NCASE M1: a crowdfunded Mini-ITX case (updates in first post)

inchikiboze said:
Hi everyone. I'm looking to upgrade my video card and am seeking advice in the M1. Currently running a blower-style EVGA GTX 760, and it's both noisy and no longer offering the performance I'd like. Could anyone out there recommend a current-gen GPU setup in the M1 that is both quiet and powerful?

A few details: I'm looking for something at least as powerful as a 970 and as quiet at idle as possible, but am open to suggestions and have no particular allegiance to Nvidia. Silence at idle is more important to me than maximizing power, but I don't mind at all if it roars under load. Still running at 1080p and not planning to move to 4k for a while yet. I'd prefer an out-of-the-box solution; custom-WC-ing a video card is a bit above my level of commitment, but I'd be willing to add a couple of case fans if that would help. I've had great experiences with EVGA in the past and would consider something from them, but this card is quite noisy. Any tips would be much appreciated!

My current setup:

Core i5 2500K
Noctua NH-C14 w NF-P14r redux-1500 PWM
Asus P8Z77-i deluxe
8 GB Corsair Vengeance
EVGA GTX 760 (blower, non-superclocked)
Samsung 840 EVO 500 GB
Silverstone SX-600g
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my reference gtx 970 works great. it can be silent, or it can be a jet engine. depends on what kind of temps you are comfortable with. but I was playing dying light on 1200p maxed out without a problem and temps were reasonable with semi loud fan profile. If you do want to think about expanding a bit into liquid cooling, I am probably going to get a corsair HG10 with a 120mm aio to keep the gpu quiet and cool like my cpu

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/nvidia-...-card-silver-black/9855169.p?id=1219441201895
 
Quick question, I built a PC in the (v2) M1 around a year ago.

At the moment I'm using a

-VII Impact
-SX600G
-4670K with a Thermalright axp-100
-Palit 970 reference

Anyway, the noise of the whole thing is driving me up the wall.

What can I buy to sort this out? Its definitely the 970 making the most noise.

I was looking at the Kraken G10, or the Corsair HG10. Maybe I can replace the CPU cooler with an AIO as well?
 
David164v8 said:
Quick question, I built a PC in the (v2) M1 around a year ago.

At the moment I'm using a

-VII Impact
-SX600G
-4670K with a Thermalright axp-100
-Palit 970 reference

Anyway, the noise of the whole thing is driving me up the wall.

What can I buy to sort this out? Its definitely the 970 making the most noise.

I was looking at the Kraken G10, or the Corsair HG10. Maybe I can replace the CPU cooler with an AIO as well?
Click to expand...

Are you sure that it's the 970? the sx600g should be way louder..
 
David164v8 said:
No sorry this is under load, when playing something like GTAV it sounds like its about to take off. Idling everything is quite reasonable.
Click to expand...

Then the 970 might be the loudest part.
Ok, and using a good pair of headphones, maybe closed ones, isn't an option?
 
Is your GTX 970 hot? I don't know the Palit fan profile, but some manufacturers use very aggressive profiles. If temps aren't an issue, just create a custom fan profile.
 
Necere said:
Are you talking about the PC-Q17WX? I don't know if I'd say it's "based on" the M1... there are some obvious influences, but some significant differences as well. The layout looks fairly different and it appears to lack much of the flexibility the M1 has. At best you could say it was inspired by the M1.

For the record, we had nothing to do with it, contrary to what the articles seem to imply. No one from Lian Li or ASUS ever spoke to us about it.
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Hrm, I didn't look too much into it but the Lian Li rep on the video I was watching literally came out and said it was based on the Ncase M1 with some changes. Was just curious about it. Speaks a lot about the design success if a big OEM decided to adopt some of it (even if they did build it in the first place).
 
