The next NCASE project: a Steam Machine-style case (indeterminate)

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Urelure

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wahaha360 said:
The technical requirements for this design affects the process of production, which affects costs and MOQ, which affects commercial viability, particularly because this is a small scale production.

It's both.
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Gotcha. Thanks.

wahaha360 said:
Try and enjoy the ride / process. The nature of product development is somewhat unpredictable, for both of us, we try to approach things with an open mind and just have fun.

We will keep moving forward :)
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Looking forward to following this. In the mean time there is always the M1. Haven't even started my build yet.
 
O

octagoncow

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Although it's sad to hear this project is on the backburner; It's understandable. I wouldn't be able to build in it until Skylake comes out anyway. Otherwise, as Urelure said, there's always the M1 which is still an awesome case.
 
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SaperPL

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I'd like to understand what went wrong Necere - can you tell us if it was technical problem with the design for manufacturing or you couldn't get Lian Li to manufacture the cases because it would compete with their line of cases?

I'm asking because I hit the wall with making mATX support and If you're dropping the project I'm interested in going for ITX.
 
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zalbard

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SaperPL said:
I'd like to understand what went wrong Necere - can you tell us if it was technical problem with the design for manufacturing or you couldn't get Lian Li to manufacture the cases because it would compete with their line of cases?
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I would like to know as well. I was hoping to go ITX at some point next year...
 
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Necere

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SaperPL said:
I'd like to understand what went wrong Necere - can you tell us if it was technical problem with the design for manufacturing or you couldn't get Lian Li to manufacture the cases because it would compete with their line of cases?

I'm asking because I hit the wall with making mATX support and If you're dropping the project I'm interested in going for ITX.
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We're not dropping the project, it's just on hold for now. There are a number of issues and/or things I'm not happy with, and to be quite honest I haven't had a lot of motivation to to deal with them. I haven't felt really inspired to work on it lately, and part of that is because I've already been through it so many times and scrapped a lot of ideas already. I need some new idea or approach or something to spark my interest in it.

There's also something else that we're kind of waiting to see how it pans out, and might entail a significant change of direction for the project. But that's not something I'm able to discuss further at this point.
 
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SaperPL

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Yeah, I've been thinking on this too - making a vesa stand that supports both monitor and the case and looks like iMac foot but a little bigger.

But this thing, the G-Pack is something that not everyone will want to have for their console PC cause it makes it practically immobile. LRPC/SteamBoxes are at advantage here.
 
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EdZ

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Urelure

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I would rather put it IN the wall than behind the TV. Making a in-wall case shouldn't be that complicated.
SFF "core" but almost endless WC possibilities.
Very much off topic though.
 
Phuncz

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I think that almost no one is prepared to break open their walls to install a case.
 
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jcagara08

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IVEST said:
That case is just ill conceived.

Way too big, much too heavy, too much wasted space, too many non-standard components and way too expensive.

And with only 17% pledged to date, it doesn't look as if they're going to reach their goal either.
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That project is way too much!
It caters to rich kids who'se got brat money to spend only
 
CknSalad

CknSalad

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It's going to be interesting to see Dondan's A4/B3, SaperPL's case, as well as Necere's new Ncase. It's good to see fun, exciting competition between the three. As others have said, take your time Necere. I own an Ncase M1 v1 case and have been happy with the case. I can't wait to see the finished product even if it were to take up to another year or so.
 
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jcagara08

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SaperPL said:
Yeah, I've been thinking on this too - making a vesa stand that supports both monitor and the case and looks like iMac foot but a little bigger.

But this thing, the G-Pack is something that not everyone will want to have for their console PC cause it makes it practically immobile. LRPC/SteamBoxes are at advantage here.
Click to expand...

Ditto and this thing is just too much over the edge, I would like to fiddle my rig once in a while too as opposed to just buying it and sticking it at the back of your monitor/tv and game on
 
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Siba

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Necere said:
We're not dropping the project, it's just on hold for now. There are a number of issues and/or things I'm not happy with, and to be quite honest I haven't had a lot of motivation to to deal with them. I haven't felt really inspired to work on it lately, and part of that is because I've already been through it so many times and scrapped a lot of ideas already. I need some new idea or approach or something to spark my interest in it.

There's also something else that we're kind of waiting to see how it pans out, and might entail a significant change of direction for the project. But that's not something I'm able to discuss further at this point.
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Time for an mATX case to hold things over? :D
 
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SaperPL

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With 17cm cards limit its possible to make mATX steambox style with dimensions like 360x300x64.5mm and it would be a lot less messy than full size card + itx - just sayin' :)
 
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zalbard

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SaperPL said:
With 17cm cards limit its possible to make mATX steambox style with dimensions like 360x300x64.5mm and it would be a lot less messy than full size card + itx - just sayin' :)
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17cm card limit is a turn off for a lot of people, though.
 
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SaperPL

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Yeah, I know, but with mATX you can go for X99 and DDR4 + short gigabyte GTX 970
 
Phuncz

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Necere already commented on this more than a few times why an mATX "Ncase M1" would basically look like a SG10 with a different exterior, since that case already has a very efficient design as an mATX tower case.
 
