S4 Mini - An ULTRA-SFF Chassis shipping this December!

First of all, please use miniature photos or photos with resolutions that fit 1000px width or something like that. It's not a neat thing to look through pile of photos with some notes in between them especially when you don't fit the whole photos on the screen.

I like the machining and the green colour accent is really cool.

Other than that I see a few problems here:
- hard drives directly over the gpu means you're going to limit the gpu wattage really low and going for ITX GTX 970 mini isn't an option
- will oversized PCB ITX GTX 970 even fit with that HD-plex connector?
- you're showing the bottom pcb of gpu and drives to the outside in horizontal position - it might not be safe if something falls through the holes.
- there's no feet on the bottom so the ventilation is blocked in horizontal position.

Also you can't advertise selling here - it's against the rules, I think. Moderator did a sweep and sent message on that some time ago.

 

Well holy crap this looks amazingly sexy. How many liters is it? And what's the max wattage you can get out of those tiny power supplies?

Edit: whoops nevermind, didn't see your link at first.

 

I have to say that i like this case. It looks really compact and i think it could be carried in some laptop bags.

I have some additional questions to those which Saper asked:
- What size are venting holes? I think there is a possibility, that a coin can fall into the case and for example can make a "short circuit" on Your graphics card (we had similar problem with our pc case),
- In some photos You are showing this case standing in a vertical position. Will there be any stand for it? I think it may fall on its side. You've made a very thick "wall" which is probably heavy, but i think it won't make this stable as it should in vertical position.
- Only 2 mounting points for a 120mm fan? I think it's not a good idea, because You can even damage it while You will be mounting other elements, or even during a dust cleaning.
- In a vertical position You've placed GPU under the motherboard and CPU. You know that today GPU is the most power-hungry unit in the PC? It means that, hot air from graphic card because of convection will go up and You'll be using it again for cooling Your CPU. If You'll stay with such big venting holes it won't be a problem, but i think if someone decide to add dust filters, than GPU and CPU temperatures will increase a lot.
- How thick are S4 walls? I'm asking, because You've decided to use threads instead of standoffs. Aren't You afraid of damaging them (threads)? There are some mechanical "guidelines" saying that material thickness for thread should be at least (0.6-0.8) x screw's diameter. Of course this guidelines are made for a much bigger forces, but sometimes You could damage thread only by using a screwdriver. 1mm material isn't a good idea for a thread for M3 screw. Unless You are using a thermdrill.
- $150 (pc case) + $35 (riser) + $46.50 (f.ex. picoPSU-160-XT pcb without PSU) = $231.5. This is a real price for S4 mini in a usable condition, similar to other cases. It's a lot. Is there a way to make some manufacturing improvements to make it cheaper, because at this point i think this is a real niche.
- Is a power botton (with cables for it) included in the case's price?
- Please remove information about selling. Just like Saper noticed, forum admin won't like You anymore

You did a great work, but Your case still needs some improvements.

 

A single 40mm fan in a system is sufficient to overwhelm any air movement due to convection, as the temperature differentials involved (40-60K at most) are miniscule. Only in a completely passive system is it worth considering convective flow.

 

40mm? Nope Even 50mm may have problems with hot air in a case with filters. We were trying to put some of 50mm and 60mm in sentry with additional filters, and i'm sure what i'm talking about. Maybe if You wouldn't buy additional filters, than there won't be such problem, but i'm sure there will be an increase of the temperature when You'll add dust filters. It will all depend on how powerfull components will be inside and how good dustfilter (in terms of filtering) You will use. If you have a big pc case, than You don't have to think about such things like convection. But in cases like S4 try adding dust filters and do not use additional fans (which are not included in this case price). I'm pretty sure what will happen, because we've tested it. As i mentioned before, everything depends what will You put inside the case. If You're going for overkill + good dustfilters without additional fans...good luck.

