SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project

I am glad to hear this heatsink is becoming a reality. For now though I am using the dynatron r15 like Rosaj.

I am using the noctua 92x14mm fan with zip ties and a 30x30mmx1.2mm copper shim with a 7700k on an Asus z170i pro gaming board and grizzly kryonaut paste.

For now I'm using the stock Intel copper core cooler because the shims haven't arrived yet. I will post comparison before and after temps if you all wish!
 
hello SaperPL! I have ordered a white sentry and can't wait to have it. Meanwhile I'm going to have my built setup :
Ryzen 1700
Vega (hope it will have a sff version like r9 nano)
Corsair sf600
I'm intended to have my ryzen cooled by a 120mm AIO (like 1 of your pics using silverstone TD03 slim) my question is what is the clearance between the bracket and the aio ? What is the maximum height for it ? Thanks in advance.
 

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Hello all! I just have a question about cooling. I have decided that I am going to delid my 7600k, as I do not want to have to buy a new processor. To anyone who has done this, what cooler did you use afterwards? I own a C7, and a LP-53 on the way, and wouldn't mind picking up a Noctua Low profile cooler. I also have the Strix Z270i, so mounting is sometimes an issue with the c7, and maybe with the LP53. What do you guys think I should do? I also can't use Dondans cooler as it will interfere with the strix's heatsink.
 
hello SaperPL! I have ordered a white sentry and can't wait to have it. Meanwhile I'm going to have my built setup :
Ryzen 1700
Vega (hope it will have a sff version like r9 nano)
Corsair sf600
I'm intended to have my ryzen cooled by a 120mm AIO (like 1 of your pics using silverstone TD03 slim) my question is what is the clearance between the bracket and the aio ? What is the maximum height for it ? Thanks in advance.

1) This is extremely experimental since R9 Nano is the only card short enough to fit 120mm AIO in front of it(as described next to those images)
2) The hoses are quite stiff and hard to route in this tight space
3) there's only 40mm of space for the cooler since there are two screw threads for hdd bracket underneath. Silverstone tundra slim fits really tightly there.
4) there are no dedicated mounts for the 120mm fans or AIO.
 
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Hello all! I just have a question about cooling. I have decided that I am going to delid my 7600k, as I do not want to have to buy a new processor. To anyone who has done this, what cooler did you use afterwards? I own a C7, and a LP-53 on the way, and wouldn't mind picking up a Noctua Low profile cooler. I also have the Strix Z270i, so mounting is sometimes an issue with the c7, and maybe with the LP53. What do you guys think I should do? I also can't use Dondans cooler as it will interfere with the strix's heatsink.

Delidding definitely seems like the way to go. With Kaby Lake it's practically mandatory with the constraints on cooling we have. (Which really wouldn't pose a problem had Intel not cheaped out - they should have done a better job with at least the K-sku processors.)

If I were in your shoes, I'd look at modifying the Strix's heatsink; it's 80% for looks, anyways. If you don't want to do that, I'd say it comes down to what you're comfortable with.

Delidded, both the L9i and LP53 should be at least adequate cooling - as should the C7 if you can mount it.
 
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SaperPL , do you think the 150 shipping per week is pretty accurate, after april? or did I misinterpret that completely?

(means if you are buyer 700 per say, it would be 5th week shipping) ~ which means half of the backers, at least, would receive the sentry after april (more like 75% prob) - late may/early june is realistic for buyer 700

Edit: also Cryorig has announced am4 brackets for March 15th free to all customers with proof of purchase... now they can start working on our problem :p
 
SaperPL , do you think the 150 shipping per week is pretty accurate, after april? or did I misinterpret that completely?

(means if you are buyer 700 per say, it would be 5th week shipping) ~ which means half of the backers, at least, would receive the sentry after april (more like 75% prob) - late may/early june is realistic for buyer 700

150 per week looks pretty doable at this point, but we'll have yet to see how much time will take managing those white units being painted in external shop. This might slow down first 150 batch or two until we make some kind of buffer for those.

As for the delivery date, we'll have to wait and see when we'll have everything delivered and when the first case bodies are ready to be picked up from our subcontractor. We could have all required supplies on ~April 1st or ~April 30th - lead time on delivery and planning is one thing but you always have to be prepared for unexpected delays.

