Kimera Industries Cerberus: The 18L, mATX, USA-made enclosure

I'm working on the ATX mount for the rear of the chassis and have run into a snag. Due to the height decrease up top there's not much room to fit the ATX cutout and it's proving tricky to keep enough room for the tubing holes for the FrozenQ M1 external reservoir.

Before it wasn't a big deal to include support but now I want to make sure there's actually interest in this feature before going to the trouble to fit it in.

So, are you interested in using the FrozenQ M1 reservoir with Nova?
 
I'm working on the ATX mount for the rear of the chassis and have run into a snag. Due to the height decrease up top there's not much room to fit the ATX cutout and it's proving tricky to keep enough room for the tubing holes for the FrozenQ M1 external reservoir.

Before it wasn't a big deal to include support but now I want to make sure there's actually interest in this feature before going to the trouble to fit it in.

So, are you interested in using the FrozenQ M1 reservoir with Nova?

I don't know if it was mentioned before, but I could definitely do without the ATX support. Trying to keep the case as small as possible with support for the FrozenQ M1 Reservoir would be better in my opinion.
 
I don't know if it was mentioned before, but I could definitely do without the ATX support. Trying to keep the case as small as possible with support for the FrozenQ M1 Reservoir would be better in my opinion.

To be clear, ATX PSU support has had zero effect on the size of Nova. The reason we've elected to incorporate ATX PSU support at all is because of the fact that, for those who don't use it, there's not really much of a consequence or downside. Comparatively, for those who must have it - for noise or power concerns, or simply because they want to use a unit they already have - Nova can now support that.

A quick comparison of the ways you can put power supplies in Nova:

  1. The "original" way: A SFX or SFX-L power supply can be mounted to the front, with a provided internal cable re-routing power. You can mount a 120mm fan on the bottom front, you can mount hardware to the side bracket if desired, and you have the full ~147mm of CPU clearance (w/o side bracket) available for coolers. This is certainly the 'ideal' way - the smaller PSU and shorter cabling is conveniently placed, doesn't block anything, and is easy to manage. You just have to live with a power ceiling (600W) and possibly more noise.

  2. The rear-mounted ATX route: An ATX power supply is attached to the back of Nova, and 'floats' over the motherboard. Since the PSU rear is flush with the back of the case, you no longer need the internal extension cable. You now have two 120mm mounts available up front, which can hold fans, hardware, and 120mm/240mm radiators. However, you lose the ability to mount hardware on the side bracket, and the power supply reduces CPU cooler clearance down significantly - you'd have to stick with reference coolers, relatively low-profile coolers, or water blocks (which work particularly well since you can now mount a nice radiator up front).

  3. The rear-mounted SFX route: A SFX power supply is attached to the back of Nova, and 'floats' over the motherboard. Since the PSU rear is still flush with the back, you still no longer need the internal extension cable. You again have two 120mm mounts available up front, which can hold fans, hardware, and 120mm/240mm radiators. You still lose the ability to mount any other hardware on the side bracket, but the power supply cuts CPU cooler clearance down marginally less, so you'd have a bit more flexibility with air cooling.

The way I see it, most people would be best off doing #1, and those who want super-quiet builds, or very power-hungry builds, will be interested in #2. #3 probably makes sense to those who want to mount a lot of drives and other hardware internally.
 
Last edited:
Still looking for feedback on the FrozenQ M1 reservoir

Are you interested in using the FrozenQ M1 reservoir with Nova?


Did some hardware testing today.

wlpmITb.jpg

Testing out the Noctua L9x65 heatsink.

5930K at stock clocks and ambient at 23.5°C it was idling at about 38°C with the NF-A9 PWM 92x25mm fan (this isn't the included one) running at ~900 RPM.

After 10 minutes of Prime96 Blend @ 10 threads it got up to about 90°C and the fan was running at 2040 RPM. CPU was throttling slight, dropping briefly from 3.6GHz down to 3.5GHz.

So I tried adding a 120mm on the side bracket blowing towards the heatsink and after 20 minutes of Prime it got to about 81°C.

