MiniValidus - Work Log

[deegee]

Hi guys,

After recently selling my very liquid cooled R4 (thread here) I am moving onto the next project.

It wont be too crazy but with some light modding work for a bit of individuality. It has a bit of a troubled personality this PC, I did want to go silly, Titan Z's were $1600 which was very tempting but while i'll use it for gaming initially (while I prep for a X99 build) really it will be used as a tidy little desktop in a common area of the house, so it has to be built accordingly.

So with the intro out of the way on with the build, a heap of parts have been ordered so I should have some updates come in over the next couple of weeks.

Firstly the case.

I was stoked I managed to get hold of a NCASE M1 v2, here are some pictures as I unboxed it.

Unboxed, Box and case side-by-side.

And the case unboxed with goodies. A heap of mounting gear, 4 fan filters, fan grills and ATX PSU adapter place

Front profile.

Side profile

Rear - The 3 PCI slots means I could have potentially fit a Titan Z in here, for a week or so I was considering it as well!

The panels have the lovely push pin lock mechs that I really like

Side panels, front panel, roof panel and front panel stripped down, so naked!

Roof panel

Front panel

NCASE

NCASE V2.0 - V3.0 is coming out any day now, its has some very minor changes but if you're interested, keep an eye out on ncases.com for pre-orders.

Rear IO/PCI and tubing holes

And the most significant thing about this case its its teeny tiny size. Its literally a shoebox... (iPhone 5C for comparison, I didn't have any bananas handy at the time)

Finally my super ghetto setup, couple of lights and 2x pieces of paper.

 

[The_Governour]

Wow this is a very interesting case, what are the dimensions? Is that top space enough for a 240 radiator?

* did not see how small it really is, I guess you could only fit a Noctua NH-U9B SE2 or something similar or is there any possibilty that you could fit any AIO? Even the GPU would be air starved.

 

[deegee]

Wow this is a very interesting case, what are the dimensions? Is that top space enough for a 240 radiator?

Its super small, dimensions are 240 x 160 x 328mm.

The roof doesn't have space for a 240 (because of PSU) but you can fit one on the left hand side, and people have ghetto'd radiators into the bottom of the case.

Couldn't find a clean pic so heres a render, but its been done a lot.

 

[The_Governour]

but then u need a short power supply to make it fit well. Interesting case - how much?

 

[deegee]

but then u need a short power supply to make it fit well. Interesting case - how much?

Yea well, from the pictures you can see it mounts facing down. A SFX PSU will give you the most room but it can take a full ATX PSU which incurs other limitations such as short GPUs but with the new ITX GTX970... Not bad.

Cost is not cheap as they don't have a large production run (they are being tooled by Lian Li if you were interested) but they'll run you $235USD delivered from memory.

 

[RadeonHDx]

That's a really pretty case, I'm excited to see what you do with it . From your last build, I can tell this is gonna be a stellar job, no corners cut, how it should be done .

 

[deegee]

That's a really pretty case, I'm excited to see what you do with it . From your last build, I can tell this is gonna be a stellar job, no corners cut, how it should be done .

Thanks for the compliments!

I have lots of ideas and if I had the budget it would certainly be a very powerful little machine! However I need to keep in mind its purpose which is basically to be a tidy PC in a common area so most likely no custom loop, however I think I can do some other nice mods to get it to stand out from the crowd.

Thanks for the comments so far.

 

[deegee]

Hey guys so just a little update and some more pictures.

GPU arrived! A mate of mine was on his way back from USA so I managed to get him to wrangle this into his luggage so I didn't have to pay shipping. $579 USD instead of $860 AUD, it's crazy some of our prices...

CPU, mem and SSD should also arrive any day now.

here's a quick look at the GPU, An Asus Strix GTX980. Apparently there are some issues around getting the Strix GTX970 into the NCASE but the GTX980 is a bit thinner in the right places.

The Box!

Open says me!

I really hate the 'eyes' that they put on the fans but nothing that cant be fixed.

Included backplate *cough* EVGA *cough*

The correct display output config

Black PCB, Tick! I was thinking how nice this would look if they did the same black nickel plating that BeQuiet! do on some of they heatsinks

Really looking forward to starting this build over the Christmas break and seeing what it can do on air, then it will get a teardown and mods and then we will can see what it will do when its running a bit.. cooooooler...

Thanks for stopping by!
DeeG

 

[deegee]

Hi everyone, so pretty much all the core components are in!

Sit back, here's a few photos for you!

So the CPU, an Intel 4790k, Vietnam made. I will be benching this, then delidding and lapping the CPU and then retesting. I'm looking forward to these results.
If you've seen 1 CPU box, you've pretty much seen em all.

Next the motherboard! Its an Asus Z97i-Plus. I kinda wish they did a Pro/Deluxe like what they did with the Z87 series with the big power delivery but really, I guess it doesn't matter. (I could have got a Z87 but that colour scheme, Yuk!)