EDIT:
I didn't mention one thing. In S4 there aren't so many closed spaces, so maybe the problem won't be so obvious. Just a thing to discuss. Maybe designer will show us some temperature tests with external dust filters.

 

I didn't say a 40mm fan would be sufficient for system cooling, just that the amount of airflow due to convection is so minimal that relative component orientation is not important when it comes to cooling. You still have all the problems with air intake and flow paths, but simply reorienting a system (barring issues like intakes close to a flat surface) will not cause issues due to convection of hot air if there are any active fans in the system.

 

In this configuration convection is still a problem unless you somehow enforce the flow over the gpu and it won't happen here since the top cover is perforated completely and cpu cooler won't pull air from over the gpu.

It might happen with that additional fan over the motherboard if it can push enough air for positive pressure but with so much perforation it doesn't look like it's going to work this way.

Filters all over the place might make it more possible for positive pressure though but then the whole case cooling performance will drop significantly.

 

That only applies if the GPU is passive. A GPU with a fan will move all its own air with no measurable contribution from convection.

 

So You think that putting a hotter element under the colder part in a small closed box (case with filters) is a situation when lower element's temperature won't affect higher element's temperature just because we have some kind of mixing fan in a system? If You don't have a efficient ventilating system, then even mixed air from the hotter area will go up to the other section. If you don't have a place from where You can get some colder air, then after a while a fan is starting to mixing a hot air with "older" hot air, and then what? It has to go up, because of convection. Just because You have a fan in a system, it doesn't mean that convection stopped working. It still exists, but the scale how it affects the upper parts of the box depends on the ventilation area, and the air velocity which is affected by filters (if they exist). Smaller case means You have to think more about such things like convection.

I'm not going to convince You more. We just tested it with one of our prototypes and i know our test results after many hours of testing in different conditions. S4 case is even smaller and i know, that adding air filters will make a difference in temperatures, and even convection will matter.

 

Yes. A single fan in a closed box is sufficient to homogenise the air temperature within. This is a separate problem from exchanging that internal air with fresh cool external air.

The convection force is minuscule. The volume of air involved is very low (tens of litres at most), the heatsinks are comparatively large compared to the fluid volume, and temperature differences are very low (tens of degrees at most).

With your continued mention of filters, you appear to be confusing internal convection (mixing of air inside the chassis) with ventilation (mixing of internal and external air). The only time convection is a concern for ventilation is for a completely passively cooled machine.

 

NOPE - this will happen regardless of gpu cooling type because the back of the card is not actively cooled.

In general the problem is that graphic cards are designed to be cooled by the airflow inside the case going from the front to the back etc. In normal situation the card has it's back facing the cpu cooler which is moving the air.

That's not the case when you've got the gpu on a riser laying horizontally. That's exactly why RVZ01 and Node 202 have fan mounts under the gpu - if you push the air with bigger fans that will go not only directly into the gpu but also around it, then the problem's solved. You only need a tiny part of the air stream to go directly up to move the hot air under the cover.

RVZ02 does this differently by putting a shield just above the gpu that will accumulate the heat so the cover is not dangerously hot but still the hard drives are distanced and mounted on plastic brackets from this hot surface.

What NFC did wrong is that air above the gpu, in close vicinity of hard drives will be most likely static and heating up - convection and perforation will let it slowly dissipate but still there's no active cooling that will protect drives from overheating because of thermal radiation.

 

Back of the graphic card isn't ventilated. It means, if You don't push the hot air out of the case, then what? There is no problem, because You have a fan on Your graphic card? Nope.
In such case, if a back of the GPU won't have enought of a colder air, the GPU will start throttling, because it's internal temperature will rise. And it doesn't matter if you have a "mixing" fan in the system.

Adding dust filters = slow down air flow = increasing an amount of hot air inside the case (which is mostly gathering at the top of it). In smaller pc cases it is more noticeable.

