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SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project
- Thread starter SaperPL
- Start date
I agree with SaperPL, In my personal experience with both Sentry 1.1 and 2.0, I strongly suggest staying around 180W or less. Any more power/heat and no matter what gpu you have, green team or red team, it's going to completely saturate itself and the system with heat. Hot gpu's throttle (not necessarily because they hit their junction temperature but they don't boost as high as possible). So why get the 5700xt if it can't boost high enough to significantly beat the 5700 anyway? A 5700 will run cooler, quieter, and boost clocks better. You could put the extra money towards a larger ssd or something.
Ultra sff almost always requires some compromise. Ultimately its up to you though. There is definitely something bad ass about having a monster gpu in a tiny case.
Ej24 thank you so much for the watt recommendation. I didn't think about that and it totally makes sense. I'm just at 1440 with one 32 in monitor and it seems like the 5700 trades blows with the 2060S on most games, so if I wanted to go green or red, there seem to be options abounding. I've built lots of computers before, but this is my first foray into the SFFPC world and it has definitely been a learning experience. I can't thank you enough for the recommendation of wattage. I will try to stay around 180 ish watts.
Question.
So ordered the parts for a new system for the sentry 2 to replace my node 202.
Ryzen 3600 on a ASRock fatality X470 and a powercolor RX 5700 XT, the unnamed one.
While there are no reviews on the Gpu yet, I'm assuming thermals are going to be a bit higher than most other cards due to its smaller size.
I'm planning on undervolting and underclocking and aiming for 180W consumption. It's very likely the card will still thermal throttle before reaching its limit as the ambient temperature will be over 30 degrees Celsius much of the time.
However, since it's a pretty short board, (230 mm) I'll have about 70 mm to spare in the Gpu compartment, so I'm considering adding case fans.
My plan is to add 2*60 mm fans blowing into the empty space to add overpressure in the entire compartment forcing all the heat to escape from the perforated side and to prevent the Gpu from getting warm air from that space.
I had a somewhat similar situation in the node 202 where I had a lot of space due to the very small itx version of a 970, where I had a single 120 fan sucking air from that space, but that didn't really work, so I just left the top cover off.
(that said, the 970 is a 170W single fan card, so a larger UV UC 180W card should perform better)
Your thoughts?
So ordered the parts for a new system for the sentry 2 to replace my node 202.
Ryzen 3600 on a ASRock fatality X470 and a powercolor RX 5700 XT, the unnamed one.
While there are no reviews on the Gpu yet, I'm assuming thermals are going to be a bit higher than most other cards due to its smaller size.
I'm planning on undervolting and underclocking and aiming for 180W consumption. It's very likely the card will still thermal throttle before reaching its limit as the ambient temperature will be over 30 degrees Celsius much of the time.
However, since it's a pretty short board, (230 mm) I'll have about 70 mm to spare in the Gpu compartment, so I'm considering adding case fans.
My plan is to add 2*60 mm fans blowing into the empty space to add overpressure in the entire compartment forcing all the heat to escape from the perforated side and to prevent the Gpu from getting warm air from that space.
I had a somewhat similar situation in the node 202 where I had a lot of space due to the very small itx version of a 970, where I had a single 120 fan sucking air from that space, but that didn't really work, so I just left the top cover off.
(that said, the 970 is a 170W single fan card, so a larger UV UC 180W card should perform better)
Your thoughts?
GTX 970 was a 145W~150W TDP card iirc.
If you want to add case fans like this, make sure to get noctua fans in this size, otherwise they will be chirping a lot.
Also you will have to somehow distance those fans from the perforation quite a bit to prevent noise from turbulence.
But it may help your thermals as fans will push air against the top of the GPU compartment which should help clear hot air from above the card, that is in horizontal orientation. I wonder though how much it'll do vertically.
If you want to add case fans like this, make sure to get noctua fans in this size, otherwise they will be chirping a lot.
Also you will have to somehow distance those fans from the perforation quite a bit to prevent noise from turbulence.
But it may help your thermals as fans will push air against the top of the GPU compartment which should help clear hot air from above the card, that is in horizontal orientation. I wonder though how much it'll do vertically.
True. But almost every AIB OC card consumed 170w.
I do intend to get Noctua fans, there's just no other choice.
Using standoffs is a good idea, hadn't thought about that. Saves me from ordering a hole cutter.
Now the idea is to create overpressure and have the case and Gpu fans force air through the perforations on the side, which would work regardless of the orientation as longs as theres some clearance. My biggest concern is the Gpu recycling hot air from that open space.
