Getting ready for the SG13

There are two options when it comes to cases for my Mini-ITX potential rig: the Silverstone SG13 and the Ncase M1. The Ncase M1 is the better case - feature wise as it supports 240mm radiators or even two 120mm radiators with lmost the same footprint as the SG13. The two radiator support will be ideal for those planning to buy an AMD Fury card with the AIO water cooling solution,  with another AIO cooler for the CPU. 

The SG13 on the other hand will only support one 120mm AIO water cooler. However, the Ncase is very expensive. The case itself is $175 and I would have to order it online with a shipping cost of $35 and possible import taxes. Would come close to JPY 30, 000. On top of that, it "requires" a SFX power supply which results is a compulsory PSU change. The SG13 is only JPY6,500, and while it will work better with a SFX power supply unit due to extra breathing room for the components, it is not compulsory.

So SG13 it is. Sadly. I wish I could have the Ncase. I sure hope that going cheap will not cause other complications in the future. 

So which components can I reuse from my existing build? 

CPU: Yes

Motherboard: Yes (since last now have a Mini-ITX motherboard)

RAM: Yes

PSU: Yes, as the Silverstone SST-ST75F-GS is a 150mm long PSU, however this would prevent me from having two SSDs in the front drive bay. That's fine since I would have a hard drive in there and it goes sideways so should fit. However, I would probably switch to an SFX-L PSU when I get the chance because they come with a larger 120mm fan which is important as the PSU would have to assist with exhausting the warm air out of the case. The one I'm looking at is the Silverstone SST-SX500-LG.

SSD: Yes, but would have to be fitted on the floor if I'm using a supplementary hard drive. If I add more SSDs in the future they will have to go on top of the PSU (like Linus did in his 18-core CPU + Titan build in this case)  and will have to mount them using "thin" double sided tape.

HDD1: Yes, on the front drive Bay as mentioned before. 

HDD2: No, since the case supports only one HDD. However would make this a portable HDD or probably sell it and buy a proper portable HDD. Since this is the backup drive, it shouldn't have been installed inside the PC in the first place.

CPU cooler: The Antec Kuhler 620, the cooler that I'm currently using, has short tubes and should fit in the case without issues. However, since the cooling ability of it has dropped reasonably in the past few years, I might consider changing this to a newer model at a later date. I don't have a specific model in my mind however it has to have short tubes. H80i-GT probably has the best radiator but it is expensive and I'm worried that it cannot cool effectively with a single fan. This needs more research but it is not a pressing matter so it can wait.

Video Card: No, because the Gigabyte GTX 970 GAMING G1 that I'm currently using is too long. I was considering buying the GALAX GF PGTX970-OC/4GD5 MINI card which seems to come with a high boost clock and is quite short. However since I found out that the MSI GTX 970 Gaming card fits in there, I might opt for it for the sake of quietness. The GALAX card is quite loud at full load although it is no slouch in the performance department. I wish my original GTX 970 card didn't have coil whine. Had it been a defect less, I wouldn't have had to change the graphics card in the first place. 

To summarize, as a bear minimum, I'll have to change the video card. Of course I'll have to get the case too but that's obvious. Getting a portable hard drive case for one of the HDDs or replacing it with a portable hard drive would have to come next. Then it would be the time to change the PSU to one with an SFX-L form factor. Finally I might or might change the CPU cooler but it will be a low priority.

As of  writing this article, Amazon has listed the case as "imminent arrival of stock" with the lowest price I could find it at, so I placed an order. I have a couple of days before I can cancel the order though. 

My first Mini-ITX motherboard is here

So, someone finally wanted to grab my Asus Maximus VII Gene motherboard and I decided to purchase the Asus Z97i Plus Mini-ITX board. The reason for getting a Mini-ITX motherboard was to make my already small gaming rig even smaller. Well, not just smaller, but lighter too. One might think I am insane, but I have my reasons for doing so which I am not willing to disclose just yet.

Sure, features wise it is sort of a downgrade. The old board had support for dual graphics cards, 4 DIMM slots, a much better audio solution (at least on paper) and better overclocking capabilities (again, on paper). Unfortunately, I am not willing to put a second graphics card or upgrade the memory beyond 16GB. My Core i7 4790K doesn't overclock high enough to warrant a better overclocking motherboard. It only does 4.5GHz without exquisite cooling which would be an easy feat for any Z97 board available. The only thing I would miss would be the audio chip. But I doubt that I would have any issues adjusting myself to the one on the Z97I-Plus board. I will probably feel that it sounds different, but not worse.

On the other hand, the Z97I offers some important features too. In-built Wireless 802.11AC and Bluetooth 4.0 support is one. Better CPU socket placement with respect to the first PCI-E slot is another, although this would only be useful to people who want to install a large CPU cooler. It doesn't apply to me because I'm most probably going to end up with an AIO closed loop water cooling unit.

