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SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project
- Thread starter SaperPL
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Corruptedfile
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I plan on using Asus rog Maximums VII z170 which has a built in u.2 connector. I also thought about just placing the SSD in front of the PSU since mine is the smaller version SFX, it looks like there's enough space for it between the GPU and PSU from what I can see in the pictures.
D
Deleted member 276776
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About the Cryorig C7 mounting issue regarding cases with 6.35mm (specification minimum) height standoffs or total clearance, it looks like Cryorig have heard us. 
CRYORIG Provides Free Alternate Mounting Parts for C7 and M9i and M9a
Not an issue for the Sentry but nice to know.
CRYORIG Provides Free Alternate Mounting Parts for C7 and M9i and M9a
Not an issue for the Sentry but nice to know.
That's not what they are talking in the article you've linked - it's a different problem with C7 about the backplate interfering with motherboard components. I didn't have such a problem with my board but different boards might. It still doesn't solve the problem of screw length going way above 6.35 when screwed enough to apply proper tension.
Corruptedfile - there is a slot for second hard drive if you're using standard SFX power supply but it has same height as the first one. Also you won't fit it vertically since the case has 64mm of space there, however if you don't have too much cables you might fit it angled somehow down there but it's not an elegant solution. If you have blower or short gpu you could try mounting it like i did with my hard drive below the gpu upfront - unless your gpu blower fan is really thick out there you might fit the drive with rad while not blocking the blower inlet too much.
Corruptedfile - there is a slot for second hard drive if you're using standard SFX power supply but it has same height as the first one. Also you won't fit it vertically since the case has 64mm of space there, however if you don't have too much cables you might fit it angled somehow down there but it's not an elegant solution. If you have blower or short gpu you could try mounting it like i did with my hard drive below the gpu upfront - unless your gpu blower fan is really thick out there you might fit the drive with rad while not blocking the blower inlet too much.
Corruptedfile
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I have a reference blower 780ti. So would I be able to fit it right under it with 15mm of space?
Reference coolers are quite thick out there sadly, if it's as thick as my cad model of 980 then there's only 10mm of space under it. I've got my non-reference 970 blower which is a bit thinner. Looks like you'll have to figure it out whether you can fit it loosely between the power supply and the gpu.
Corruptedfile
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Im sure I'll find a way if not I could always just remove the heatsink and put some smaller ones on it to make sure it doesn't fry after installing GTA V in under a minute lol.
D
Deleted member 276776
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Ahhh my bad.
MostComfortable
Limp Gawd
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Yup, they are a waste of space. Getting the case as close to 7L as possible while accommodating a full size GPU should be the #1 priority.
There are thousands of cases with ODD out there. Don't let one compromise the design of this case.
+1
Several months ago we tried to add ODD, because one of you really wanted to check if it is possible with our case. And it is, but the SENTRY would grow over 8 or 9L of internal volume. Now we are exactly at 6.96L compared to 7.22L in XBOX ONE, which has internal ODD. But to be objective, ODD isn't the only thing You won't get with sentry. You also don't need one of these:
If we will see You all really want to get ODD inside the Sentry, we will try to make it happen, but You have to be aware about 5 things:
- Sentry will be bigger,
- Sentry will be heavier,
- it will be problematic to find proper 17''-18'' laptop bag for it (You will have to buy some of those $200 bags someone showed several posts ago). Right now (also thanks to lack of ODD), Sentry is a case which is still travel-friendly and as we showed in our gallery, You can find simple 17'' laptop bags or backpacks even below $10 (our test laptop bag and backpack costs exactly $10).
- probably Sentry will be a little bit more expensive than it is in our actual calculations,
- in such situation, the delay, which we have at this moment, will be bigger.
Those were the main reasons why we didn't add ODD. We still didn't start the mass production. If You want some other compromises, tell us about them.
*P.S.
Tomorrow i'm getting our last prototype of Sentry (in grainy structural white painting). If everything will be "ok" with it, then on monday we'll order another pc-case, to check if we achieved good repeatability. If so, then maybe after next weekend (everything depends on our manufacturer), we'll send Sentry to Linus for final tests and review. We're also working on our web page with some kind of newsletter feature. We'll let you know when it's finished.
I for one couldn't care about having an optical drive in this thing...
I'm just hoping that the high-end Pascal cards (which hopefully are going to coincide with the release of this case) are actually going to be as small as Nvidia is showing - I would really love to have a "GTX 1080" and have room for a couple extra 2.5" hard drives.
