Fortress of Xeon - An SFF mITX Build

[Daiyus]

I'm new here, in fact this will be my first ever post here. As the title says I am building an SFF mITX PC. It's primary function is gaming however it also serves as the HTPC of the living room giving my family access to whatever entertainment they desire, plus I wanted it to have enough power and capability to take on whatever I was in the mood for trying over the next few years be it modding, video editing, etc.

This will be a piecemeal build. My situation means that it's more reliable for me to pick up parts as I can afford them instead of trying to get a lump sum together. It's really far from ideal, but it is what it is. Due to this the initial stages of the build will re-use some existing components from my current rig that will hopefully be replaced at a later date. It's an ongoing project, if you will.

So let's get down to business shall we? The initial goal for a fully functional system is as follows:

- CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 v3
- Cooler: Antec Kuhler H2O 620 (from current rig)
- Compound: Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI
- Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2x 8GB Sticks) DDR3-1600MHz
- OS Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" SSD (from current rig)
- Storage: Western Digital AV-GP 1TB 3.5" 5400RPM HDD (from current rig)
- Video Card: Powercolor Radeon HD 7870 2GB (from current rig)
- Case: Silverstone FTZ01B
- Power Supply: Corsair SF 600W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular PSU
- Optical Drive: Some form of slot loading BD Drive

There's also some peripherals I'm thinking about getting but I'll cover those as I pick them; mostly a HTPC keyboard and a wireless headset.

I'll leave it at that for now. I do already have some of the components so I'll get an update up as soon as I've written it up.

 

[Daiyus]

As promised here is the first update to show where I'm at. Here we have every new piece of kit I've bought over the last few months.

The processor was the first item and was something of an impulse buy in a fit of despair. That's pretty much paved the way for the rest of the build. This first update is the case and installing the power supply. I'll give a small unboxing of each item before going through the install itself.

The FTZ01 comes in a fairly standard box with polystyrene inserts holding it in place. The manual that is included is very clear in its instructions and has been invaluable when researching size compatibility with other components.

You can see the clean aluminium panel wrapping around the case. I love this aesthetic and it will fit in wherever you want it. In my case it'll be in a family living room, however it would not be out of place in a high-end bachelor pad. It really is a beautiful case. It's weighty and you can feel the quality immediately. I spent ~£120 on this case and while I can't deny that's insanely pricey I still couldn't be happier with quality of this case.

The top panel of the case is not held in place with thumbscrews, instead opting for traditional screws. Initially it's mildly frustrating after spending a few years with thumbscrews but nothing a deft hand with a screwdriver won't handle. Now I've opened the case a few times it doesn't feel like a hindrance at all.

Once the top panel is off you can start to see the layout of the case and how everything comes together. It's worth noting that the white box includes rubber feet for the case to be placed in a horizontal position, alternative feet for a vertical position, a PWM fan splitter cable as well as a mixture of screws.

The top left area holds the PSU cage with the option of mounting a 3.5" HDD on top. The bottom left is where the motherboard will go and on the right you can see molded plastic bracket that can house a full length graphics card parallel to the motherboard (using a riser card) as well as a slim slot loading optical drive and two 2.5" storage drives. There's also a vertical bracket at the top in the middle for yet another 2.5" storage drive. The GPU bracket being molded plastic is a disappointment, I would've much preferred as metal one, however when you see the complexity of it it's easy to see why plastic is much easier and cheaper to produce.

The case comes with two slim fans. One is originally on the top panel above the motherboard area and the other in the GPU area. As I will be using an AIO in this build I moved both fans into the GPU area to provide the best cooling for the graphics card.

Now that the case is dismantled it's time to open up the power supply.

The product is superbly packaged with the cables and power supply itself coming in faux velvet drawstring bags. Also included are a case badge and zip ties alongside the obligatory manual. One of the most impressive thing with these supplies is that Corsair are offering a SEVEN YEAR warranty. Let's get the unit itself out shall we?

As you can see it's a gorgeous looking piece. It's weighty with an air of quality surrounding it. The clean understated exterior belies what is an incredible performance factor in a unit this small. Based on Tiny Tom Logan's review these units are bordering on a Platinum level efficiency with minimal ripple. There's simply no better power supply in this form factor.

As you can see from the label this unit offers a silent operation with the fan only coming into play when it's needed. The centralised fan also looks wonderful with a grill offering low impedance to the cool air coming in.