 

I really like this case and would love to order it, however it's pretty expensive overall. The $185 for the case seems fair but theres a $90 shipping fee to Germany (+ potential customs cost). Furthermore, the small DC-DC power supply is pricey because it's such a niche product. Nevertheless i really appreciate your work and hope it will be a success

 

Im with edz on this.. No such thing as convection with such a small case.. CPU and GPU fans alone will negotiate it.

Sick looking case, but I dislike a power brick myself. Going with a jonsbo v3 for my next build.

 

Purchased.

 

I think this case is a good alternative to the Intel NUC. I might get it to be my Plex Server. Good work OP.

 

FFS had a page long comment typed out and went back a page -.-

TL;DR:
- There'll be no stand for the case, I don't think it will tip over
- Case is set in stone and already produced, nothing will be changed
- Everything was tested on this, including thermals and EMI, vents were designed accordingly. Don't know whether GTX970 or R9 Nano was tested
- Case was designed with SSDs in mind, more resistant to heat, vents help, too.
- Put case on desk in a way that GPU is at the top. Convection "problem" soved.
- Case is 4.47L large. Thought it was smaller.
- Fuck coins, they ruin designs.
- No problem with two mounting points for fan. Bracket has flanges on the side for stiffening.
- Curious about tapped holes, too. Wrap-around bezel is 5mm thick, I believe.
- Josh, resize those damn pics!

 

Add a lowercase 'L' to the end of each url before the .jpg or whatever extension, it'll resize them to more appropriate sizes I believe

 

Great video. Now we all know what we are talking about and what You wanted to achieve. Sorry for those many questions from me and my brother, but we wanted to help and we thought there is still some time for changes. Now we know this is a final product and i'm glad we made it clear. Every PC case which is promoting customizable SFF (other than Valve's new ready-to-go steamboxes) will get our full support here. Good luck with Your selling campaign

 

I like the look of the case. As I get older I seem to be more interested in SFF cases. Something that can easily move around, like a laptop (as mentioned above).

I do see a small issue though.. maybe I'm just being difficult.. but the video card opening in the back seems to be very tight in relation to the card. Kinda blocking part of the DP port and right against the DVI port.

Maybe its the angle.. maybe its where the card manufacturer placed the spacing. I don't know.

 

Congrats on the case, great video to answer all the questions.
I love seeing all these new ITX case's being done buy the little guy showing the big company's how it's done and what a enthusiast is really after.

 

Great looking case and I loved the way you answered the PL brothers.

Currently using a lianli pc-q07 in my office with picopsu, might need to retire it.

 

I have one more question:
Can You run OCCT (or some other benchmark) for Your GPU and check what are internal temperatures of Your hard drives?

I noticed that You are always mentioning external temperatures (flir camera shots You showed us), but can You give us some information what it looks like from the device sensor side? Maybe some kind of chart for GPU and CPU in idle and under load, and for ssd/hdd max values would be enough.
Necere (one of Ncase M1 designers) left his new project just because he placed his ssd's in the similar way like You did. His drives started do be noticeably hot, which maybe wouldn't kill the drives immediately, but it could shorten their "lifetime" (>50 deg C). You have good ventilating system, but Your drives are really close to the back of the GPU PCB which in some cards can get easily over 100 deg C and max temperatures for ssd usually are like 60 deg C.

 

Nice Q&A video, however I can't agree with everything and you didn't get some of the things we mentioned here.

R7 360X for 1080 topped settings gaming? Only small, indie titles, I think.

I couldn't find a good 360X review with good test so i checked the R7 370 reviews:



So that looks like 15~20 fps at max settings on 360X. I wouldn't say that's playable.

Also I think that the heat from the back might be similar between GTX 750, R7 360X and 970 since most of the heat is dissipated by the cooler BUT that doesn't mean there is no heat coming from the back.

I'd like to see the temperatures of components on prolonged loads instead of thermal imaging. 40 degrees of surface and area doesn't mean anything if gpu and hard drives are boiling inside.

About the oversized GTX 970 PCB - it should be something around 16mm from the bracket instead of reference 4.5mm~5mm.