I'm just hoping that the high-end Pascal cards (which hopefully are going to coincide with the release of this case) are actually going to be as small as Nvidia is showing - I would really love to have a "GTX 1080" and have room for a couple extra 2.5" hard drives.
Your case is looking fantastic! Been following development since October and finally signed up to say so. I can't wait to put in a pre-order as this case fits my needs perfectly. Great job so far!
Will you have a price set before sending the unit to Linus? I'm sure that will be a factor in any review (besides my own
).
Will you have a price set before sending the unit to Linus? I'm sure that will be a factor in any review (besides my own
).
D
Deleted member 222586
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I hope you know that the cards that we will get shouldn't be much more powerful than a 980 TI... at least the ones launching this year.
Of course I do. Nvidia is going to follow their typical release scheme - at least unless they believe they have something that could completely dominate the market to make up for Radeon cards getting HBM first.
They'll start by releasing the 1080, possibly coinciding with the 1080ti. Then they'll release the 1070. That card should be about 20% faster than a GTX 980ti. Yes, that's an optimistic prediction, but not entirely unreasonable considering how much of a performance upgrade the Fury got with HBM1.0.
That being said... none of that matters to me. I'm upgrading from a GTX 670 with a 1440p screen; the massive increase in VRAM alone will allow me to turn shadows back to ultra.
Is Pascal going to be a decent buy if you currently have Maxwell? No. Of course not. The only people who upgrade every generation have far more money than brains.
Here's why anybody looking forward to this amazing case should be eagerly awaiting Pascal nonetheless:
1) Heat Production. Pascal, based off of the 100% infallible, always-accurate Nvidia press release, is going to have double the performance per watt of Maxwell. Now, AMD managed that statistic when they moved to HBM, but they also had a pretty low bar to start with. Nonetheless, it's pretty much a given that the 250w cards of today will run even more efficiently. Sure, a lot of that performance-per-watt will be used as free performance to achieve that 20% performance increase... but imagine if a mid-high end card was 100W. That's about 60% of where a GTX 970 is right now - completely achievable. That brings with it even more benefits, such as:
2) Size. This one pretty much argues itself. We've seen Pascal at GTC 2014, and the PCB was perhaps 40% smaller than the standard "short" graphics cards of today. Now, there's been plenty of time in between that conference and now for Nvidia to royally screw the pooch, but unless they arbitrarily increase the size of the PCB, HBM allows for a significantly smaller card than was previously necessary. Combine that with the heat efficiency gained from a die shrink and from HBM, and there's zero reason the cooler needs to be larger than the card... not only that, but it gives manufacturers much more flexibility with their layouts - we could feasibly see a single-slot, mid-high card from a manufacturer. Galaxy and PowerColor have both made single-slot cards with a TDP over 100W; granted, not in the US market, but the technology is there nonetheless. (And several companies have made 970 Minis, with a 160w TDP, double-slot.) For those of us interested in SFF who can afford a double-slot cooler, we get a much larger heatsink, meaning fans can run far slower, resulting is far lower...
3) Noise. Lower heat means the fans don't have to run as quickly, which means far less noise... that's a very good thing when you're a SFF enthusiast and are looking to buy a case like this one, which is about as open as it can get. Noise-blocking is practically zip (Saper, I'd really be interested in a benchmark comparing noise with the panels on and off - or even any sort of subjective observations.), which means the noise our graphics cards produce is going to matter, a lot. You might say that any benefit from reduced heat will be negated by reduced size, requiring smaller, whiny-er fans, but that's not true. Why? Because the width of a PCI slot is standardized. I'm sure some companies will take advantage of Pascal's size and make low-profile cards, but for the rest of us, the size of the fans won't reduce at all. Just look at Asus's 970 mini. It has issues fitting into this case because it's slightly taller than standard. It's absolutely no leap of imagination to go from that to a 1080 mini that's taller than the PCB, but within "standard" height as it is now.
So really, we should all be looking forward to Pascal like nothing else. If you care at all about small form factor computers (And if not, why are you in this thread?), Pascal represents a huge leap in technology. In this particular case, it very well might allow a high-end graphics card and two extra storage drives that would previously have been mutually exclusive. In future cases, it allows the designer to cut another ~2-ish liters for free.
What does Pascal ultimately represent? Progression. As the technology improves, and Nvidia picks up Hybrid Memory Cube for Volta, it wouldn't surprise me to see their cards shrink again. It's a natural trend in technology; we now have supercomputers in our pockets, and the entire SFF community represents a trend towards small, efficient power. Anything that carries us further along our path can be nothing but a benefit.