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Necere

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SaperPL said:
With 17cm cards limit its possible to make mATX steambox style with dimensions like 360x300x64.5mm and it would be a lot less messy than full size card + itx - just sayin' :)
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How did you come up with those dimensions? The only way I can see that working is using a 1U PSU, which is not something I'm too keen on doing. Airflow would also be kind of a mess, and with it being so narrow CPU cooler height would be extremely limited. I'd question the point of a mATX system that puts so many constraints on CPU and GPU performance.
 
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SaperPL

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SFX height determines the height of whole case so 63.5+ 2x0.5mm.

Put the in the same configuration as in steambox but partially above the motherboard and as high as possible to touch the top cover.

SFX at the card's end so its in front of the case

Get mATX dimension which is 245mm and add 100mm of SFX and it gives us 345 mm of width. Now you need some extra space to fit the angled cord, Maybe 360mm is not enough here, It depends how small the angled cord can be, custom made imho it could be 15mm.

You've got extra space for hard drives in front.

Front
|-----------------|
|HDDs | SFX |
|---------| SFX |
| mATX | SFX |
| mATX |-------|
| mATX | VGA |
| mATX | VGA |
|-----------------|
Rear
 
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SaperPL

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Thats right, considering how low current generation console performance is in comparison to PCs. However mATX boards are cheaper, support more memory and have support for AMD FX cpu's if you wanna fry some eggs on your living room PC too :D
 
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Necere

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SaperPL said:
SFX height determines the height of whole case so 63.5+ 2x0.5mm.

Put the in the same configuration as in steambox but partially above the motherboard and as high as possible to touch the top cover.

SFX at the card's end so its in front of the case

Get mATX dimension which is 245mm and add 100mm of SFX and it gives us 345 mm of width. Now you need some extra space to fit the angled cord, Maybe 360mm is not enough here, It depends how small the angled cord can be, custom made imho it could be 15mm.

You've got extra space for hard drives in front.

Front
|-----------------|
|HDDs | SFX |
|---------| SFX |
| mATX | SFX |
| mATX |-------|
| mATX | VGA |
| mATX | VGA |
|-----------------|
Rear
Click to expand...
So like this?



The angled connector we use in the M1 is already just about as low profile as it can reasonably be, and only adds ~16mm to the 100mm depth of an SFX PSU. With the PSU cables exiting over the motherboard, you do save a bit of space, however many mATX boards have right-angle SATA connectors along the edge which would be blocked by the PSU. Moreover, the depth savings is only on the order of 10mm vs. orienting the PSU the long way (as in the current LRPC and Steam Machine prototype). This lets you have the PSU on the other side, which opens up long GPU support:



The dimensions of these two would likely be around ~390 x 340mm for the first, and ~400 x 340mm for the second. This is larger than the dimensions you gave, but I'm considering the requirements for the chassis and room for component installation. Basically, take the current LRPC design and add ~74mm to the depth. It'd also need to be a bit thicker for various reasons (fan filters, chassis features, cable space, CPU cooler clearance), but 70mm might be possible.

I know you had the idea of flipping the GPU using a flex riser, but if you actually leave enough room for the PCIe power connectors and (somewhat) taller cards, there really isn't much in the way of space savings. Regardless of whether the GPU is flipped or not, I still think that airflow would be problematic (particularly for the GPU); there really needs to be a good plan for directing airflow in the case - whether through case fans or ducting. Not taking that into account is going to make for a hotter and noisier system. The heat coming off the GPU combined with a low profile CPU cooler means that you'd have to use lower-power parts to mitigate these issues, which brings me back to the 'why' of it. In the end I'm hard-pressed to say it's worth doing.
 
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SaperPL

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You failed with both images :D

I meant that its width is bigger than its depth and also note that SFX is at the side of mATX in my "visualisation"

Take first image and rotate SFX clockwise 90 degree, then move it up just above the mATX and right so he touches the VGA. Then move VGA up as much as possible, including required space for PEG connectors
 
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SaperPL

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Yup, and move the card up to the SFX's edge. Aboe you've got the space for cornering the power cord and PEG connectors and of course it uses flex riser
 
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Necere

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Right, I see it now:



This allows the GPU to have an unblocked air intake. Drives could go partially over the front section of the motherboard. I get dimensions of around 310x385mm. Hm. It's an interesting layout, at least.
 
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Siba

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Phuncz said:
Necere already commented on this more than a few times why an mATX "Ncase M1" would basically look like a SG10 with a different exterior, since that case already has a very efficient design as an mATX tower case.
Click to expand...

I took a look at the case, but I think it's missing something pretty important: 240mm or 280mm radiator support on a side panel along with being designed with the SFX psu in mind. Also not a fan of the looks compared to Necere's aesthetics.

Maybe i'm just pipe dream drooling over a watercooled SLI setup with a window in a form factor not much bigger than the current M1, and a 280mm rad to cool stuff, but I figured it was probably close to a year since I last bugged about it...
 
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SaperPL

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its still something within this size(silverstone LC19):
lc19-dimension.jpg

but u get to have full PC setup
 
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