Left to its own devices, the L9x65 isn't suited to cooling a socket 2011 CPU at heavy load, but with additional case cooling the temps are reasonable considering the small size.


qxnGQSn.jpg

Here's a 3.5" HDD installed. So in this configuration you could fit a 3.5" drive, a video card, PCIe SSD, and a sound card.


4zlDMul.jpg

Here you can see the HDD mounting screws, can't really see in this pic but there are rubber grommets that the drive is sitting on.


Did some thermal tests. The drive is a Toshiba DT01ACA300 3TB 7200RPM. At ~25.5°C ambient the drive got up to 48°C with the drive idling but the GTX 980 running Valley after 25 minutes.

Then I ran CrystalDiskMark 4K tests on the HDD to work it out while still running Valley and after 30 minutes the drive got up to 53°C.

With both GPU and HDD idling the drive sits at 43°C.

So perhaps having the video card in the third slot isn't ideal for HDD temps but that's easily fixed by moving the GPU to the top slot.
 
To be clear, ATX PSU support has had zero effect on the size of Nova. The reason we've elected to incorporate ATX PSU support at all is because of the fact that, for those who don't use it, there's not really much of a consequence or downside. Comparatively, for those who must have it - for noise or power concerns, or simply because they want to use a unit they already have - Nova can now support that.

A quick comparison of the ways you can put power supplies in Nova:

  1. The "original" way: A SFX or SFX-L power supply can be mounted to the front, with a provided internal cable re-routing power. You can mount a 120mm fan on the bottom front, you can mount hardware to the side bracket if desired, and you have the full ~147mm of CPU clearance (w/o side bracket) available for coolers. This is certainly the 'ideal' way - the smaller PSU and shorter cabling is conveniently placed, doesn't block anything, and is easy to manage. You just have to live with a power ceiling (600W) and possibly more noise.

  2. The rear-mounted ATX route: An ATX power supply is attached to the back of Nova, and 'floats' over the motherboard. Since the PSU rear is flush with the back of the case, you no longer need the internal extension cable. You now have two 120mm mounts available up front, which can hold fans, hardware, and 120mm/240mm radiators. However, you lose the ability to mount hardware on the side bracket, and the power supply reduces CPU cooler clearance down significantly - you'd have to stick with reference coolers, relatively low-profile coolers, or water blocks (which work particularly well since you can now mount a nice radiator up front).

  3. The rear-mounted SFX route: A SFX power supply is attached to the back of Nova, and 'floats' over the motherboard. Since the PSU rear is still flush with the back, you still no longer need the internal extension cable. You again have two 120mm mounts available up front, which can hold fans, hardware, and 120mm/240mm radiators. You still lose the ability to mount any other hardware on the side bracket, but the power supply cuts CPU cooler clearance down marginally less, so you'd have a bit more flexibility with air cooling.

The way I see it, most people would be best off doing #1, and those who want super-quiet builds, or very power-hungry builds, will be interested in #2. #3 probably makes sense to those who want to mount a lot of drives and other hardware internally.

Awesome....thanks for the clarification. Definitely gonna do custom watercooling in the case. But like you said, I guess its good to have both options as far as SFX and ATX. I check this Thread on a daily basis for an announcement when I can finally order the case, keep the updates coming!
 
If the FrozenQ reservoir isn't used...what liquid cooling option would be available?

Some rads have built-in reservoirs and some compact tube reservoirs could be mounted to the front end of the side bracket when using a shorter ATX PSU.

Or you could go hardcore and build without a res.
 
A slew of updates today!

First off, take a look at these:

rm5L7Nh.jpg


James is currently putting the finishing touches on the rear plate system that Nova will be using. For the green, one can rear-mount an ATX power supply, and for the blue, you get the expected A/C inlet/fan mount/WC cutouts.

Fortunately, a tolerance issue we thought could prevent use of the FrozenQ reservoir has been mitigated, so - although we're waiting to confirm with FrozenQ - we expect that their M1 res will work!