Alternatively, I could close that space off, but I'll see how things work out when I have the system built.
I do intend to get Noctua fans, there's just no other choice.
Using standoffs is a good idea, hadn't thought about that. Saves me from ordering a hole cutter.
Now the idea is to create overpressure and have the case and Gpu fans force air through the perforations on the side, which would work regardless of the orientation as longs as theres some clearance. My biggest concern is the Gpu recycling hot air from that open space.
Alternatively, I could close that space off, but I'll see how things work out when I have the system built.
Use weatherstripping to seal the card to the face of the case. Then the gpu fans effectively act as high pressure case fans, and they won't suck in any recycled hot air, only cooler outside air.
clownfish27
Weaksauce
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nice
Most likely not. The heatsink looks like it'll be 4~5 mm thick, and the pcb itself of the m.2 will be around 4 mm offset from the pcb of the board, and there's also surface mounted components on it.
You have 7 mm of space between the motherboard and the plate that's holding the stand-offs.
I remember that there was someone who used really thick thermal pads to dissipate SSD's heat to the back of the case, and I think this would be the best way to handle it if you have a board with the slot underneath.
SFF_Awesome
n00b
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- Dec 25, 2019
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Hi everyone, new to the forums and excited for my Sentry 2.0 to arrive soon! Great to see all the pictures of the builds so far!
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Anyone tested Cryorig C7 with Noctua's fan on low RPM? How's noise? Don't know what cooler to buy - there's a lot of information about C7 causing too much noise because of turbulence, and it seems that L9a isn't as good as C7 when it comes to heat dissipation
SFF_Awesome
n00b
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Hi there! Not sure if you've sorted your cooler out yet? I had a v.1.1 and used a noctua L9a with a home-made fan duct with my Ryzen 2600X (95 watts) which worked well. Running blender it would reach probably 95 degrees and throttle some, but given it's a 65 watt cooler I'm not surprised. Under normal gaming loads it was acceptable and maybe early 70s at 3.95-4.1ghz. The duct lowered temps by 5-10 degrees (if I remember correctly) so well worth adding it.
I am putting together a Ryzen 3700X this weekend with the L9a and now a 3d printed fan duct others have used on the Dan A4 so I will let you know how I get on.
The L9a is pretty quiet even at full rpms and certainly couldn't hear it over my graphics card... I suppose it will always be a balance between noise and cooling capacity.
Did you try the c7 and Noctua fan?
Well, I just built my Sentry 2.0 with C7 and Noctua fan - I haven't done enough testing to draw any conclusions yet, but it seems to be reasonably quite and I don't have any air turbulence issues.
Thanks for reply, though!
I'd like to note that when you are talking about the noise, define the conditions and what is your comfort level. I had a talk on reddit with someone stating that he's C7Cu or G with noctua fan is fine, but at the end of conversation he confirmed that he's fine because he has his headphones on while gaming.
There is no much turbulence with low RPMs and thus when not doing any actual work on your pc, but just browsing, you might end up not noticing it. If you are working on your pc, rendering something, crunching numbers on cpu etc, the high cpu load will cause high RPMs and it will get annoying. Also the even if you are not hearing the noise because you have high-end headphones on your head and the system is on the right side so the CPU side is facing away from you, it may matter if you have a roommate or spouse. Especially if you are playing games late at night.
So once again - define conditions you'd expect to achieve when asking about the noise and when answering with your results.
I have tested various fans, including multiple sizes and thickness from noctua, against our perforation, with slight distances etc, and always when pulling air through the perforation it caused turbulence on high RPMs. NH-L9i+25mm noctua fan? The same thing. NFA12x15 ? Same thing. Those small 40x20mm noctua fans? Same thing. The only thing you can do is to either distance the fan from the perforation, which NH-L9i is doing by being low, or turn the fan around so it pushes air through perforation, but it will reduce performance as well. The optimal cooler on this so far seems to be black ridge (you have the fin stack on top), but once again this is a cooler that doesn't fully comply to ATX form factor specification and therefore you need to be extra careful with motherboard selection for it.
There is no much turbulence with low RPMs and thus when not doing any actual work on your pc, but just browsing, you might end up not noticing it. If you are working on your pc, rendering something, crunching numbers on cpu etc, the high cpu load will cause high RPMs and it will get annoying. Also the even if you are not hearing the noise because you have high-end headphones on your head and the system is on the right side so the CPU side is facing away from you, it may matter if you have a roommate or spouse. Especially if you are playing games late at night.