OMG somebody bid for my Maximus VII Gene board on Rakuten

After writing this post, I headed to Rakuten Auctions website and listed my Asus ROG Maximus VII Gene motherboard. After a few days, I got a message from someone asking me if I had the original receipt with me and whether there was an agent in the country who would handle the warranty related stuff. I had to look up about the latter. There was a Techwind sticker on the box and that confirmed it. Techwind was the official agent for this board who would be handling the RMAs. (It was just like when returned the Corsair SP 2200 speakers due to crackling. You can check out that article here. )

The starting price I set for the board was quite high. JPY 20,000. I did not expect anyone to bid for that amount. I only paid JPY 3,000 more when I bought it. However the current selling price of the board is JPY 26,800 due to devaluation of Japanese Yen. And he eventually placed a bid. Since nobody competed against him for the board, the final bid was same as the starting bid.

The guy paid for the board and I have to send it before 6th of June. In the mean time, it was time for me to look for a replacement. I love searching for new stuff to buy.

The board comparable to the one I was replacing was the Asus ROG Maximus VII Impact. But it was quite expensive at around JPY 26,000. There were few more options too. The Asus Z97I-Plus, the Gigabyte Z97N Gaming 5 and the MSI Z97I Gaming ACK. Indeed, my options were limited.

• The Asus Z97I-Plus was the cheapest, priced at less than JPY 18,000 but it had one issue. The audio chip was the "old" Realtek ALC 892 chip. At least now there were better components such as audio grade caps to complement it, compared to the old Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 board I bought as soon as I arrived in Japan.

• The Gigabyte Z97N board was about JPY 2,000 more and it lacked a M.2 port. Although I don't current own a M.2 SSD, I might have to buy one in the future because if everything goes according to plan, I would not have enough space inside the case for lots of drives. 

• The issue with the MSI board was its price. It was same price as the Impact and in that case the Impact would be the better option for the sheer amount of features it offered.

I want to shrink my PC even further!

In a previous post I expressed my dissatisfaction towards the weight of my so-called Small Form Factor gaming PC. At 12.5kg, it is quite heavy for its size. Should I do something about it? Is it even possible?

I was pleased to see Linus do a super high-end build in the Silverstone SG13 case, which is half the size of my SG09 case at only 11.5 litres. I checked price of the case and it is quite cheap at only JPY 6,500. But it requires me to change a lot of components inside the case.

The following list comprises of the necessary changes to the components, listed from the most expensive to cheapest.

1. Graphics card: the Gigabyte GTX 970 Gaming G1 card I currently have in my PC is quite long. It would not fit in this tiny case. Linus had a hard time installing the Titan X GPU inside the case, which is same as the maximum length of the graphics card allowed. My current card extends another 1.7 inches. The price of the GTX 970 hasn't dropped much since I bought my card, but I doubt anyone would want to spend close the current retail price when they are not getting any warranty. I am looking to buy either a second hand GTX 980 with reference cooler or a shorter PCB version of the GTX 970 such as this one or this one. If I go down the 2nd
route, I would be seeing a reduction in performance as it would definitely not overclock as high as my Gigabyte card would, however overclocking doesn't make a huge difference to the gaming experience: just benchmarks.

[Rant] Where are the highend mini-ITX boards from Asus with Z97 chipset?

Sadly, these were Z87 boards.

So, in my road to Mini-ITX series of posts, I'm now going to show my disappoint in Asus and their motherboard choices. Where are the high-end mini-ITX boards?

As the motherboards with the new Z97 chipset are available - even though the chipset itself doesn't provide anything substantial over its predecessor other than future proofing - it doesn't take a rocket engineer to figure out why one would want to go with a motherboard with the new chipset. Well, sometimes it is not so black and white. You might get a great deal on the older models. But as it is the end of the road for Z87 chipset, there is no argument there. Z97 is the way to go.

With the old chipset, Asus had a couple of killer mini-ITX motherboards - the Z87I-PRO and the ROG Maximus VI Impact. The latter was pretty much the best mini-ITX motherboard released to date by any manufacturer. Asus went overboard with the feature-set it offered and it required them to add four daughter boards because the mini-ITX board's dimensions were too restrictive. The two most important daughter boards were the VRM circuit and the sound card. The Z87I-PRO was similar but didn't have the sound card and the "ROG oomph". Still, it was a very good board for the money. In fact, now you can get it for as cheap as JPY 12,000 if you know where to look.

[Rant] My “realistic” dream PC

I’m sure everyone of you knows by now what my favourite form factor is, right? Mini-ITX. (If you didn’t know, you should follow my blog! Seriously!) Even though it seems that I can use my Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme cooler in the Fractal Design Node 304 mini-ITX case, I might have to buy a new PSU because my current PSU is non-modular and I definitely will have to buy a new RAM kit because I currently have 16GB in 4 sticks. So I cannot say for sure how long this transition to mini-ITX will take, but I really want to build one.