Also some delays could hurt more than others - for example if we won't have the shipping packaging ready (shipping box, transport foams, packaging foil etc) but we have everything up to product packaging (the smaller box with prints on it) we might be able to process the cases mostly and buffer them up to be shipped at once in 300 or 450 burst etc. Bigger problem would be if we're missing a component that is to be installed directly within the case body or the product packaging, since we couldn't proceed with quality control until we can package the case bodies after unwrapping them or we would have to re-open each case to install missing piece.
 
150 per week looks pretty doable at this point, but we'll have yet to see how much time will take managing those white units being painted in external shop. This might slow down first 150 batch or two until we make some kind of buffer for those.

As for the delivery date, we'll have to wait and see when we'll have everything delivered and when the first case bodies are ready to be picked up from our subcontractor. We could have all required supplies on ~April 1st or ~April 30th - lead time on delivery and planning is one thing but you always have to be prepared for unexpected delays.

Also some delays could hurt more than others - for example if we won't have the shipping packaging ready (shipping box, transport foams, packaging foil etc) but we have everything up to product packaging (the smaller box with prints on it) we might be able to process the cases mostly and buffer them up to be shipped at once in 300 or 450 burst etc. Bigger problem would be if we're missing a component that is to be installed directly within the case body or the product packaging, since we couldn't proceed with quality control until we can package the case bodies after unwrapping them or we would have to re-open each case to install missing piece.

Glad to hear the 150 per week sounds possible. If the Indiegogo list of supporters is believable, I'm in the first 50. Hopefully there are no unexpected delays!! Can't wait. When you guys begin assembling the Sentry cases it'd be cool to see the assembly process. Also I think it would be cool to just see a huge mountain of sentries.
 
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I'm hoping manufacturers will take notice and put more thought into SFX PSUs and ITX systems in general. I've yet to see Corsair's take on a SFF case though I admit, I like the 250D!
 
I'm hoping manufacturers will take notice and put more thought into SFX PSUs and ITX systems in general. I've yet to see Corsair's take on a SFF case though I admit, I like the 250D!

I was seriously considering the Corsiar Bulldog (23L) before discovering the Sentry. It looks like they are upgrading it for 2017, and the new H6 SF cooler looks interesting. Hopefully they'll keep developing coolers for SFF cases. I guess most companies want to keep their cases compatible with as many parts as possible and are willing to give up liters for a wider appeal.
 
Just a general question. I'm looking at using the 7700K and since there's not a perfect out of the box cooling solution for 91TDP CPU's in sentry, could I underclock it to 3.6 like the 7700 (nonK) and go with the NHL9i until there's a better cooling solution like the dondan cooler that can handle the higher TDP. If not, I'd get the 7700, but I'd rather have the headroom later if cooling performance increases.
Also, double checking, the C7 could handle the 7700K but because of clearances in the sentry it's not recommended since it restricts airflow being the fan is so close to the case body?
 
Just a general question. I'm looking at using the 7700K and since there's not a perfect out of the box cooling solution for 91TDP CPU's in sentry, could I underclock it to 3.6 like the 7700 (nonK) and go with the NHL9i until there's a better cooling solution like the dondan cooler that can handle the higher TDP. If not, I'd get the 7700, but I'd rather have the headroom later if cooling performance increases.
Also, double checking, the C7 could handle the 7700K but because of clearances in the sentry it's not recommended since it restricts airflow being the fan is so close to the case body?
Lp53 with noctua fan
 
Nothing is Overkill for VR. Virtual Reality requires many times to completely remove the use of Normal maps as well as removing other tricks that are most effective in 2D screens that help reduce the GPU power required. In VR you have higher detailed models, meaning more vertices on the screen than ever before. Also, in order to reduce anti-aliasing which is more noticeable in VR than in a regular screen you need super-sampling which requires even more GPU power. No GPU is too good for VR.

Trust me I am running two HTC Vives at work. One on 2 GTX 1080 in SLI and the other one on a Titan X Pascal. They are good enough, but not more than enough in some instances.


In other news dondan just got the green light from Thermalright so the CPU Cooler is becoming reality!

