.
 
Oh jeeze, that sounds a little terrifying. I'm glad your computer came out of it alive!

Can't wait to see the results, Rosa. :)
 
Phew it's been a stressful hour over here. After all the testing I decided to go with the LP53 with the noctua fan. Get everything together, which is difficult, the lp53 mounting isn't the best, and my computer wouldn't boot.

So, about that mounting of the heatsink. Like most downward facing coolers, the lp53 has four arms that flank the protruding cold plate which reach out diagonally to meet the mounting holes. From there, screw in some plastic grommeted screw from the back of the motherboard. Easy. Just like the noctua. However, unlike the noctua, the lp53 does not have a stop point designed to prevent over tightening. I just tightened until I felt mild resistance. Big mistake. It must have been putting an immense amount of force on the cpu and socket. I could see the cpu substrate substantially flexing so it must not have been making contact with the correct pins anymore. I loosened the screws to about one complete turn beyond the first bite of the threads and everything is fine now. PC boots fine again.

Seems a major oversight on Thermolab's part. Or perhaps I got one with bad tension arms. It's only a sample of one so it's hard to say.

For now it seems it's a great heatsink. Now that I'm done panicking over the thought of destroying a $300+ cpu, I can make some graphs.

Wait, did you mount the fan like in this picture?

exampleocs61.jpg


Also, a question so I was checking out the static pressure and cfm for the noctuna slim fan and based on the specs the XtraFlo 120 Slim from CoolersMaster might perform better. I think I am going to get that instead of the Noctuna NF-A9x14 fan. Any thoughts? Also In the edits of my previous post I added a link to a forum with pictures of how they mounted their lp35 in the dan's case for anyone that's interested.
 
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I found a 92mm AIO cooler by Asetek that might work a little better space wise http://www.asetek.com/desktop/oem-cpu-coolers/545lc/ now i need to decide if I would want to sacrifice gpu space...

The evga 1060sc might be a good combo with that

That's interesting cooler. It really might be something worth considering. I'm actually running the evga 1060 6GB SC in my rig with the silverstone tundra slim visible in the R9 nano with AIO WC setup, but it's literally keeping together with faith :)

Taking the occasion I'll describe the process and ideas about 120mm LQ before you decide on 92mm ones :)

There is a cut-out at the end of radiator where the shroud lands on it that perfectly matches the space where I've had to fit the radiator of AIO.

evga02.jpg


What I did to complete this setup:

1) I had to remove the GPU cooler plastic shroud. There is a tape fixing the problem of cooler blowing hot air directly at the capacitors that was keeping the radiator and the shroud together and I had to detach it from the shroud. I've asked EVGA about how will they handle it in the warranty and they said that it's okay as far as I can put the card back together.

2) I have removed the original fan on the GPU as well

3) I have installed 120mm Raijintek Aeolus Beta under the card with rubber pads and black zap-straps. Connected this to the GPU with 4pin adapter.

4) I had to bend the pins on the power switch which is not safe at all. I could've broken off one of them. Not recommended. I've got ton of spares, you won't...

5) The weirdest part - the 120mm rad stays somehow in place just with the tension of its thick hoses additionally being held by that cutout in GPU radiator.

6) Taking into account the above, 120mm fan is not sitting directly in its original position. It's also zap strapped to closest spots It could hang on. It is blowing the air INSIDE to blow out any excess of the hot air above the GPU.

7) Handling the thick hoses of silverstone tundra in our case is quite hardcore considering I've had to fit them in between the power cables near the RAM. It looks nice in the photos of R9 Nano, but it is pushing the drive bracket upwards. I've fixed that, but now they look like guts...

8) Note the fact that I had to use SFX power supply instead of SFX-L. Notable thing here is that be-quiet unit I have is really quiet until it starts screeching with its fan sometimes when It get backs to idle after load. Not recommending this unit. Go with silverstone 92mm ones if possible...

The direction of using WC itself might be worth some modding or shenanigans like I did because for example when gaming in online games like Rocket League or CS:GO there's little to none difference in audibility of the setup over idle.

What I would propose if still want to fit 120mm AIO water cooler with some reasonably long ITX card like 1060:

1) Wait for the case to arrive to be able to measure up everything and know the numbers for yourself.

2) Prepare to remove the power switch:
- Get yourself a small switch that can be installed elsewhere for example in the middle RP-SMA antennae hole above the motherboard at the back of the case.
- Design and order a logo or some graphic that you will put in front to hide the 16mm hole left by power button. It can be adhesive sticker or something 3D printed plugged in a hole.
- Get some LED strips to indicate when the PC is ON.

3) Figure out which AIO will have best hoses for routing that are still not fragile enough to randomly leak.

4) Figure out if you need to increase the cut-out in the central wall for your radiator or not. It will depend on how the radiator end with the hose connectors is wide in comparison to rest of the radiator.

5) You might have to shave down and glue the plug/feet under the radiator because it will most likely obstruct the mounting location

6) decide whether you want to mod the case and have the radiator properly screwed to the body or you just want to zap strap all the things :)

I ordered the Fatal1ty Z270 gaming ITX motherboard from germany (caseking.de) and the 299th white sentry, will order the rest of the parts in country over the week end. The only part I am having trouble deciding on is the cooling for the i7 7700K.

I'm hesitating between a Cryorig C7 as it fits in the case without modification and can be readily ordered, and a Thermolab LP 53, which is harder to source, and then I have to find a low profile fan that fits (granted, I have at least two months by the time the sentry arrives). I read a positive review on a dancase thread of a LP 53 with a Thermalright TY100 low profile fan, but it's not for sale as standalone fan on their website, and I don't feel like ordering their full cooler just for the fan. Maybe I can replicate Ej24 tests with a different CPU.

Right now I'm leaning towards a LP 53 if I can source it in europe by the end of the week end.

Don't take the C7, just don't. It's mounting is not properly designed in multiple ways and the performance boost over copper-core intel box is negligible while fitting problems will probably increase with many Skylake and Kaby Lake boards.
 
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