Hi there guys! I've been looking at the NCase for quite a while now, and I'm absolutely in love with it. I love the aesthetic of it, and it looks incredibly high quality. The form factor is also incredibly, and since I'm demoing the Oculus Rift a whole bunch I'd love a small and portable case to carry my computer in. As a prospective buyer, I'm also wondering about what to put in it, especially with the release of the Fury cards not too far away, which look to be absolutely fabulous for this sort of thing.

Any of you guys considered a Fury build? Do you think there would be any mounting problems with the Fury X?

Finally, to Necere: is there going to be a v5 released soon, or should I just buy the v4 right now?

Cheers!
 
The_Oasis said:
Hi there guys! I've been looking at the NCase for quite a while now, and I'm absolutely in love with it. I love the aesthetic of it, and it looks incredibly high quality. The form factor is also incredibly, and since I'm demoing the Oculus Rift a whole bunch I'd love a small and portable case to carry my computer in. As a prospective buyer, I'm also wondering about what to put in it, especially with the release of the Fury cards not too far away, which look to be absolutely fabulous for this sort of thing.

Any of you guys considered a Fury build? Do you think there would be any mounting problems with the Fury X?

Finally, to Necere: is there going to be a v5 released soon, or should I just buy the v4 right now?

Cheers!
Click to expand...
I'm sure the Fury will be a popular card in this case, and there shouldn't be any mounting issues, as people have already fit water cooled Nvidia cards in their systems.

Also, the v4 that is currently open to orders is the first production run of it, so buy this version. The v4 is so new that they haven't even shipped yet.
 
tonyri said:
I'm sure the Fury will be a popular card in this case, and there shouldn't be any mounting issues, as people have already fit water cooled Nvidia cards in their systems.

Also, the v4 that is currently open to orders is the first production run of it, so buy this version. The v4 is so new that they haven't even shipped yet.
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Hey, thanks Tony! I'll get an order in.

Thanks again, Necere and everyone else who helped to make this awesome case happen!
 
Are there any other good mounting alternatives for pumps other then the CPU pump? Are there any res pumps or radiator pumps that fit?
 
Oh, one more thing. What are the recommended cooling options for an NCase, both air and water wise?

Thanks again!
 
Rudde93 said:
Are there any other good mounting alternatives for pumps other then the CPU pump? Are there any res pumps or radiator pumps that fit?
Click to expand...

Hanging a reservoir and pump outside of the rear of the case isn't unheard of, it's just difficult to found a way to mount it. That way, you could use something like an MCP355/MCP35X (maybe) provided you can route everything.

I think I've seen at least two cases where someone's fit the EK bay reservoir and their pump in the floor of the case - although this interferes with a long video card.

The_Oasis said:
Oh, one more thing. What are the recommended cooling options for an NCase, both air and water wise?

Thanks again!
Click to expand...

Have you checked out the Google docs spreadsheet?
 
Vittra said:
If you can post photos or your findings in either regard that would be great. It's not looking likely I will build anything before Skylake arrives.

I'm also getting a NH-D9L in (with an additional fan), so I'll be playing around with both it and the Dark Rock TF in the future. If no one has posted their findings by that point, I'll be sure to chime in regarding both with respect to mounting, clearance, and cooling implications.
Click to expand...

Haven't finished building my system, but the Dark Rock TF doesn't fit on the Asus Z97I-Plus board without hitting the ram, heatsink, or gpu in any direction that the cooler is facing. Big letdown. Pulled my AIO Corsair h100i from my tower. Hopefully I can get that to fit. I'm afraid that trying to get the Dark Rock to fit may have pushed my ram a little bit too far and caused some damage to the socket. Let's hope not! If the heat pipes were just a few mm over it would have fit perfectly.
 
No Hands 55 said:
my reference gtx 970 works great. it can be silent, or it can be a jet engine. depends on what kind of temps you are comfortable with.
Click to expand...