After seeing some of the power and temperature benchmarks for the GTX 1080 ti today - I think I have been scared off and might stick with a 1070 . Are you going to stick with trying a 1080 ti? What PSU are you considering as it surely has to be 650w?
 
After seeing some of the power and temperature benchmarks for the GTX 1080 ti today - I think I have been scared off and might stick with a 1070 . Are you going to stick with trying a 1080 ti? What PSU are you considering as it surely has to be 650w?
It will not be above 650w:

250w GPU +95W CPU +10W in SDD+ 20W fan + 25W memory + 30W motherboard + 100w for safety = 530W so I am fine with corsairs 600W PSU
 
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The 394W figure Hardocp shows is total system wattage measured at the wall, so it includes ASUS Z170-A + i7 6700K @ 4.7GHz + 16GB Corsair DDR4 RAM + SSD + PSU inefficiencies. TomsHardware has power consumption of just the card at 294W peak. Its definitely a hot card especially since Nvidia raised the GTX 1080 Ti’s preset thermal throttle point to 84C. A blower style card should exhaust all the heat out the back, so it shouldn't really effect case temperatures.
 
I was seriously considering the Corsiar Bulldog (23L) before discovering the Sentry. It looks like they are upgrading it for 2017, and the new H6 SF cooler looks interesting. Hopefully they'll keep developing coolers for SFF cases. I guess most companies want to keep their cases compatible with as many parts as possible and are willing to give up liters for a wider appeal.
Yaa but the 250D is literally 5 more liters at 28 so 23 isn't really much of a improvement and is still far compared to the slim cases including Sentry.. With those choices, I'd go with the 250D.

If I were you guys I'd wait to see how EVGA's ICX cooling handles the 1080 Ti
 
The 394W figure Hardocp shows is total system wattage measured at the wall, so it includes ASUS Z170-A + i7 6700K @ 4.7GHz + 16GB Corsair DDR4 RAM + SSD + PSU inefficiencies. TomsHardware has power consumption of just the card at 294W peak. Its definitely a hot card especially since Nvidia raised the GTX 1080 Ti’s preset thermal throttle point to 84C. A blower style card should exhaust all the heat out the back, so it shouldn't really effect case temperatures.

Truly appreciate the response...even if my wallet doesn't :)
 
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Here is my take on this. The Sentry case is a unique case that about only 1000 people will have. A limited edition. The very foundations of this case was to push a lot of power into the smallest possible space. I decided to take on that challenge and put the most powerful system possible that the Sentry can handle. (Linus test were using a 140w CPU and using the Noctua cpu cooler which is not the best, plus my 7700k will be delided)
 
For me, it was all about portability, I'm going to keep my build pretty simple/cheap: i5-7500 + RX480. I mainly use my computer for browsing and Overwatch. I was willing to spend the money on the sentry because I travel frequently and the choice was between keeping my old Lenovo T430 (Overwatch: 30fps at 50% scale @ 720p) or the Sentry. Plus, unlike a laptop, I can keep upgrading components. I expect to get a decade of use out of the Sentry, since my last case, an Antec Nine Hundred, is 10+ yrs old.
 
Just a general question. I'm looking at using the 7700K and since there's not a perfect out of the box cooling solution for 91TDP CPU's in sentry, could I underclock it to 3.6 like the 7700 (nonK) and go with the NHL9i until there's a better cooling solution like the dondan cooler that can handle the higher TDP. If not, I'd get the 7700, but I'd rather have the headroom later if cooling performance increases.
Also, double checking, the C7 could handle the 7700K but because of clearances in the sentry it's not recommended since it restricts airflow being the fan is so close to the case body?

You could wait for others to test their LP53 with NH-L9i fan inside Sentry depending on your order number. C7 is a great cooler but not for Sentry - we've had to shorten its screws on angle grinder to even mount it on B150N Phoenix/Skylake i7-6700 because the screws are standing way out of the ATX spec...

After seeing some of the power and temperature benchmarks for the GTX 1080 ti today - I think I have been scared off and might stick with a 1070 . Are you going to stick with trying a 1080 ti? What PSU are you considering as it surely has to be 650w?

Cool - Im a noob to this - but given then benchmarks read as high as 394w - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2017/03/09/nvidia_geforce_gtx_1080_ti_video_card_review/12

.. as VR will likely push the 1080 ti pretty far - will there be a scenario where the temperatures could potentially cause a net negative result on performance in a case like the sentry?