Also, at the moment we've left the rear-mounting option as ATX only, but we wanted to hear from you guys as to why someone might want to rear mount a SFX unit, since we and others have proposed that in the past. We can very easily make a plate to support that, but when we've considered builds with a SFX unit in the back... well, it's almost always been just better to put it up in the front.



For the second update, I'm pleased to note that we've been in considerable communication with a few manufacturers, and have started to receive samples! This is mostly to do with looking at various paint colors and finishes, but it's a milestone that's indicative of how close we are now to manufacturing the final prototypes - which will of course be followed by the crowdfunding campaign and production run ;) We've been trying to maintain a good pace that isn't rushed but progresses quickly, and we're so far very happy with our speed.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll share pics once we have some paint chips in our hands, but if there are any colors you'd like to have up for consideration, feel free to voice out on that now!



Finally, I've just thrown up a new post on the KI blog today, but rather than talking about Nova, it's a write-up on the work we've been doing behind the scenes to build up Kimera Industries into the business and legal entity that will see Nova through to production.

When you have community projects, startups, and similar things, you don't tend to hear about all the legwork that had to be done to make all of that possible. Yet, it's all really important in realizing products and projects such as Nova, and I worry that it can act as a barrier that prevents some from realizing their idea. So, I wanted to shine a light on the research and work I did, and share some of the knowledge and documentation that we've got, if only to help out those who are a bit overwhelmed by it.
 
Very nice idea with the backplate, that's a good solution.

I think SFX would be nice for people that want to use dual rads? I guess in that scenario you'd probably use an ATX PSU to further reduce the noise.
 
I would probably use the SFX PSU for my build once this is released and I wouldn't mind using the FrozenQ reservoir since it wouldn't take up space in the inside
 
Very nice work on the update, a lot of interesting new stuff, especially the "nearing production" thingie :D
 
For colors i'm interested in Silver or Black
Also can't wait to buy one when its ready, loving the rear mounted ATX power supply for a case swap and upgrade to a dual rad corsair H105 or similar CPU cooler. The handle is like icing on the cake since i do go to LAN events by friends.
 
Last edited:
Very nice idea with the backplate, that's a good solution.

I think SFX would be nice for people that want to use dual rads? I guess in that scenario you'd probably use an ATX PSU to further reduce the noise.

Is a 240x120mm radiator better than a 140x140 that would fit in the side panel? I know it's ~47% more surface area, but the 140x140 could run in push/pull, and I thought fans are generally more efficient as they get bigger.
 
Exactly. They're usually unpainted though (as far as I know), which could be an issue for some.

Not all SFX power supplies come with the bracket, but most do, and they're a few bucks if you order them from various places. We'd offer it to match the paint color, as you mention, but for now we're leaning towards not making it since it's a really, really niche use case that 3rd party brackets already address. (Plus, we already have enough brackets and plates and things. Keeping stuff simple will make manufacturing and logistics easier/cheaper).


Is a 240x120mm radiator better than a 140x140 that would fit in the side panel? I know it's ~47% more surface area, but the 140x140 could run in push/pull, and I thought fans are generally more efficient as they get bigger.

It's a good question. It would depend a lot on which radiators and fans you're comparing, especially since the 140mm one can be much thicker than a 240mm one mounted to the front. But I'd assume you'd get around 75-80% of the performance, ideally?

Honestly, if you can get away with SFX, I'd stick with the 140mm. The hinged side bracket is super-convenient, and front-mounting the power supply makes cable management very easy.
 
Hey Aiboh, PP,
With the. PSU at the back, can one fit 2 of 120mm AIO coolers on the front? They typically measure 120x152mm.
I'm thinking, if this can be accommodated, it would be the best possible cooling solution for an SLI setup. Each GPU would be cooled with a 120mm AIO, and the CPU would be cooled with a 240mm one at the bottom. Best config would be exhaust all, with a bit sacrifice from dust control, which can be remedied by strategically placed filters.

Edit: "Best" as in short of a full blown custom liquid cooling.
 
Doesn't look like it, there isn't enough room vertically.

Maybe the other way, two 120mm rads on the bottom and the 240mm up front.
 