...oh, and if you're saying that because of that imgsrc "leaked GTX X80 spec sheet," it's so incredibly fake that I don't even know where to begin, and the sites reposting it like crazy *Cough, Cough, Christian Times* should be ashamed of themselves. As for the 3dMark benchmark *Cough, Cough, Christiantoday*, it's terribly easy to trick your computer into thinking you have a graphics card other than what you have (or an unrecognized graphics card) and thus trick benchmarking programs. It happened when the GTX titan came out, and with how ridiculously close to current specs that benchmark is, I'd be willing to bet good money it's some kid with a gtx 970 or 980 who is terribly excited that his or her overclocked card is fooling so many people.
D
Deleted member 222586
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20% over a 980TI? The 1070? Or the 1080 ti? If its the former.... no, I don't think so. In fact, I would be money that it will not be the case. NVIDIA has no interest in putting such a lead on their current lineup. First iteration should give us small chips that will trade blows with the current big ones at half the power. So we will probably only get sub-150W parts. It also makes sense since they have to tinker with the node in order to get the most out of it, as well as recouping their investment.
The fact that you can't turn shadows in ultra isn't caused by lack of vram. Its sheer lack of power.
Hold your horses. It is unlikely that Pascal or Polaris will have HBM in their first iteration. Why? It seems HBM is limited to 4 GB which, for a card with power around 980 TI (or more, if we refer to the x80) would not be acceptable. Can you imagine a 390 / 390X substitute having less vram? I don't. Which is why NVIDIA aimed directly at HBM2 and why we will probably not see HBM again in the gpu industry, as it is very expensive and it has a hard cap.
Overall, I have no idea why you wrote such a wall of text. I'm part of the SFF crowd since I own an NCASE M1 V1, and thus I perfectly understand what those performance/power gains mean. I was only pointing out that expecting the x70 version to handily beat the 980 TI is to expect far too much. But I do understand that we are on the Sentry thread, and I am interested in this one as I am interested in many other SFF projects currently under development, specially now that the NCASE team has their steambox version on hold.
antartarbosh
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Long time lurker here for this particular case. I would love to hear some news about the last prototype which you mentioned to receive the last week. Also, do you have any estimation when we will receiving this case after a successful crowdfunding? I'm planning to build my computer around this case, and I will be blessed if this would happen before the upcoming May.
Hey guys! I think they are in the process of ordering the 2nd prototype (black coated) from the manufacturer to verify the quality for repetitive orders so hang in there! I am also very interested in purchasing a couple of cases but lets not be so hasty as this process may take a week or two. Lets just hope everything goes well.
Cheers!
Corruptedfile
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Well this is what I originally planned on doing to this case, but because of that GPU size I wont be able to fit the controller board so I put it to use on my xbox one instead! Ill probably end up selling it for a VR headset though lol.
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Sorry for not answering earlier but we had Easter Holiday, and you know...
In the last few weeks our manufacturer made 5 prototypes for us. 2 of them were rejected by their internal quality control and other 3 were rejected by us. The main reason for not giving the green light to the production sample was that, they switched some points in the manufacturing process which i designed. Because of that they didn't get the repeatability we want to achieve. Most of you wouldn't even notice the difference, but we did, and we want to fight with those small errors. By the end of this week we will get another prototype. Making them takes too long, so we decided even if it will be ok, we'll make one minor improvement in it: the upper hdd/sdd drive suport will be split to 3 separate parts. That operation will improve the repeatability of internal middle "wall" (which splits sentry on the gpu and cpu chamber), and a sentry cable management (the 3rd screw hdd/ssd holder which protrudes near the back of PSU will be detachable).
Today i'll make 2D files for laser-cutting and after receiving actual prototype we'll make another order. I know it takes a lot of time, but as i said before, because of our small 1pcs order, we're always at the end of the line. With bigger orders (at least 25 pcs) there won't be such problems.
***Little update***
Some of you asked about sound measurements. So we did them.
(don's ask me why Saper bought so big antennas... probably he's stealing wifi from another continent or something...)
Test conditions:
We thought about making measurements in an ultra-quiet sound measuring box, but the information which we would get won't tell you anything. So we decided to make our test in a typical home conditions (test in a closed room, some people in other rooms, some road-traffic outside the house). What we wanted to register is a Sound Pressure Level (SPL) which should be <20dBA (for HTPC). It means that, noises made by PC shouln't increase SPL in our room more than 20dBA over ambient SPL. Please note that, the "computer SPL" isn't a measured value showed on the sound meter during the test, but it is a "deviation" from the ambient background sounds measured when your PC is off.