I don't think you need to go that far. Something around 450~550 with a certification should be okay as well. There's also question about whether you want to use it in desktop mode or always on vertical stand since in desktop mode you should go with a blower for this card, while on a stand the open-air cooler might take advantage of being able to get more fresh air directly from the side and has easier way of releasing hot air upside.

If you're scared of the temps around 80 degrees, don't be - all current GPUs are supposed to boost their clocks until they hit those 80 degrees which is completely safe for them. If you have lower temperature, then it either means you have a gaming load that doesn't occupy whole chip because the game engine is not heavily threaded optimised or there's bottleneck somewhere in the system like slow CPU or framerate limit like v-sync OR finally you have a greatly induced airflow and great cooling for the GPU and you hit power limit of your card. Because of the last, there are those monstrous enthusiast cards that have enlarged power sections to increase that limit, but those aren't going to fit inside Sentry.

As for VR - this will depend on the card cooling as well, but I think the worst case scenario for 1080 Founders Edition is having boost clocks around 5% lower than you could do in a midi tower chassis with induced airflow from the front fans.

For me, it was all about portability, I'm going to keep my build pretty simple/cheap: i5-7500 + RX480. I mainly use my computer for browsing and Overwatch. I was willing to spend the money on the sentry because I travel frequently and the choice was between keeping my old Lenovo T430 (Overwatch: 30fps at 50% scale @ 720p) or the Sentry. Plus, unlike a laptop, I can keep upgrading components. I expect to get a decade of use out of the Sentry, since my last case, an Antec Nine Hundred, is 10+ yrs old.

If you haven't ordered the parts already, I think you could wait a bit for Ryzen 5 benchmarks since with funds for i5-7500 you might be able to get a Ryzen 5 ~i7-7700 equivalent. Obviously question about the mITX boards stands.

As for the GPU, while I love what AMD is doing with the Ryzen, I believe with the GPU you should stick to Nvidia. In this segment you can get more powerful GTX 1060 which is 120W while RX480 is 150W and I feel like AMD was often cheating with TDP interpretation or just underestimating the power consumption of their GPUs. Add still terrible experience with radeon drivers to that of course. The only reason to buy radeon for me would either some outstanding performance per buck on the upcoming VEGA or cheaper monitors with freesync over expensive gsync.

I believe the powdercoating on the Sentry keeps it from rusting? That will definitely help it last longer.

What keeps Sentry from rusting are both the galvanized surface of the steel and the powder coating. Edges and whole of the case is obviously protected by paint/powder coating.

Galvanizing protects big surfaces from rust, but laser cuts it on the edges. Galvanizing generally prevents situation where you would scratch/puncture the paint surface and rust would spread underneath effecting in huge pieces of paint/powder coating falling off and showing the rust.

As for lasting longer - with this thick 1mm steel the case should survive for 10 years and after that if you bumped it on every side while travelling you can go the metal machining workshop and ask them to sandblast the paint off and repaint it. You could also ask such shop if they can do over a galvanization for you before powder coating.

Food for thoughts about the Ryzen tests:



The guy has back-tracked AMD FX lineup tests over the years proving that low resolution tests give unrealistic advantage to cheaper processors rather than getting rid of GPU bottleneck. i5's should be nowhere near the gaming performance of Ryzen 7 after the bioses are optimized and your system has realistic software configuration with background communicators, web browser and productivity apps opened.

He also noted the fact that Ryzen 1700 was bottlenecked by GPU in Battlefield 1 benchmarks against the 7700K which is clearly visible in this screenshot:

RyzenVs7700K.png
 
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You could wait for others to test their LP53 with NH-L9i fan inside Sentry depending on your order number. C7 is a great cooler but not for Sentry - we've had to shorten its screws on angle grinder to even mount it on B150N Phoenix/Skylake i7-6700 because the screws are standing way out of the ATX spec...


View attachment 18988

Thanks. The LP53 with NHL9i fan seems like the best cooling option from what everyone has said. I'm order #16 according to indiegogo, so I'm real excited.
 
Hello all,

I am excited for my first build in years (I think my last build was in 2009).

I ordered my Sentry case in the last day, so I am further down in the queue but I am not in a rush.