But if I was starting from the scratch, I know what I would be building. Want to know what it is?

Here goes.

Chassis: Fractal Design Node 304

The other contender is Corsair Obsidian 250D. I would have chosen that but it about 50% more taller than the Node 304.

Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus VI Impact

This is the best mini-ITX board out there, for one particular reason. Audio! Asus says the audio on it is as good as Xonar DG level, which is pretty sweet for integrated audio. But at the same time, it lacks one important feature some of the other boards carry. A dual-link DVI port. Why would I want it? Because the display I use – the Qnix QX2710 – only supports dual DVI inputs. Yes, of course I would be connecting it to the video card, but I would like the board to have a dual DVI port just as a backup. But you know what? Even my current ATX board, Maximus VI Hero doesn’t have a dual DVI port either. So, maybe I shouldn’t worry about it too much.

[Rant] Current RAM prices might make my mini-ITX dream just a dream

In a previous post I wrote how I relieved some good news from a forum member saying that the Silver Arrow Extreme cooler will fit in the Fractal Design Node 304. It just made the mini-ITX build somewhat closer to reality than just a dream. The next question I had was whether the PSU would fit in the case with the crazy number of cables sticking out of its arse. Nothing was confirmed although more people recommended that I bought a new smaller (140mm depth), modular PSU and sell the TX850 or keep it as a backup PSU.

I haven't decided what to do about the PSU issue yet, but a new problem just came up. I have Corsair Vengeance RAM (exactly the same as the ones shown on the picture above) in my current rig. They have very tall heat sinks which don't do anything to improve the performance. They are just there for the aesthetics. If those heat sinks come in the way of the cooler, I was thinking of removing the heat sinks and install them "naked".

Great plan, right? Yes, but I forgot one important thing. I have 4 sticks of 4GB each. 4 sticks!! Mini-ITX boards only have 2 DIMM slots. So I cannot use all 16GB of them in a mini-ITX rig. Ideally I would want 8GBx2 kit. I'm not going to halve the amount of RAM just to change the form factor. Which means I have to sell these RAM and buy new ones. Oh oh!

[Rant] Mini-ITX build plans are not completely gone

Few weeks ago I got this itch to build a Mini-ITX rig. But I had to give up that thought because It would only be a side-grade (not an upgrade) if I do it now and it sounded like a lot of money spent with no gains. If I do it when Broadwell comes out, then that's a different story.

In the mean time, I wanted to reuse as much components from my current build as possible. In the original feasibility study, I figured that I would have to give up the CPU cooler and the PSU because they would not fit in a small mini-ITX case. Quite recently I came to know that Fractal Design Node 304, which is a nice little mini-ITX case, can actually house the Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme cooler just fine.

[Guide] Building a high-end mini-ITX gaming rig

I wish I went for a mini-ITX rig when I built my PC. When I came to japan, there weren't good mini-ITX cases or motherboards available. But now there are.

I have a recommendation. Would you like to see?

 

Main system:

• CPU: Intel Core i7 4770k “Haswell”
• Motherboard: Asus Maximus VI Impact
• The only mini-ITX that I can recommend. Comes with an amazing audio solution. You need one, because you cannot install a sound card in a mini-ITX motherboard as there is only one PCI-E slot in there and we need that for the video card.
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400MHz CL11 8GB x2 kit
• Nothing special. Just fast RAM.
• Video card: NVidia GeForce GTX780 Ti reference
• Went with the reference card because it would put the hot air out of the case. The case isn’t large enough to house a GPU that puts hot air into the case. And no, AMD cards put out too much heat for this little baby.
• SSD: 500GB Samsung 840 EVO x2
• Can go for the 1TB drive, but we’ll RAID-0 couple of them just for bragging rights.
• HDD: None.
• Use a NAS to store data
• PSU: Corsair HX650 Gold
• Nothing special. Just a quality PSU that is enough to power the CPU and GPU when both are well overclocked. Could have gone with a small PSU, but a larger PSU would run quieter and put out less heat. But get a PSU with modular cables for the love of god!
• CPU cooler: Corsair H100i
• I wish we could install a 280mm rad in there, but you cannot. So we’ll stick to the H100i.
• Case fans: Corsair SP120 series fans
• We need fans with high static pressure because the stuff inside would be tight and there would be more restrictions that a spacious case.

Peripherals:

• Display: Qnix QX2710 27" 1440p PLS display
• Best display you can get for the money I guess.
• Keyboard: Logitech G710+ mechanical gaming keyboard
• Mouse: Logitech G602 wireless gaming mouse
• Speakers: Logitech Z623 2.1 speakers
• I have this and I like it
• Headset: Audiotechnica ATH-AD500X audiophile headphones
• I have this and I like it
• Webcam: Logitech C920