So once again - define conditions you'd expect to achieve when asking about the noise and when answering with your results.
I have tested various fans, including multiple sizes and thickness from noctua, against our perforation, with slight distances etc, and always when pulling air through the perforation it caused turbulence on high RPMs. NH-L9i+25mm noctua fan? The same thing. NFA12x15 ? Same thing. Those small 40x20mm noctua fans? Same thing. The only thing you can do is to either distance the fan from the perforation, which NH-L9i is doing by being low, or turn the fan around so it pushes air through perforation, but it will reduce performance as well. The optimal cooler on this so far seems to be black ridge (you have the fin stack on top), but once again this is a cooler that doesn't fully comply to ATX form factor specification and therefore you need to be extra careful with motherboard selection for it.
I am super sensitive to noise. And I am a night owl, so I can work at night, in complete silence quite often. I never wear headphones.
I'd prefer my CPU to ran hot and quite than the opposite, so I edited my fan settings to ramp up RPM slowly. It gave me bearable noise levels. OFC sometimes when spikes happen I can hear CPU cooler ramping up and becoming quite audible, but it's something I can cope with, taking into account that I don't ran my CPU @ 100% load a lot of the time
I'd prefer my CPU to ran hot and quite than the opposite, so I edited my fan settings to ramp up RPM slowly. It gave me bearable noise levels. OFC sometimes when spikes happen I can hear CPU cooler ramping up and becoming quite audible, but it's something I can cope with, taking into account that I don't ran my CPU @ 100% load a lot of the time
SFF_Awesome
n00b
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- Dec 25, 2019
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Hi everyone, just put together my sentry! Excited to have it running.
I had a lot of difficultly getting the pci express riser bracket installed. I followed the instructions but it seemed tight to fit the bracket into its slot and then rotate/angle it to meet the riser and line up the screw holes on the case frame. I finally got it lined up after about five attempts but the screws got tight pretty quickly and they're not all the way in.
It seems to be working okay, but I would like to get it fitted with the screws in properly. Has anyone got any tips / pictures of theirs?
Interestingly my card wouldn't show a display past the bios screen and hung loading windows. Changing the PCI express slot to Gen3 in the bios solved that problem though and it's booted to Windows okay (I'm using a 5700XT).
Many thanks!
I had a lot of difficultly getting the pci express riser bracket installed. I followed the instructions but it seemed tight to fit the bracket into its slot and then rotate/angle it to meet the riser and line up the screw holes on the case frame. I finally got it lined up after about five attempts but the screws got tight pretty quickly and they're not all the way in.
It seems to be working okay, but I would like to get it fitted with the screws in properly. Has anyone got any tips / pictures of theirs?
Interestingly my card wouldn't show a display past the bios screen and hung loading windows. Changing the PCI express slot to Gen3 in the bios solved that problem though and it's booted to Windows okay (I'm using a 5700XT).
Many thanks!
phinix
Gawd
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Is it still worth getting version 1.1?
Or is 2.0 way better and no point buying 1.1?
Or is 2.0 way better and no point buying 1.1?
octagoncow
Limp Gawd
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I think that's a matter of opinion. Sentry 2.0 is better than Sentry 1.1 in every way except that 2.0 doesn't support SFX-L since it has better water cooling support. I wouldn't say that 1.1 is a bad case though. I still have my 1.1 case and plan on using it for a backup PC. I still think it's a solid case, but it's more like 1.1 is good and 2.0 is better.
phinix
Gawd
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What is the main difference between those two?
I'm not planning to watercool it, just use 2080 card and Noctua low profile cooler.
octagoncow
Limp Gawd
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Long story short, the biggest differences (in my opinion) are larger ventilation areas and less screws required for assembly. Page 1 of the 2.0 thread has the list of 26 changes to the case ranging from minor to major differences.
If you have a 2080 you would benefit from the larger ventilation area to help keep it cool I would imagine. I only have a 1070 so I can't say how much of a difference something as power hungry as a 2080 would see going from 1.1 to 2.0.
Anyone come across this coolermaster G200p low profile heatsink yet? This is the first I've heard of it. It's available on Amazon in the US. A bit more expensive than the venerable nh-l9i but if it's better it maybe worth it. Though it'd definitely look better with a noctua fan. Mmm that delightful ugly brown is a badge of quality.
phinix
Gawd
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Sounds good, thanks.
There is one for sale, 1.1 black, I thought I could get it, but ideally I would prefer beige/grey 2.0...