My planned build so far is based in i7 Kaby Lake and GTX 1080
... but I am still considering Ryzen (and Vega if it will be available by May).

My primary use case at the moment is Web development and casual gaming (mainly Minecraft), so I am thinking of scaling down the GPU if this will give me better thermals and a quieter card.

The thing I am still looking for is a good 4K+ HDR display, my optimal display would be 27" 2880p (that way I can scale the UI to 200% and have the same experiences as the 27"1440p display I am using now but 4x sharper) .
 
Yeaaaa... I just checked my board. I see what you guys mean with the C7 being too close for the capacitors that may be in the way on your particular board. Really is a shame. I'll probably stick with stock Intel until something more appealing than that noctua cooler is released. Once again corsair where are you! They make fans, why not air coolers?!?
 
In this segment you can get more powerful GTX 1060 which is 120W while RX480 is 150W and I feel like AMD was often cheating with TDP interpretation or just underestimating the power consumption of their GPUs. Add still terrible experience with radeon drivers to that of course. The only reason to buy radeon for me would either some outstanding performance per buck on the upcoming VEGA or cheaper monitors with freesync over expensive gsync.

I completely agree that Polaris cards are more power hungry that Pascal, but the price-to-performance and the lower price of FreeSync monitors make me lean more towards AMD. I also feel that AMD has been doing a much better job with their drivers since the Polaris launch. Hardware Canucks updated their 1060 vs RX480 review, they compared 12 games with June 2016 vs December 2016 drivers and found the RX480 improved ~9% to match the 1060 in DX11 games and still kept the lead in DX12 games. Nvidia has better software for their cards with Ansel and Shadowplay, but AMD seems to be providing driver updates that improve performance. To be fair Nvidia is suppose to be releasing a new driver update soon that increased DX12 frame rate, hopefully someone will retest their 1060.

I'm definitely going to wait for Ryzen 5 and Vega before making a choice but come June I'm going to buy whatever is available.
 
I agree on AMD's freesync - it's not great that gsync monitors are scarce and overpriced. I'm not talking about the performance upgrades or toys like ansel and shadowplay. What have annoyed me always with radeon drives is the fact they always have may times more problems on game launch day especially for not most recent cards and you wait a month being annoyed before they get to fix it.

It's just the fact that AMD somehow have poor relations with mayor developers on GPU optimisations and they are playing with visual changes of configuration utility promoting it as the new beginning while the problem remains unsolved.

For example on BF1 launch I had R9-270X mounted and there was a bug, I think with full repro, that if you got a "friend playing game" pop-up from origin while playing, your screen would get a tint ranging from white/not tinted through blue to violet based on your rotation in world. And it was there with youtube videos about it and you had to reboot the game and reset graphics settings to get it off... And I believe it wasn't only the R9-200 cards that were affected.

With R9 Nano that I have in the office, I was literally laughing about the tonnes of bugs in the crimson drivers on windows 7 and whole find the driver and setup process. I couldn't install the dedicated driver chosen with selector because it said I don't have the hardware... I had to google multiple drivers and I believe I ended up installing pre-crimson driver and then I could upgrade to crimson. Crimson driver updater crashes with some kind of low level error about not being able to run 16bit application etc etc.

Obviously radeons have their merits and the fact that AMD is still using same, but incremental architecture rather than making new one with each iteration like nvidia, makes it better for long running rigs, but if I will be upgrading my GPU every two years, then what's the point struggling with their drivers on each game launch?
 
Super/saber - do you have any recommended length for the psu cable lengths? Planning on ordering some from cablemod for my sf600
 
I promised to give you guys some info on my 1060 6GB SC setup with Silverstone Tundra Slim 120mm AIO. I have just torn down this setup to check out another layout but I finally could make the photos required for explanations. Here it is:

It looks like this: perfectly okay from the outside, but it's real challenge and adventure to make it work especially with those thick hoses of tundra AIO.

pxNR2Kx.jpg


jR2YioT.jpg


Lnt50ux.jpg


The problem is to fit such card you have to remove the shroud and have enough luck to get the GPU radiator being slightly above the AIO radiator. obviously this makes mounting the fan on AIO even harder...