Here You have a table showing the strength of typical ambient background sounds:
And here are our test results with ambiend background sound pressure ~45dB (Photoview is a rendering engine for SolidWorks which we used for making a full load on CPU. OCCT test was taken for GPU full load). Measurement distance @1m:
I'm sure you've noticed that the SPL didn't change more than 0.5 dB when our pc is turned on. This is because of the high ambient SPL. Does it mean, we can't hear our pc when it's in Idle? No, we can hear it, because its sound has different frequency than other ambient sounds (even if its SPL isn't increasing the ambient SPL).
Maybe in the future we will send our test PC inside Sentry, to some laboratory for better, more accurate SPL tests, but we think this isn't needed at this moment.
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Hey guys. Thanks for the recent update. I am not sure if you guys already covered this but will this case have the AIO water cooling build option? I would like to see a GPU water cooler installed in this case with low profile 120mm fans. Just a thought. Also, have you guys done a head count as to how many people will be interested in pre-ordering? This way, you'll know how much units your looking to order thru the manufacturer.
Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!
Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!
I've already addressed that some time ago:
Water cooling is not an option by design for this case since there's not much space for hoses and there's no vent holes above the GPU compartment for that, however if you were to put itx sized GPU with water block there you should be able to fit 120mm WC in front of the power supply.
Note that then you'll have to use short SFX power supply because there would be no space for cables of SFX-L. Max thickness of the cooler would be 48mm because it would be partially under the central drive rail. That'll leave you 5mm clearance above for airflow.
Also there's no mounting holes for it so you'll have to manage the mounting by yourself.
Little update:
After some minor tweaks that enlarged the holes in the central wall for better cable management it occurs that now you should be able to fit 120mm cooler inside but there's some limits:
- Radiator + Fan thickness combined has to be 48mm max, so it looks like 32mm radiator + low profile 16mm thick fan.
- ITX sized gpu, max 175mm but if pcb is oversized then you'll need modded low profile PEG connector
- SFX 100mm long psu only
- power button removed from the front and plugged by something like black 16mm round plug
- some additional cable mess to manage by yourself
- either really tight bend of water cooling pipes or secondary hard drive slot in front of PSU obstructed
Also I'm not sure about the airflow for this AIO but it might be a positive thing for the gpu since it'll make the air move at the back of gpu. You'll have to see if that warm air from cpu cooling will make it better or worse for gpu.
Water cooling is not an option by design for this case since there's not much space for hoses and there's no vent holes above the GPU compartment for that, however if you were to put itx sized GPU with water block there you should be able to fit 120mm WC in front of the power supply.
Note that then you'll have to use short SFX power supply because there would be no space for cables of SFX-L. Max thickness of the cooler would be 48mm because it would be partially under the central drive rail. That'll leave you 5mm clearance above for airflow.
Also there's no mounting holes for it so you'll have to manage the mounting by yourself.
After reading through this entire thread this afternoon...IM IN!! My eyes hurt like hell but it was totally worth it. Just in time for my upgrade. Pascal/Zen(maybe).
Awesome work guys. Im sure its been a long road but its been worth it. Ill be keeping an eye out for the Indiegogo.
Awesome work guys. Im sure its been a long road but its been worth it. Ill be keeping an eye out for the Indiegogo.
Apologies for asking, however I was wanting to know you are planning to retain the "gloosy grainy" look in regards to the coating as seen here:
(I had noticed you mentioned requesting a sample of an even more grainy coating on the previous page)
Or you were/have tried a more 'desk friendly' flat matte look, perhaps something akin to this:
(I had noticed you mentioned requesting a sample of an even more grainy coating on the previous page)
Or you were/have tried a more 'desk friendly' flat matte look, perhaps something akin to this:
Don't be afraid to ask - we don't bite
Actually we're going even more into the grainy surface in the final product:
The one on the right is what you've seen for the black prototype and the left is what we've got picked for the production. Comes both in black and white of course.
It's a close-up photo and it isn't so much noticeable by naked eye but has nice feel in touch and is better for hiding small scratches, fingerprints etc.
I'm not sure what you mean as 'desk friendly' since the case stands on the rubber feet in both positions and the paint itself shouldn't scratch your desk.
Don't be afraid to ask - we don't bite
Actually we're going even more into the grainy surface in the final product:
The one on the right is what you've seen for the black prototype and the left is what we've got picked for the production. Comes both in black and white of course.