I guess I need to keep any eye on MM and see if someone will sell one...
Zaber wrote they don't have any and won't for now...
Why Nocuta cooler is venerable? Is it not enough for 65w cpus in that case?
I use Cryorig C7 Cu in my case with Noctua fan, it's definitely better than both this one and Noctual L9
perhaps respectable is a better adjective. Nh-l9i is perfect for 65w. I use LP53 with noctua nf-a9x14 for 88W i7. Just curious if this coolermaster is any better that nh-l9i.
Yeah. Just curious any time I see a new super low profile cooler. Probably about equal to the nh-l9i.
phinix
Gawd
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Hi guys. I just bought v1.1, gonna use i5 7500 with Noctua NH-l9i and RTX 2070 Super Founders edition.
What are your temps while gaming? I'm curious to see what temps you get using similar components.
Gaming, not stress tests.
What are your temps while gaming? I'm curious to see what temps you get using similar components.
Gaming, not stress tests.
NuclearLemons
Weaksauce
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7700k, ended up getting a 120mm liquid cooler to address CPU cooling problems in gameplay, was hitting 95+ unless undervolted, gpu temps are fine
phinix
Gawd
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OK, so i got my v1.1
Just built it, i5 7500 stock + Noctua NH-L9i, RTX 2070 Super FE.
So far idle/web browsing shows CPU 40C, GPU 26C.
Gaming, Witcher 3 for 1 hour: CPU 64C, GPU 83C. I think this is ok for this kind of case.
Just built it, i5 7500 stock + Noctua NH-L9i, RTX 2070 Super FE.
So far idle/web browsing shows CPU 40C, GPU 26C.
Gaming, Witcher 3 for 1 hour: CPU 64C, GPU 83C. I think this is ok for this kind of case.
Try undervolting your GPU! It did magic with my Radeon VII
phinix
Gawd
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Yeah, but I'm gonna loose gpu power undervolting it right?
NuclearLemons
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it depends on the card, In some cases (like my vega 56) undervolting can boost performance.
83 isn't terrible for a heavy load in this case and the founder's edition coolers weren't the best, I wouldn't worry about it.
Based on my experience that sounds about right. As long as you're happy with the performance, noise levels and everything then just enjoy. If you're unhappy about noise or temps or whatever you can always keep tinkering. In my experience with Nvidia gtx-10 series gpu's they just run as fast as possible until they hit 83C. You can try lowering power target but I think you'll still eventually hit the 83C limit.
phinix
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I think I'm ok with the result. Noise wise, it is very similar to what I had in ITX case, so its fine.
It will always be a bit louder as I almost literally have GPU outside
It will always be a bit louder as I almost literally have GPU outside
No, you would not. More likely you'll get more power. If you GPU throttles it will drop it's frequency. If you undervolt it, it will keep it's boost more
phinix
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Hmmm.. I would like to try it in this case
How's the easiest way to do it?
Mine is 2070 Super FE
I'm planning on rebuilding my 1.1 sentry soon. The screws are a bit of a pain, but it's a sturdy little thing. It's not 2.0 but I still love the thing.
Do ya'll think this card can fit sentry 1.1?
Form Factor & Dimensions
Form Factor ITX
Max GPU Length 170 mm
Card Dimensions (L x H) 6.69" x 4.78"
Slot Width Dual Slot
https://www.newegg.com/gigabyte-gef...oc-6gd/p/N82E16814932234?item=N82E16814932234
Thanks. I didn't find the card you speak of on Newegg, but I did find a gigabyte 2060 mini that seems to use the same design that I might get instead for $299 as it's only a $70 difference for ~500 Cuda cores.
I've also been looking at this portable monitor
https://www.newegg.com/acer-15-6-full-hd/p/N82E16824011305?&quicklink=true
From the description below it appears to use a single usb for video only. Now I'm pretty familiar with DP alt and know that a gpu can't support it as it doesn't provide the power over usb that the monitor would need. I wonder if this monitor would work with a gpu if you simply snag a cable such as this
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J6DT070/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_apa_i_bpBOEbP4SHYW8
And hope it works.
Ports: USB Type-C for video & Micro USB port for power charging (USB Type-C cable & Micro USB cable included)
pendragon1
Extremely [H]
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will that usb-c actually use the gpu though? ive never used one.
for $20 more you can get an msi with hdmi too and it will for sure use the gpu.
https://www.newegg.com/msi-optix-mag161v-15-6-full-hd/p/N82E16824475042