ZOXrVmv.jpg



As for the 1060 6GB SC and removing the shroud - those cards had a problem where they were melting their own components by blowing hot air directly on them around the bracket. I've got the unit that has been already "patched" with two pieces of some thermal adhesive tape.

Those two pieces were originally glued to the plastic shroud and I've asked EVGA support if I can detach the shroud while peeling them off and they told me that everything should be fine for future RMA as long as I can put the card back together. I have peeled off the parts on the shroud and sticked them to the radiator itself.

The weird part is that the card's cooling is still properly working with shroud by throwing that hot air through those tight spaces that are left uncovered by tape.


GZaLQQW.jpg


qCJvufD.jpg
 
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Super/saber - do you have any recommended length for the psu cable lengths? Planning on ordering some from cablemod for my sf600

We do not give recommendations on cable mods since each motherboard has different layout and depending on that you might end up being short on cables or having them slightly too long. The case has space between the GPU and central wall that you can use to tuck excess of cables and zip-tie them together out there if you're using SFX-L and if you've got SFX then you can hide them somehow under the 2.5" drive as well.

Before ordering cable mods just make your first build and figure out what should be shorter and what should be longer for your components - that's the key to cable modding and our layout is quite new considering really tight spaces.
 
gof7bmechfvpiekexkrf.png


Update after 2nd week of Sentry manufacturing process.


This week was also very busy. You probably remember, we were testing prototypes of some components. Here are the results:

a) new power button cables with professional sleeving:​

noitcjojlqwf0fbqvolg.jpg

b) new transport foam:

bwast73ynw4qjcfy3ypz.jpg


cr1lit3lcsjwj5ggclwf.jpg

zx4yle0oza0yvel6qx0p.jpg

We also made "some" orders. Here's a list:
- IEC power cables,
- power buttons with new professional wires sleeving,
- laser engraved aluminium labels,
- aluminium 2,4 mm rivets for engraved labels,
- all types of M3 mounting screws (nearly 100 000 pcs),
- binding screws for mounting the vertical stand,
- rubber O-rings for vertical stand,
- plastic feet for horizontal mounting,
- plastic covers for holes unused in vertical position,
- PCI slot covers,
- rubbers for fastening internal cables,
- silica gels,
- industrial glues (Loctite 243 and Loctite 480),
- Sentry transport foil bag,
- zipper foil bags,
- printing tapes for thermal small labels printer,
- big labels for thermal printing of shipping information,
- thermal printer for printing shipping labels,
- black stretch foil for packaging purposes,
- packaging tapes,
- transport baskets for internal transportation process,
- 2 mm allen wrench.

On Friday we sent instructions to our metal parts manufacturer how to pack everything on the euro pallets (we mentioned it before). At this moment we are waiting for our first two Sentry v1.1 preproduction prototypes. Our subcontractor will manufacture steel elements, and after our quality control he will make those over 1000 Sentry cases according to those 2 checked units (one painted black and one prepared for painting white in external paint shop).

Finally, you asked if the delay made by indiegogo in sending your contributions will influence the starting time of our package shipping. At this point we do not really know, but we can assure you that we are doing our best (including working 13-16 hours a day) to start sending your Sentry cases according to the plan, in April. If we will notice a situation where something will slow us down, as always we will let you know.
 
That sleeved power button cable looks great. Great little detail. Will they be blue/black as pictured, or is that just the test run?
 
Also, ZombiPL SaperPL is there a reason why the case (main frame) is made out of steel rather than aluminum?

Just curious, I dont have a preference - each material has its own merits?
 
I promised to give you guys some info on my 1060 6GB SC setup with Silverstone Tundra Slim 120mm AIO. I have just torn down this setup to check out another layout but I finally could make the photos required for explanations. Here it is:

It looks like this: perfectly okay from the outside, but it's real challenge and adventure to make it work especially with those thick hoses of tundra AIO.

The problem is to fit such card you have to remove the shroud and have enough luck to get the GPU radiator being slightly above the AIO radiator. obviously this makes mounting the fan on AIO even harder...


As for the 1060 6GB SC and removing the shroud - those cards had a problem where they were melting their own components by blowing hot air directly on them around the bracket. I've got the unit that has been already "patched" with two pieces of some thermal adhesive tape.