No Hands, thanks for the tip. I'll definitely consider a reference or reference-ish 970. I'm fine with the card getting a bit hot (80's C?) from time to time as long as it's powerful and quiet at idle. I've never considered myself a noise snob, and I was fine with the axial cooler 760 I used to have until the performance couldn't keep up, but the idle noise of this blower card (which I got via replacement for free) is driving me bananas. Even a "whooshing" sound at the same db would probably be okay, but this is a pretty grating, mechanical whirr that goes constantly while system is running.

The hybrid cards coming out seem to be made for someone like me: big performance, low noise, cool, and you get watercooling without all the fuss or warranty issues of a custom job. I'm liking the reviews of the 980 ti hybrid and looking forward to the Fury X, but would something like this even be possible in the M1? Anybody out there managed to cram maybe a R9 295x2 or a 980 (non-ti) hybrid into the M1 (don't see any comments on the spreadsheet)? In the Hardware Canucks review video (2:49) of the EVGA 980 Hybrid, Dmitry demonstrates that the card fits in the M1 with the rad mounted to the 120 mm slot on the fan bracket over the motherboard, but doing so would occlude many of the cpu coolers people here have been using, including mine (Noctua NH-C14).
 
inchikiboze said:
No Hands, thanks for the tip. I'll definitely consider a reference or reference-ish 970. I'm fine with the card getting a bit hot (80's C?) from time to time as long as it's powerful and quiet at idle. I've never considered myself a noise snob, and I was fine with the axial cooler 760 I used to have until the performance couldn't keep up, but the idle noise of this blower card (which I got via replacement for free) is driving me bananas. Even a "whooshing" sound at the same db would probably be okay, but this is a pretty grating, mechanical whirr that goes constantly while system is running.

The hybrid cards coming out seem to be made for someone like me: big performance, low noise, cool, and you get watercooling without all the fuss or warranty issues of a custom job. I'm liking the reviews of the 980 ti hybrid and looking forward to the Fury X, but would something like this even be possible in the M1? Anybody out there managed to cram maybe a R9 295x2 or a 980 (non-ti) hybrid into the M1 (don't see any comments on the spreadsheet)? In the Hardware Canucks review video (2:49) of the EVGA 980 Hybrid, Dmitry demonstrates that the card fits in the M1 with the rad mounted to the 120 mm slot on the fan bracket over the motherboard, but doing so would occlude many of the cpu coolers people here have been using, including mine (Noctua NH-C14).
Click to expand...

yes its definitely near silent idle at ~25-30% fan speed and its a foot away on my desk. and i do have it get loud when it gets passed 70 but thats rare, so its usually pretty reasonable with loud speakers on or headphones.

and yes the hybrid cards seem like they are meant for cases like this. if i didnt have my 970 already i would definitely be in the market for a hybrid/fury type of card. That is essentially what I am looking to do with the Corsair HG10 and H75. I will also then put an h75 on my cpu, so itll be two 120mm rads on the side (there are pictures somewhere of people doing this already with the NZXT G10).

So a hyrbid card or getting a HG10 or G10 and an aio to slap on a card definitely are the best direction to go in short of a full loop imo, easier too.

David164v8 said:
Quick question, I built a PC in the (v2) M1 around a year ago.

At the moment I'm using a

-VII Impact
-SX600G
-4670K with a Thermalright axp-100
-Palit 970 reference

Anyway, the noise of the whole thing is driving me up the wall.

What can I buy to sort this out? Its definitely the 970 making the most noise.

I was looking at the Kraken G10, or the Corsair HG10. Maybe I can replace the CPU cooler with an AIO as well?
Click to expand...

read what i wrote above. pretty much exactly what i am doing. I prefer the HG10 from corsair because it is a more streamlined design and uses the reference style blower instead of a normal fan. I will be using two H75 AIOs from corsair for my gpu and cpu to achieve (hopefully) very low noise, very low temps, very high performance.
 
