HG Osmi Build

D

dogbait

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Jan 31, 2005
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After missing out on the A4-SFX batch this February I did some case hunting and came across the stunning Osmi case. Despite the oft mentioned difficulty of working with it, I've been quite taken with its looks. It's the best looking ITX case out there IMO.

With that said I'm thinking of the following parts list:
  • Motherboard: ASRock - X99E-ITX/ac
  • PSU: Corsair SF450 SFX Power Supply
  • GPU: Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1070 Mini ITX OC
  • CPU: Intel Xeon E5-1650 v3 or E5-2620 v3
  • RAM: ECC of course :)
One thing I can't settle on is the cooler.

The Noctua NH-L9i is the recommended option for this case and is 37mm tall but wondering if any of the following will fit instead:
  • Cryorig C7 - 47mm tall
  • Noctua NH-L9x65 - 65mm tall
  • Silverstone SST-AR06 - 58mm tall
  • Scythe Shuriken Big 2 - 58mm tall
According to the manufacturer the 140mm exhaust in the case is pretty good so worth trying first before fiddling with it, so will leave that be.

Tempted to also order custom length PSU cables but think I'll build the system before evaluating that.

One part which I'm taking with me from my old PC is a Crucial M500 960GB SSD. I understand the new crop of boards have M.2 SSD connectors on the back but since I need (want? ;) a TB SSD I think I'll avoid the expense (£600 for a 1TB M.2) of additional storage for the time being.

Aiming to run Linux for work related stuff and Windows for gaming. Would also like the system to be inaudible at idle and with light use.

Will stick some pics here as the bits and pieces arrive but be great to get some feedback before hitting confirm on my order.
 
The thing you need to keep in mind with that board is that it's a narrow ILM 2011-3 socket, I'm not sure any of the coolers you mentioned will actually work on that.
Have you checked the datasheets for compatibility? I'd check for you but I'm at work right now.
was able to grab this picture really quick to demo narrow vs square(normal)
xeon_ilm_support_dx_i4.jpg
 
That Asroc board has an M.2 slot on top of the motherboard. It's below the cpu socket, connector is just behind the USB3 header, so your cpu cooler should help keep things cool compared to a behind the board slot. Drop a Samsung 960 EVO in there for fast storage, keep your current SSD for data, big game installs, etc. The 250GB size is around $150.

Please do post some pics though. That Osmi case is definitely a good looking little thing.
 
Thanks, very useful info Curiositie - I knew the MB came with a custom cooler but wasn't aware of that spec. I'll have to drum up a search for compatible coolers. Seems Noctua do three narrow ILM coolers, the NH-U9DX i4 (125mm), NH-U12DX i4 (158mm) and NH-D9DX i4 (110mm).

The Osmi can take a much taller cooler if I use a HDPLEX PSU as this chap has done:
https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/ultimate-osmi.761/#post-15296

But he ended up getting fedup trying to fit a larger Noctua and went for a low form factor Noctua (NH-L9i) instead.

Dan of Dan Cases has a great post on fitting the X99 into his case. He specifically used a Dynatron T318 with a Noctua A9x14:
https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4_faq.html#collapse99

To cap it all of it seems AMD Ryzen is hitting the shelves in two weeks and AMD often support ECC in their standard processors so I think I'll at least wait another two weeks to see what they do.

For now guess I can at least order the case and PSU since those are unlikely to need changing!

I don't think the setup above will consume more than 250W so SF450 over the SF600 right?
 
If we round up and say the 1070 is 160W (source), and you get the E5-1650 v3 (~140W), that only puts you at 300W so the SF450 should be fine.
 
For the ASRock X99 mITX MB, you will want to use a Dynotron T318 heat sink (copper, vapor chamber, 27mm in height)…

Pair this with the Noctua NF-A9x14 (slim 92mm PWM fan, same one as on the NH-L9i CPU cooler you already mentioned), or if space allows, the Noctua NF-A9 (regular 25mm thick 92mm PWM fan)…

Zip ties are your friend…!

EDIT: LOL…!!! I did NOT read your latest post, so I totally missed that you already are aware of the T318 / Noctua combo… If you DO go that route though, and the thicker 25mm fan can fit, do that…!
 
Case ordered (expensive stuff!). Also purchase the PSU.