Those two pieces were originally glued to the plastic shroud and I've asked EVGA support if I can detach the shroud while peeling them off and they told me that everything should be fine for future RMA as long as I can put the card back together. I have peeled off the parts on the shroud and sticked them to the radiator itself.

The weird part is that the card's cooling is still properly working with shroud by throwing that hot air through those tight spaces that are left uncovered by tape.
Looks super interesting, I'm waiting on vega sff cards, with HBM the card footprint will be super small, hope they will make the Vega nano version. BTW do you think that LP53 can handle Ryzen 1700 @ 3.9GHz ?
 
That sleeved power button cable looks great. Great little detail. Will they be blue/black as pictured, or is that just the test run?

This is a test sample however the production batch will be really close to this.

Looks super interesting, I'm waiting on vega sff cards, with HBM the card footprint will be super small, hope they will make the Vega nano version. BTW do you think that LP53 can handle Ryzen 1700 @ 3.9GHz ?

I'm not yet sure if LP53 with low profile fan is really the best option since this radiator is still quite tall and you've seen what happened after we've put 25mm fan on top of noctua in terms of noise.

I also don't have 1700 yet since I waited for reviews and boards to show up in Poland and when they did all 1700's were already sold out... Anyway I don't think I'll be going for overclock with it inside Sentry and I definitely wouldn't recommend it without water cooling.
 
Xeon E3-1231v3 test bench update:

I've finally got to test out the idea of putting 120mm fan on top of Cryorig C7 radiator.

PilKjTp.jpg


I've mounted the fan with some bent paper clips hooked to heat pipes between the fins.


So far after quick tests it's still terrible :| With the fan from tundra AIO water cooler it's still loud as originally, after replacing the fan with raijintek aeolus beta it's quieter, just audibly humming but temperatures are spiking between 52~67 in games, with vsync, while in prime95 it quickly skyrockets to 90 degrees...


Noteworthy drive fitting - you can mount single 3.5" drive with ONE screw :p Definitely not for a mobile/carryable use and mounting it with single screw doesn't change mich on that matter - carrying 3.5" drive would be risky anyway because of limited anti-shock protection.

GxvEFqw.jpg


The black USB 3.0 still has blue connectors.

qKe42mt.jpg
 
Also, ZombiPL SaperPL is there a reason why the case (main frame) is made out of steel rather than aluminum?

Just curious, I dont have a preference - each material has its own merits?

I remember i answered this question several times (Also Kacper did):

- most of the aluminium cases need internal steel frame, so it makes them bigger. We wanted to make Sentry as small as possible,
- point-welding of elements made of steel is easier than the same operation made to aluminium parts,
- we treat aluminium cases as a toys. Steel is more durable and stiffer than aluminium, so we can insert in it steel threaded bushing instead those plastic push-pull mounting pins used by some companies.
- aluminium is more "plastic" material than steel, so if you want to make a threaded hole in it, there is a big possibility, that you will damage the thread by screwing the screw a little bit too hard.
- we work in heavy industry and we are designing machines which should last for decades in unpleasant environment. Many people ordered Sentry, because they want to get the product, which wasn't made according to the "product-aging-policy". Everytime you see plastic elements in your device you should think how long will it take until this device will brake or will become unusable, so you will have to buy another one. If you want to go with aluminium case, there are many compromises, like internal steel frames, thicker aluminium elements for making threaded holes or using those plastic elements.
- steel as a material is a lot easier to repair than aluminium.
- many people are travelling with their pc. With aluminium case many companies add or advise to use special bags with lots of foam around the case, so you can be sure nothing in the car trunk won't damage your pc case. With Sentry you will need only simple laptop bag and nothing bad should happen to it,even if you will lay it at the bottom of the car trunk and put all of your other baggages on it. Try doing something like that with aluminium case.
- finally, please remember we are working with small series of cases. If you want to work with aluminium, it is nice to start your work with molds and stamping presses, so you could make your production cheap and also profitable, but also the order should be something like 5000-10000 units. Our production process was designed to make only 100 units, because we didn't expect we could ever reach those 10 000 units order. Even 1000 cases is too small batch to talk about designing molds.

There are many other reasons why we didn't go with aluminium, but the higher price of it (as a material), isn't one of them. I hope i answered your question :)
 
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