On to today's work; mounting the power supply and 3.5" HDD.

You can see just how small the SFX form factor is compared to the 3.5" drive (generously donated by my old rig). The PSU and HDD slip perfectly into the cage with six screws holding the PSU in place and four holding the HDD in.

Again, this shows off just how small these PSU's really are. Time to get it into the case. First things first, make sure the power switch is set to "On" as you won't be able to get to it once it's in the case. The FTZ01 utilises a power extension cable to provide power to the PSU which is actually located at the front of the case.

While mounting the components in the cage was a doddle getting the cage into the case was not. The power cable is only just long enough and unfortunately the right angled connection comes out of the PSU the wrong way. The cable is under tension all around the case. However after bending the cable back on itself under the connector I managed to get the cage in. The tale continues similarly; two of the four screws holding the cage in place are easy to put in. The two towards the side of the case? Not so much. I almost gave up on the screw in the corner of the case as I was having to work around the taught power cable. After about five minutes I got the screw to bite and it went in.

That's today's business done and I'm happy with what I achieved. Even with taking the photos this whole affair took less than an hour.

Hopefully I'll be able to get the motherboard and memory when I next get paid and I can get the system into working condition before progressing with further upgrades.

 

[tinytomlogan]

Interesting little build dude

 

[Daiyus]

Interesting little build dude

Thanks. It's frustratingly slow progress as I'm averaging purchasing an item a month so far. Hopefully with a little cash injection at the end of this month the build will start getting more interesting as it becomes a functioning PC.

 

[Warchild]

Wouldnt it be better to hold off and purchase everything in one go after saving up? A

s you progress things may get released that are upgraded components of what you have and so your purchases could either be bought at a lower cost, or for the same price you could possibly get a "better" piece of hardware.

 

[WYP]

It is very nice to see a SFX build on the forums. Good part selection so far.

 

[Daiyus]

Wouldnt it be better to hold off and purchase everything in one go after saving up? A

s you progress things may get released that are upgraded components of what you have and so your purchases could either be bought at a lower cost, or for the same price you could possibly get a "better" piece of hardware.

Yes, it would, but like I said it's the unfortunate reality that if I don't purchase when I can the money winds up going somewhere else. I've been trying to save money since I built my first rig four years ago but there's always something; car breaks down, washing machine packs up, daughter needs new clothes, wife wants to go on holiday.

All things that I want/need to provide but it ends up using the budget. If I buy parts as I go that holiday still happens, just automatically on a slightly tighter budget. It's just me and how I hold my obligations to my family in those decision making moments that makes me a martyr. If I didn't do it this way I'd never be able to do it.

 

[Daiyus]

It is very nice to see a SFX build on the forums. Good part selection so far.

Thanks, I'm glad you approve. If you think of any advice I'd love to hear it.

 

[sheroo]

Do love Silverstone HTPC cases!!! Lookin' good!

 

[Daiyus]

I've just received my new motherboard and RAM so I should be getting this fully built and running soon.

 

[tinytomlogan]

I've just received my new motherboard and RAM so I should be getting this fully built and running soon.

What board did you get that supports the xeon?

 

[Daiyus]

What board did you get that supports the xeon?

I went for the Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI in the end.

I've just finished up the build. Took longer than expected. I'll put a full log up tomorrow.

 

[Daiyus]

So here we are, ready to put the system together for the first time. First things first a quick update on what's changed/arrived since the last update. Firstly I manged to trade my old 1TB drive and a bit of teaching for a 3TB 3.5" drive; game storage is not going to be coming up short any time soon.

When I installed the new HDD I actually decided to unhook the power cable from one of the clips running around the case. This has released the tension on the cable and has made installation of the cage a whole lot easier.

I've also received my motherboard and RAM alongside a new slim fan for the AIO and some high quality thermal paste.

Opening up the motherboard box you're presented with a familiar sight; an anti-sttic bag with your new component inside. Once that's out you can see what else has been included.

The manual is well written, however any experienced builder won't need it. I only found myself checking it for confirmation of the front I/O connections. Also included is the obligatory I/O shield alongside the Bluetooth/Wi-Fi antennae and a pair of SATA data cables. I immediately popped the I/O shield in place.

Next I opened up the processor and installed it. Nothing unusual here, just a standard LGA 1150 socket and CPU.