Holding fire on board and CPU until the AMD Ryzen launch at the end of this month.

Want something a lot faster than my quad core Macbook which has a Geekbench of 4269 single threaded and 13879 multi threaded. That means at least a 6 or 8 core is required.

I used to be a water cooling maniac back in my youth and am so very tempted to stick an AMD 1800X in this tiny case and see if I can benefit from AMD's new dynamic overclocking technology. I think an overclocked octo-core might just be the ticket!
 
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Want to see pictures of this too!

dogbait, which Macbook do you have? Most of the mobile quad cores run below 3GHz and can single-core turbo up beyond that, but, for instance, overclocked i7-4790k geekbench scores show over 6400 single threaded and 25000 multi threaded. (I wish it recorded actual clock speed there).
 
Case and power supply arrived. The case has great fit and finish and it came with a shiny double blanking plate in case you don't use a graphics card. Unfortunately the fan arrived with the impeller separated from the motor, must've been knocked loose in transit. Will photograph the case tonight, it's damn fine looking.

dogbait, which Macbook do you have?
Click to expand...

Maxed out Macbook Pro 2015. In GB4 it gets 4269 single, 13879 multi - Fire Strike score is 2200. Just as a comparison my 6-core Mac Pro 2013 w/ D700 gets 3740 in GB4 single and 16387 in multi - Fire Strike is 10k with hacked Radeon drivers which enable Crossfire but most of the time it's running without Crossfire which gives a Fire Strike score of around 5k. Pretty much the reason I put it up for sale - it just offers too little value over a Macbook thanks to Apple's dumb design decision to limit it to a single CPU socket and a fixed graphics chip!

That said to its credit...there is no way in hell anyone is ever gonna build a similarly specced ITX system smaller than a Mac Pro...incredible how Apple managed to sandwich a Xeon CPU, ECC RAM, and 2x GPUs along with a tiny 450W power supply I know most small form factor enthusiasts would kill for! Just a stunning piece of engineering. Deeply, deeply flawed machine though :(
 
Few pics below.

Oc8vg60.jpg


Never seen an SFX PSU before - so tiny!
gGdGiop.jpg


Case comes with a be quiet! Pure Wings 2 fan:
NSIPrtI.jpg


Graphics card slot cover, seems a new addition:
f5PWetV.jpg


Spent far too much time on this, but basically wanted to calculate the distance between CPU and PSU to get an idea of how big a cooler I can squeeze in there. Bottom line the distance is 76mm:
FwccD67.jpg

3SOzBei.jpg


Good news is that the included fan is damn silent. Bad news is that it looks to be a bit of a pain to remove, requiring disassembly of the top of the case which is screwed into the middle and bottom rather than welded. Much prefer screws over welding to be honest.

Case is also made of very thick aluminium (6mm top, 4mm middle and 5mm base) but is also super light.

It's a very fiddly case to work with however and a lot of care has to be taken to not scratch it up removing the outer cover which has to be lifted upwards.

One major issue for newbies is that none of the included screws can hold the PSU in place. PSUs typically need 6-32 screws rather than machine screws (which the case only comes with). Thankfully I have a bajillion screws of every shape and size so wasn't a huge problem finding small flat countersunk 6-32 screws (most NAS boxes come with a bunch for mounting the drives to sleds).
 
History repeats itself. In 2003 I gave up waiting on a decent Opteron board and bought a Xeon system instead. In 2017 I'm going with a Z270 Intel setup after seeing the lottery that is buying an AM4 ITX motherboard.

Ordered the following:
  • Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming-ITX/ac
  • PSU: Corsair SF450 SFX Power Supply
  • GPU: Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1070 Mini ITX OC
  • CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad Core Processor
  • RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX
  • Set of ball tip hex drivers for the notoriously fiddly Osmi

Only think I can't decide on is whether to reuse a 960GB Crucial M500 SSD I have lying around or order a new Samsung 950 EVO 1TB M.2 drive instead...

Was originally hoping to use the M500 and upgrade to a M.2 drive later but the Osmi looks like it's a complete and utter bugger to open up after the fact. Tough one.
 
ahh great very nice to see. shame i didn't notice this before
i played it safe and went with evga 1060 SC
good luck with your build
 
dogbait , please do include a report on temps of CPU & GPU, and overall noise levels once you get your system up & running…

TY…!