Doesn't look like it, there isn't enough room vertically.

Maybe the other way, two 120mm rads on the bottom and the 240mm up front.

The bottom 120mm AIO can be installed sideways but from the looks of it, the fan installation holes are quite close to the frame edge. I'm not sure if it would fit.
 
Would a build like this work in the case?

Powersupply: silverstone sfx 600w (Mounted at the top front of the case in the original spot)
cpu with corsair H75 cooler (Mounted on the left side of the rail near the rear of the case)
2x Evga 980 Hybrid GPU Cards for SLI (1 mounted on the right side of the rail near the front and the other radiator mounted bottom front of the case.

A fully water cooled SLI system without the need for a custom loop
Is such a setup possible?
 
Would a build like this work in the case?

[...]

Not that exact configuration. There isn't room on the side bracket for dual rads with the SFX PSU in its stock location.

The GPU rads may fit on the bottom with slim fans, maybe with standard fans but it'd be a very tight fit.

Edit: There isn't room without the PSU there either.
 
Last edited:
How important is front audio connectors?

We have some things in mind for the case that will make it much more flexible but we'll probably only have room for either 2 x USB 3.0 OR audio, not both.
 
How important is front audio connectors?

We have some things in mind for the case that will make it much more flexible but we'll probably only have room for either 2 x USB 3.0 OR audio, not both.

I can't believe you're actually asking this question!! Definitely remove the front audio connectors. I know some use them but I have never ever needed them as I like the clean look in the front. So my vote...Remove them!
 
I can't believe you're actually asking this question!! Definitely remove the front audio connectors. I know some use them but I have never ever needed them as I like the clean look in the front. So my vote...Remove them!

I'd love to, I use a USB DAC so haven't needed front audio in years but I'm not the only one who's going to buy the case.

But man, it's going to be awesome what can be done in the case now :D
 
I'd love to, I use a USB DAC so haven't needed front audio in years but I'm not the only one who's going to buy the case.

But man, it's going to be awesome what can be done in the case now :D

Can't wait!! I don't know if I mentioned it already but I'm definitely in for two! I have so many ideas for this case!
 
Audio and USB will fit ? Awesome. I'd hate to cut up the front to get the basic essentials in there ;)

Why front USB ? Because you sometimes use USB-sticks or disks, card-readers, connect a camera, use a USB headset for gaming.

Why front audio ? Because more and more boards have a decent sound chip (ALC1150) these days and some even have an awesome headphone amplifier built-in only useable with the front-audio.

At the very very least, I would support 1x USB 3.0 and 1x Audio-out.
 
Poll time again!

Today's topic is adding a bit more height and depth to also support ATX power supplies where the SFX is currently.

This came about because I'm tired of listening to either the fan on the SX600-G running at high speed at idle or the clacking on the SX500-LG :p

Cons:

The volume is currently sitting at 18.0L, adding front ATX support would increase it to 18.6L

It wouldn't be perfect, 140mm ATX units would fit just fine but 160mm modular units would only work if the card isn't too long. 10.5" cards like the reference 980 would work provided the connectors on the PSU are either centered or offset towards the fan side of the PSU.

Of course this limits use of the front, a 120mm fan may just fit with a 160mm PSU. Depends on how much extra height I can add without going over the volume increase budget.

If we can't get a 16 gauge internal AC cord it would also limit the PSU to less than 1000W at least, I'd probably limit it to 850W to be safe.

Like the M1, some PSUs won't work due to bad AC inlet position/orientation that could cause the power cord to interfere with the frame.

Pros:

Can use ATX PSU along with air cooler or side bracket.


Poll: 0.6L volume increase for front ATX Support?
 
Poll time again!

Today's topic is adding a bit more height and depth to also support ATX power supplies where the SFX is currently.

This came about because I'm tired of listening to either the fan on the SX600-G running at high speed at idle or the clacking on the SX500-LG :p

Cons:

The volume is currently sitting at 18.0L, adding front ATX support would increase it to 18.6L

It wouldn't be perfect, 140mm ATX units would fit just fine but 160mm modular units would only work if the card isn't too long. 10.5" cards like the reference 980 would work provided the connectors on the PSU are either centered or offset towards the fan side of the PSU.