Now time for the 16GB of Corsair low profile RAM. Again, nothing particularly exciting here. They are solid pieces as you'd expect from Corsair.

I couldn't help but get goosebumps at this point. My next stage was to dismantle my current rig for some of the last components, but being a family man I decided to make time for my wife before removing the only source of TV she has. While waiting for her I found myself sitting at the table just smiling and looking at all the details. Even being a fairly simple motherboard without the fancy aesthetics of higher end gaming boards I find Gigabyte's offering here no less exciting; maybe that's just the geek in me coming out as I haven't done this for five years.

Anyway, an hour of MasterChef later and I'm pulling my old system apart. I'll be re-using my PowerColor Radeon HD 7870 GPU, Antec Kuhler 620 AIO CPU Cooler and 128GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD boot drive.

My old system was on the AMD AM3+ socket so the next job is to get all the fittings for the AIO off the old bracket and onto the Intel one. This was exceptionally easy and after ten minutes of trial and error I had the new bracket set up for the correct socket (I had set it up to big to start). Mounting the AIO itself is simple; back plate on the underside of the board, a pea sized blob of Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and screw the water block on.

I find it ironic that this was one of the things me and my friend who built my first system really struggled to do; in many ways this was the easiest part of this build. To mount the motherboard in the case I found myself having to remove the PSU and HDD again, which was frustrating but not unexpected. The Silverstone FTZ01 manual does specify to mount the motherboard first. I guess I was just too excited to be finally building a few weeks ago that I just had to do something.

PSU and HDD now back in place (for the third time) it's time to start thinking about cable management, starting with those AIO hoses. Nothing a pair of zip-ties can't handle.

This is where things really started getting difficult. The cables supplied with the Corsair power supply are very, very stiff. Combine that with the overhang from the 3.5" HDD and getting everything plugged in became an arduous slog of trial and error. The cable are also clearly designed with a traditional tower layout in mind; there's no way you could have two 2.5" HDD's, a 3.5" HDD and an optical drive powered with just the supplied SATA power cable. Although it has enough ports it simply wouldn't route correctly. I'll be purchasing some extension cables for future updates to make this a little easier to handle. I'd also recommend that if you're going to be using a 3.5" drive in a case like this then plug the cables into the PSU first.

After finally getting the motherboard fully powered I got the fans hooked up. The 15mm thick Prolimatech fan is a required item if you want to use an AIO in this case. It's a squeeze with a fan that thin so a full 25mm is out of the question. Thankfully Silverstone provided pass through screws to mount 15mm fans to radiators as a the Y-splitter which let me plug both GPU bay fans into the one spare header on the motherboard. The only problem I really had was that the Antec Kuhler supplies power to its radiator fan through a 3-Pin female plug. A quick hacksaw job to remove one edge of the plug and the PWM Prolimatech fan plugged straight in. Even better was that I could route the cables in the fan frame behind the mounting screws ensuring the cables followed the hoses back to the motherboard.

Mounting the GPU and SSD onto the GPU bracket was extremely easy.

Working out where to run the power cables was not however. I ended up remounting the GPU three times with different cable routing before resigning them to simply run between the GPU and case fans. I really hope Corsair offer some softer, more pliable Type-4 cables in future.

It was late by this point. It'd passed midnight and I was keen to get the build rounded off. In my haste I grabbed the orange and red SATA cables from my old build instead of the nice new black ones Gigabyte had provided and got that storage drives hooked up. With the radiator mounted on the lid it was time to see if I had broken anything expensive.

The good news is that it started. Without messing around in the BIOS it gets confused when starting up and requires a bit of intervention to get into Windows, but I did manage to get Fallout 4 running and the improvement was immediately noticeable. Frame rates are solid and I even managed to bump my graphics settings up despite no change in GPU.

I promised my wife I'd make the living room presentable again before heading to bed so I packed up all the odds and ends and put the computer in its proposed new home.

First job for tonight; get into the BIOS and set it up correctly. Then I'll jury rig my current optical drive into the system to install Vista, then the Windows 7 update. From there it'll be a free upgrade to Windows 10 and then a fresh install of Windows 10 itself from my home-made USB.

My next purchase will be a BD drive for the system and some peripherals. After that it'll be a new screen and GPU; maybe a 1TB SSD at some point too, for newer games.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I know this build isn't all that exciting compared to the masterpieces that are presented here, but I've enjoyed documenting the build and look forward to continuing as I upgrade more components.