EDIT TO ADD:

If there is 76mm clearance between the CPU & the PSU, then you could run a Noctua NH-L12 with just the lower 92mm fan; this package sits at 66mm in height…
 
Last edited:
Boil said:
dogbait
If there is 76mm clearance between the CPU & the PSU, then you could run a Noctua NH-L12 with just the lower 92mm fan; this package sits at 66mm in height…
Click to expand...

Heheh, GMTA. Exactly the cooler I ordered. Plan on doing just that. Will report back on temps and noise levels. Aiming for a build as silent as a Mac Pro 2013 at idle and at load well...probably get quite a bit louder than Apple's boutique computer but we'll see.

Wondering if anyone thinks it's worth swapping power supply fans (for a Noctua or similar)?
 
I have the exact same case! I also think that it's one of the best looking cases out there. It's not built yet but you may have inspired me to dig it up and put some parts in it. I also have the same motherboard, asrock x99e-itx/ac, think about putting into graphics cards with PCI-E bifurcation!
 
chemist_slime said:
I have the exact same case! I also think that it's one of the best looking cases out there. It's not built yet but you may have inspired me to dig it up and put some parts in it. I also have the same motherboard, asrock x99e-itx/ac, think about putting into graphics cards with PCI-E bifurcation!
Click to expand...

Yeah agreed, it's a gorgeous case. Just finished my build last night (3am!). This has to be the hardest build I've ever done (and that includes a dual CPU water cooled Xeon setup!).

Working on this case is up there with replacing a home button on an iPhone 4. It's very fiddly.

I have the ASRock X270 not the X99 (alas). The lack of cooler choices for the X99 put me off but I understand a Dynatron T318 with a Noctua A9x14 is a good, reasonably quiet choice.

As far as graphics cards go, I think the best you'll manage in this case is the Gigabyte 1070 Mini. Just managed to squeeze it in. It did require unscrewing the base. You'll need a good, high quality 2mm ball tip hex driver to get them out.
 
Well...finished, took all day and into the night. Quite possibly the trickiest machine build I've ever done.

First things first, dry fit of the be quiet Silent Wings 3 fan and the ASRock mainboard. It's a tight fit for the mainboard and you really have no clearance either side:

WrgfkJt.jpg


Dry fit of the Gigabyte 1070, which on newer revisions of the Osmi simply slides in through the front:

Q3JW6Xh.jpg

hB7lXyb.jpg


Next up, dry fit of both on the table and determine in which orientation the Noctua NH-L12 fits. Due to the memory on one side of the board, the VRM sinks on the other side and the case fan on the top there's only one orientation where the Noctua fits. Apparently it's not the recommended placement for tower cases, but a quick internet search suggested performance wasn't really affected. Not sure why Noctua recommend not doing it but I really had little choice (apart from use a different heatsink):

LW24y5m.jpg


With the dry fit done I had to figure out how to get the motherboard and the graphics card both into the case. After much fiddling I can categorically declare that it is impossible to slide a 1070 in whilst the motherboard is in place. I had two options:

1. Remove the base of the case as Vitamin Moto did, or
2. Try and wiggle the bugger in.

I took the latter approach:

N0sieMR.jpg


And damn near cracked the locking tab on the graphics card.

Fortunately I had just enough space to unscrew the hex bolts holding the left vertical strut to the base of the case. After loosening that (took a lot of force and a quality hex driver) I was barely able to get the graphics card to clear and sit where it needed to go. No harm, no foul (besides a few scuffed memory socket tabs.

If I'd loosened the vertical strut before hand this step would have been much easier, and in fact HG just got back to me this morning (after finishing the build alas) with exactly that suggestion.

Nice and snug:

qGVWhwt.jpg


Layout of the CPU and surrounding components. You really want to plug every cable in before mounting such a large heatsink in such a tiny space. In fact if using a 2.5" SSD (I had one spare) cable and secure it to the case before you put the board and graphics card in. It's extremely difficult to get the cables routed afterwards. If you can get an M.2 drive, do and avoid that hassle.