Necere said:
I haven't heard of anyone attempting it. I think the main problem would be figuring out where to mount the PSU, since it's normally mounted up front and Shuttle boards are much longer than mini-ITX.


Some people have asked about whether video cards with integrated closed-loop liquid coolers would fit in the M1, and as part of Hardware Canucks review of the EVGA GTX 980 Hybrid they just did, they tried it and it fits:

efbJNPe.jpg
Click to expand...

Maybe you coul fit the SFX PSU on the left side (with exhausting on the left side) and then you have all the way up to the front for the X79 "itx" Board.
 
dgio21 said:
Haven't finished building my system, but the Dark Rock TF doesn't fit on the Asus Z97I-Plus board without hitting the ram, heatsink, or gpu in any direction that the cooler is facing. Big letdown. Pulled my AIO Corsair h100i from my tower. Hopefully I can get that to fit. I'm afraid that trying to get the Dark Rock to fit may have pushed my ram a little bit too far and caused some damage to the socket. Let's hope not! If the heat pipes were just a few mm over it would have fit perfectly.
Click to expand...

If you are willing to procure different ram, you can consider these options:

Crucial Ballistix Sport VLP (Very Low Profile) - 1600 mhz, 1.35V, 9-9-9-24 - 18mm height (lower than DIMM retention clips height)

Crucial Ballistix Tactical LP (Low Profile) - 1600mhz, 1.35V, 8-8-8-24 - 25mm height

The difference in size between the two is the Tactial set has a small heatspreader. It is still 5mm lower than a standard module.
 
The Sport VLP RAM has a heat spreader too, but it's really small, bare minimal. I was able to get some decent timings with that RAM, but I don't remember ever being able to increase it above 1600MHz...maybe once I got it up to 1866MHz with loosened timings, I know I never tried increasing voltage.
 
Correct. The Tactical set has a heatspreader above the DIMM, increasing height. The Sport VLP one just covers the memory modules and only that, which does nothing to increase the height beyond the module.
 
Vittra said:
If you are willing to procure different ram, you can consider these options:

Crucial Ballistix Sport VLP (Very Low Profile) - 1600 mhz, 1.35V, 9-9-9-24 - 18mm height (lower than DIMM retention clips height)

Crucial Ballistix Tactical LP (Low Profile) - 1600mhz, 1.35V, 8-8-8-24 - 25mm height

The difference in size between the two is the Tactial set has a small heatspreader. It is still 5mm lower than a standard module.
Click to expand...

I don't think LP ram would have helped. I didn't take any pictures so I'll try to explain the issues. Just for reference the main face I'm referring to is the side with the heat pipe ends. With that facing upwards, the heat pipes from the bottom heatsink presses up against the top motherboard heatsink. If the main face is pointed towards the psu, the heat pipes push against the side of the the ram. Something where using LP probably wouldn't help. When the main face is pointed towards the pcie slot, the top heatsink overlaps preventing the use of any gpu. If the main face is pointed towards the rear. The top heatsink extends past the rear IO ports as well as hitting the ram. Maybe a motherboard where the CPU socket is over a few mm to the left would allow the use of the Dark Rock with the heat pipe ends facing the psu.
 
Where they push against the side of the ram is crucial. A standard DIMM is 30mm in height. VLP is 18mm. That's 12mm or 1.2cm of difference. If the pipes are really low to the board though, it won't matter.

Note that stuff like Corsair who calls their stuff "LP" is not actually LP. That's just their name for standard DIMM height because of their modules with stupidly high heatsinks like the dominator platinum.
 
dgio21 said:
The top heatsink extends past the rear IO ports as well as hitting the ram.
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The top heatsink can possibly be forcibly kneaded to be more centered. But this involves bending the heatpipes to some extent and depends on whether you dare to do it. I've done it on three top-down heatsinks before: the NH-L12, the NT06-Pro and the Kabuto II, and they didn't break or anything.
 