Of course this limits use of the front, a 120mm fan may just fit with a 160mm PSU. Depends on how much extra height I can add without going over the volume increase budget.

If we can't get a 16 gauge internal AC cord it would also limit the PSU to less than 1000W at least, I'd probably limit it to 850W to be safe.

Like the M1, some PSUs won't work due to bad AC inlet position/orientation that could cause the power cord to interfere with the frame.

Pros:

Can use ATX PSU along with air cooler or side bracket.


Poll: 0.6L volume increase for front ATX Support?

As far as the use of an ATX PSU, I think SFX is slowly gaining more attention. I don't think it's fair to say because of only two SFX PSU's that increasing the size to accommodate ATX is the right thing to do. I think over time SFX will continue to gain momentum and there will be an increase of quality SFX PSU's with better, cooling, quieter operation and more power. Also the increasing popularity of mITX and MicroATX SFF cases will "force" manufactures to cater to the masses. I don't know, its just my 2 cents and I think over time SFX PSU's will improve and there will be no need for large ATX PSU's in these type of cases.
 
As far as the use of an ATX PSU, I think SFX is slowly gaining more attention. I don't think it's fair to say because of only two SFX PSU's that increasing the size to accommodate ATX is the right thing to do. I think over time SFX will continue to gain momentum and there will be an increase of quality SFX PSU's with better, cooling, quieter operation and more power. Also the increasing popularity of mITX and MicroATX SFF cases will "force" manufactures to cater to the masses. I don't know, its just my 2 cents and I think over time SFX PSU's will improve and there will be no need for large ATX PSU's in these type of cases.

Very true, but due to fan noise issues the SX600-G and SX500-LG haven't exactly been resounding successes if the feedback on this sub-forum is any indication.

The problem is unless some awesome new SFF PSU shows up in the next few months there won't be a great SFF PSU option when we go to production.

So somebody looking to buy the case then will also have to weigh whether they're willing to sacrifice air cooling or ease of use.

The design does currently supports ATX but it's a bit of a hack. The distance between the mobo and PSU is tight and it'll make working inside the case more difficult.

After having used the hinged side bracket for a while now I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to use it, makes accessing the motherboard so much easier :p
 
Very true, but due to fan noise issues the SX600-G and SX500-LG haven't exactly been resounding successes if the feedback on this sub-forum is any indication.

The problem is unless some awesome new SFF PSU shows up in the next few months there won't be a great SFF PSU option when we go to production.

So somebody looking to buy the case then will also have to weigh whether they're willing to sacrifice air cooling or ease of use.

The design does currently supports ATX but it's a bit of a hack. The distance between the mobo and PSU is tight and it'll make working inside the case more difficult.

After having used the hinged side bracket for a while now I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to use it, makes accessing the motherboard so much easier :p

I'm sticking with keeping the case as small as possible, but the case slowly keeps creeping up in size to accommodate 'just a little more". LOL. I'm just one buyer and again I'm sure many will disagree.

As far as a new SFX PSU in the next few months, hey you never know! My SX-600G runs great, I think my Noctua IndustrialPPC fans sound louder than the 80mm fan.

The hinged side bracket is an awesome addition to the case. I see how it will definitely come into use when comparing it to the M1 side bracket. Trying to fit a custom water loop with a 240mm radiator and two fans was a challenge.

Keep the updates coming and I'll give my constructive criticism as much as possible lol
 
I personally would also choose to try to keep this case as small as possible, unless a slight increase makes it a lot more versatile. Since the case already has ATX PSU support (on the side-bracket), I would choose not to go with this size increase.

While the SX600-G and SX500-LG both have noise issues, I'm personally very happy with the Sharkoon SFX-L 500W unit. While I don't live in a hermetically sealed bubble, it's still inaudible to me over the faintest of white noise.

Too bad it is so hard to put noise into perspective when everyone's hearing, noise sensitivity, room, ambient noise and PC build differs so much.
 
Back
Top