I won't check the sketchup model since I can't import it to CAD. If you could export to some interchangeable CAD format like step/iges then I could check it out for fitting.

My concern here is that this oversize area will collide with the DC connector while sliding the bracket into the slot and I don't know if you can install this DC connector after mounting the gpu.

About the price of PSU, I think you didn't get what Zombi meant - you need the hdplex or other DC converter which already costs like 90$ AND you still need to buy power supply brick. Anyway that's what you pay for dropping the standard power supply.

I think that this is really a niche in a niche product - nice rig for general computing and playing indie games, but if you want to put 970 or R9 Nano inside you'll be limited to mSata/M.2 drives.

 

To be fair, I was testing with a 250W TDP card (GTX 780), which is significantly greater than what you could install in this case. We also had filtered intakes and less ventilation in the drive area, both of which have a significant impact on airflow and heat dissipation.

 

True, i should mention that. Thanks.
But this is a reason why I'm asking for such benchmark. In Your project (Necere) there was a similar hdd mounting position, so I think people would like to know what influence in S4 has GPU on hdd/ssd chip, not only on its cover.

 

Sketchup is using polygonal models and as far as I know, there's no way to export them to STEP or IGES. And I'm sure Josh doesn't want to share the real model he made in Inventor

 

Yeah, I get it. It's just that with sketchup I don't think one can properly check that out.

As for the cad model - its quite simple construction and if he's sharing sketchup model than it's enough to rip-off his know-how anyway. Even it's easy from the photos to be honest.

 

I would like to offer up an analogy. A case like this could be viewed as a car. You don't buy a Porsche to go off roading and therefore you don't have to take those extremes into design considerations.

What people put under the hood of these cases has to conform to the constraints of their environment, power utilization, and component size. That is why, just like Dan's A4 case, you come up with a list of recommended components for realistic use. If enthusiasts want to push it to the extreme that is up to them. I also think this relates directly to the success of the Ncase. Everyone here is buying Ncase M1's because it doesn't conform to the requirements of an "average" consumer. It maximizes the little space it has without catering to extremes. If you buy Ncase M1 and buy a 14" card you can't blame Necere for designing a bad case.

In my opinion this case is near perfect for what it offers: Size to Power ratio. You can argue the affordability and the additional volume of the adapter, but it is ahead of the general trend of current cases, especially with HBM cards starting to mainstream. We have Nvidia releasing HBM Pascal cards in 2016. We also have AMD expanding into its 2nd generation of HBM cards AND the release of their ZEN cpu which will make APU's really tempting. With the ability to water cool a powerful APU in this case it will make for an amazing HTPC.

 

Yeah, I'm really excited to see what Pascal means for ITX-sized graphics cards. If we can get something with the performance of like the 980 TI inside a case like this without using a ton of power... that would be incredible. Might just be wishful thinking though.

 

How long will this be in production/purchasable for? I don't have any plans in the foreseeable future for a new machine, but this looks great

 

There's one thing I'm curious about - How do you detach that thick rounded external piece when you want to install longer gpu.

It looks to me that the screw(visible on the closeup with fan) is pressed in to this piece and therefore it prevents you from sliding it down and you can't just take it out straight to the front because that piece is also bent at the back near the DC connector.

Is there a slotted hole for this screw letting you slide it down a bit or do you need to spring that piece a bit to let it come out?

 

Not sure if you got what I was talking about. This photo:



I'm talking about the thread with a nut on it visible in the right corner here. If the internal piece have simple round hole then to take it off you'd need to bend/spring the bend corner at the back next to DC connector location.

That doesn't look like a threaded post to me

 

Zombi and Saper you may try to come off like you're helping but you come off more like a couple of real assholes spamming someone else's case thread while selling your own book as the saying goes. Based on your behaviour in this and other case threads I don't think I'd ever buy one of you cases.

The NFC S4 is in production, he's selling them, get over it!