Vittra said:
Where they push against the side of the ram is crucial. A standard DIMM is 30mm in height. VLP is 18mm. That's 12mm or 1.2cm of difference. If the pipes are really low to the board though, it won't matter.

Note that stuff like Corsair who calls their stuff "LP" is not actually LP. That's just their name for standard DIMM height because of their modules with stupidly high heatsinks like the dominator platinum.
Click to expand...

I installed the Dark Rock tf on the tower that I took my h100i from, where the installation was a pain and is a reason that I recommend that people look for a different cooler, and it looks like the part of the bottom heat pipe that extends out the most lines up with the top edge of the pcb of my g skill ripjaws x ram. Don't know how much help that would be though.

It's a beautiful cooler. Quiet and it seems like it works pretty well based on the temps I'm getting from my tower, 40c idle and 60c load with a 3570k at 4.3ghz 1.3v with no proper side ventilation, I just can't recommend it even if it did fit on a different board. Be quiet needs to re design their installation process.
 
dgio21 said:
I installed the Dark Rock tf on the tower that I took my h100i from, where the installation was a pain and is a reason that I recommend that people look for a different cooler, and it looks like the part of the bottom heat pipe that extends out the most lines up with the top edge of the pcb of my g skill ripjaws x ram. Don't know how much help that would be though.
Click to expand...

Yep, it's a nightmare to install the cooler. There's four reasons I would actually argue that a person should care before getting the Dark Rock TF

1) Proprietary 135mm fans. They don't sell these separately.
2) Nightmare install
3) We're not quite 100% certain on fitment issues yet
4) Performance may not be on par with it's rated 220w. As with any top down cooler, any situation in which this cooler is allowed to recirculate it's own heated air will drastically affect temps.

At any rate, sounds like there's a very good chance true VLP ram will completely clear the smaller heatpipes based on your description. I'm eager to try this myself. While that's good for anyone using DDR3, the only VLP DDR4 is ECC ram at the moment, at least from what I've been able to find.
 
Ha, thanks. I had actually emailed them a few times about it but never received a response. I should have just started a live chat with them, they were fast and very helpful with some ECC questions I had about a week ago. :)
 
brahbruh said:
Really tempted to sell my reference 980ti to get that... the noise is driving me insane.
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Wait for reports on the idle noise levels. The review samples had a loud high pitch whine even in idle (combination of pump and coil), but the final cooler is supposed to be better. Considering all the complaints about the SX600-G, I'd give it a few days.
 
XelNika said:
Wait for reports on the idle noise levels. The review samples had a loud high pitch whine even in idle (combination of pump and coil), but the final cooler is supposed to be better. Considering all the complaints about the SX600-G, I'd give it a few days.
Click to expand...

My Ncase have not arrived yet. I will see how to noise is when it's in the case. might change to a less aggressive fan curve.
 
While I'm waiting for my V4 to come, I'm researching CPU coolers and I'd like some advice. Which one would work better in my case, Thermalright AXP-200 or Noctua NH-U9S?

I don't have a video card for now, but I think I'll be adding my AMD 7870 to this computer within 6-8 months, when I upgrade my gaming computer to something better. My motherboard has the CPU socket close to the PCI-E slot. Very similar to the Asrock Z77E-ITX. I have the Zotac H67-ITX.

The Thermalright doesn't block the PCI-E. All the top down noctuas would block. Same for Kabuto 2. The only other option is the silverstone NT06, but I think the Thermalright would perform better and quieter. The noctua NH-L12 could work, with some pipe bending, which scares me a bit.

The Noctua NH-U9S would exhaust hot air at the top. And with no video card, I could duct a 120mm from the bottom, all the way to the top of the case. I think that would work great, until I add a video card, Then I'd try to exhaust out the back.

I have an i7-2600k, no overclock. And noise is my main priority. I want something quiet. Potential overclocking for future proof would be a bonus.

Any advice?;)
 
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