It's a close-up photo and it isn't so much noticeable by naked eye but has nice feel in touch and is better for hiding small scratches, fingerprints etc.
I'm not sure what you mean as 'desk friendly' since the case stands on the rubber feet in both positions and the paint itself shouldn't scratch your desk.
I was simply referring to a less rugged look when I said desk friendly, similar to the matte plastic you would see on peripherals such as your mice. (The logitech G600 is a good example, as its coating doesn't seem attract fingerprints either)
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If I provide the funds as a donation, for you to order in another case sample from the manufacturer in a plain non-grainy matte black so we can compare it with what you have now, would it be at all difficult?
However, with everything considered I'm only a single customer meaning my opinion doesn't hold much weight, and ultimately it is up to you both as the creators, as to what you want your product to look like.
However, with everything considered I'm only a single customer meaning my opinion doesn't hold much weight, and ultimately it is up to you both as the creators, as to what you want your product to look like.
I don't think that plain non-grainy matte black is an option here since it would show terribly the fingerprints and greasy spots if the medium grainy paint we have on photos had already some problems with that. At this point we don't really need to make any more prototype units and there's no real point to going back to standard paint types. If you're interested in the subject you could also check out the NFC's topic on his S4 Mini where he discussed how much time it took for him to get the paint feasible for pc case.
One thing you might consider is a spray-on rubber paint. Enough applications should smooth out the grainy paint, and people use it on their cases all the time; I've used it before to great success.
Personally, however, I like the grainy texture quite a lot, especially since a fringe benefit is increasing grip on the case.
The white unit photos has been added to the gallery:
We were supposed to send this unit to LinusTechTips for review, however there were some technical difficulties with manufacturing for this one and we've had to slightly update final design. There's also a functional fix for cable management with that design update.
We have ordered first production batch of 25 units. Some of them will be sent as review samples. While waiting for those we've got to figure out packaging.
We were supposed to send this unit to LinusTechTips for review, however there were some technical difficulties with manufacturing for this one and we've had to slightly update final design. There's also a functional fix for cable management with that design update.
We have ordered first production batch of 25 units. Some of them will be sent as review samples. While waiting for those we've got to figure out packaging.
iFreilicht
[H]ard|Gawd
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What kinds of options are you considering? Personally I'm a fan of cardboard only packaging, plastic always makes me feel like a bad person.
iFreilicht
[H]ard|Gawd
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That sounds reasonable, sounds like it will make the whole thing quite easy to package. Though the outer box will have to be printed, too, right?
Does that mean that some of these early units will soon be offered for sale?
That depends how we are going to play this out. The thing is, while I could spend the money on 25 sets of metal parts its a whole different thing with all other pieces of the puzzle which are priced for orders of at least 100 pieces. It wouldn't be a problem if not for the risers and USB 3.0 cables which are quite a big part of the cost and paying upfront out of my pocket for 100 sets of them doesn't work out for my wallet :|
While I would want to give you those 20-24 "early bird" units straight from the shelf when packaged and ready it would also mean you'd have to either pay full unit price for those cables/risers if you'd want me to order 20 of them or wait a bit until we gather at least 100 orders or until we get some more spare funds to order those cables for stock.
While I would want to give you those 20-24 "early bird" units straight from the shelf when packaged and ready it would also mean you'd have to either pay full unit price for those cables/risers if you'd want me to order 20 of them or wait a bit until we gather at least 100 orders or until we get some more spare funds to order those cables for stock.
As a suggestion you could utilize a simple google pre-order sign up form such as this quickly made example that I have created:
SENTRY: Case Pre-order sign up form
And let users choose whether they wish to order the more expensive "early bird" first production run version or simply put down their email for the second production run of 100 units to order once you have collected enough sign ups.
In all honesty, I'm sure you will be able to easily fulfil the 20 early bird orders quite quickly if you decide to do it that way. There are plenty of people here and on other forums that will want to obtain this case sooner rather than later. (Unless I'm underestimating the cost of the usb/riser here)
(The submit button is presently blocked, however the 'early bird' options will disappear from the form once 20 people have submitted pre-orders for them.)
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Aibohphobia
[H]ard|Gawd
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I'd leave the early bird option open and just fulfill them on a first come, first serve basis once it's time to actually start taking people's money.
There's a big difference between the number of people who register interest on a form (since it doesn't really require any effort or commitment) and the number who will actually open up their wallet when the time comes.
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