CwRtwoG.jpg


HAdnvAn.jpg


Tada! I had to trim the locking tab on the ATX power cable to fit it into the motherboard. It's pretty tight in there:

XOT5Joq.jpg


akJVdZ1.jpg


XLd7tfc.jpg


Seriously tempted to use security screws so I'm never tempted to open this case and fiddle with it again.

gZqDBbG.jpg


KEUDG89.jpg
 
dogbait said:
Well...finished, took all day and into the night. Quite possibly the trickiest machine build I've ever done.

First things first, dry fit of the be quiet Silent Wings 3 fan and the ASRock mainboard. It's a tight fit for the mainboard and you really have no clearance either side:

WrgfkJt.jpg


Dry fit of the Gigabyte 1070, which on newer revisions of the Osmi simply slides in through the front:

Q3JW6Xh.jpg

hB7lXyb.jpg


Next up, dry fit of both on the table and determine in which orientation the Noctua NH-L12 fits. Due to the memory on one side of the board, the VRM sinks on the other side and the case fan on the top there's only one orientation where the Noctua fits. Apparently it's not the recommended placement for tower cases, but a quick internet search suggested performance wasn't really affected. Not sure why Noctua recommend not doing it but I really had little choice (apart from use a different heatsink):

LW24y5m.jpg


With the dry fit done I had to figure out how to get the motherboard and the graphics card both into the case. After much fiddling I can categorically declare that it is impossible to slide a 1070 in whilst the motherboard is in place. I had two options:

1. Remove the base of the case as Vitamin Moto did, or
2. Try and wiggle the bugger in.

I took the latter approach:

N0sieMR.jpg


And damn near cracked the locking tab on the graphics card.

Fortunately I had just enough space to unscrew the hex bolts holding the left vertical strut to the base of the case. After loosening that (took a lot of force and a quality hex driver) I was barely able to get the graphics card to clear and sit where it needed to go. No harm, no foul (besides a few scuffed memory socket tabs.

If I'd loosened the vertical strut before hand this step would have been much easier, and in fact HG just got back to me this morning (after finishing the build alas) with exactly that suggestion.

Nice and snug:

qGVWhwt.jpg


Layout of the CPU and surrounding components. You really want to plug every cable in before mounting such a large heatsink in such a tiny space. In fact if using a 2.5" SSD (I had one spare) cable and secure it to the case before you put the board and graphics card in. It's extremely difficult to get the cables routed afterwards. If you can get an M.2 drive, do and avoid that hassle.

CwRtwoG.jpg


HAdnvAn.jpg


Tada! I had to trim the locking tab on the ATX power cable to fit it into the motherboard. It's pretty tight in there:

XOT5Joq.jpg


akJVdZ1.jpg


XLd7tfc.jpg


Seriously tempted to use security screws so I'm never tempted to open this case and fiddle with it again.

gZqDBbG.jpg


KEUDG89.jpg
Click to expand...
It is such a beautiful and clean build!
 
Here're some temp measurements.

Idle (silent):
5KCWI92.png


After an hour of FurMark GPU + FurMark CPU burn test (sounds like a hair dryer):
dzOXXYC.png


One thing that bugs me is the fan curve of the be quiet fan:
ZUUxmoN.png


Which means the fan speed varies like so:
Js5GorU.png


I'd expected a much smoother fan profile, instead I see a jump from 950rpm to 1600rpm every few mins when the machine is under heavy load.

I'm currently using the motherboard fan controller. Anyone able to recommend fan controller software which can be a little more intelligent about the fan speed and perhaps take both CPU and GPU temps into account?
 
I'm just throwing this out there, but why doesn't you just use SpeedFan? I don't use it myself at the moment, but I was able to set up my case-fans depending on multiple temperature readings and limit the maximum and minimum fan duty (90% seem to be what you can stomach?).
 
Can SpeedFan do something like; if GPU or temp hits 60C or 80c respectively ramp chassis fan to 100% for five mins?
 
It can ramp up the fans depending on multiple inputs, independently or in aggregate - but I don't remember it being able to set a time-limit on it and ignore temperature after that. You could set the fan to spin down over a long period of time but spin up fast to simulate it?
 
haha at first i was like... no cpu fan?? BOLD MOVE

btw for anyone interested, i just upgraded my Osmi to a MSI 1070 and it fits perfectly, even better than the gigabyte 970. i have the rev 1 though
 
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