Unboxed goodies! I know people have put the wireless antenna on the back panel in the NCASE but i'll probably go with external antennas when required.

Decent looking board, the little colour is much better than the VERY Yellow/Gold of the Z87

Pretty standard IO, PS2 port is nice to see on an mITX board.

Asus

Power Delivery

16gb 1866mhz Dominator Platinums, so unnecessary, really when you think how closed in the PC will be but, I got them really cheap from the US compared to Australia and just knowing they are in there, damn they look good.

Hello my pretties

Will get the light bars for these as well next time I visit the store.

Storage will be a 512gb Crucial M550 M.2 Disk. This is still a Sata 6 disk so it wont be the fastest disk ever but it will be plenty fast enough. Really I went M.2 so I can mount it to the underside of the motherboard, perhaps inconvenient placement but very space saving and, no sata power/data cabling!

Nice and small

Finally for this post is the PSU, a Silverstone SX600-G. It isn't getting the best reputation at the moment with some noise on start up, hopefully I am lucky and don't have the issue, If I do i'll hack in a workaround.

Unboxed

Fan almost looks like a mini Gentle Typhoon

Mod-u-laaaaaaar

Silverstone

So its the height of an iPhone 5C

The width of an iPhone 5C

and about 1 3/4 in the length of an iPhone 5C

That's probably enough for now, I have the mouse and keyboard left, I am waiting to see what the pricing will be on the Dell U3415

Thanks for stopping by

 

[deegee]

So I had this custom test bench made up a while ago but I never had the opportunity to use it until now, I'm a sucker for low volume/unpopular items so This test bench is 1 of 2 made out of Delrin/Acetel.

Just some pictures of the Test Bench This is just the raw cut Delrin, it will get a coat of plastidip shortly.

And all the parts ready to go together

The building is near!

 

[Mullet]

Can't wait to see updates on this mate. I have a Fractal Design build in the works (Node 304) so seeing your component choices is helping me re components for my m-itx rig. Keep the updates coming thick and fast!!

 

[deegee]

Can't wait to see updates on this mate. I have a Fractal Design build in the works (Node 304) so seeing your component choices is helping me re components for my m-itx rig. Keep the updates coming thick and fast!!

Will do my best!

It's been a lot slower than I would have like because I ordered a bit of stuff from USA -> Australia. And also we are selling our house so EVERYTHING was packed away, and now its been sold so we are getting ready to move. I could just build it no problems but I want to timelapse and photograph it as I go, plus delid and lap the CPU so it may not happen until we are in the new house.

 

[deegee]

So its all together, I did a time lapse as I built it on the test bench, no DOA's (yay)



Also just knocked in a quick OC on the 980 Strix, gotta say, i'm impressed.

Both my GTX670 and 780Ti had coil whine like a bitch, this card is SO QUIET and its on an open test bench right next to me.

I'll probably leave it here for now +200 on the core no over voltage, 125% TDP, will experiment more once its on water.

Now for OCing the 4790k, temp testing, then delidding and lapping and retesting.

 

[deegee]

Looks like i've been really lucky with this build.

Starting to dial in the OC and the CPU seems to be a winner! 5ghz @ 1.285v

http://valid.canardpc.com/tkueis

 

[Agamemnon]

That cpu is crazy, my 4820k needs 1.27 volts just to get 4.5 ghz stable

 

[deegee]

That cpu is crazy, my 4820k needs 1.27 volts just to get 4.5 ghz stable

Yes I think ive been very lucky, after some testing i'll likely be closer to the 1.3vcore to be stable through everything using adaptive but thats OK.

 

[Agamemnon]

Yes I think ive been very lucky, after some testing i'll likely be closer to the 1.3vcore to be stable through everything using adaptive but thats OK.

1.3 might get me 4.6 maybe 4.7 at a push

 

[wassupdoc]

Subbed

 

[deegee]

Hello all,

apologies for such a delay but i'm happy to announce some progress!

Now lets kick things into high gear and stop dragging this build out eh?

I had some time on the weekend so decided to delid and lap the 4790k. Its 'risky' business but after delidding my 3770k I couldn't not do the 4790k

What is delidding? Well its where you separate the metal plate called an IHS(integrated heat spreader) on top of the CPU and replace the thermal compound between the CPU die on the CPU and the IHS.

What is lapping? It is where you take the IHS and sand it perfectly flat to maximize metal to metal contact between the IHS and the CPU cooler.

So with that out of the way I used the 'vice only' method, the CPU PCB on one jaw of the vice and the IHS on the other jaw, slowly slowly and off it came (took a video) Sorry no photos.

I used the corner of some plastic packaging and TIM remover and wiped the PCB clean of glue.

Next, we tackle it with some Wet/Dry sandpaper, I tape it down to a piece of glass as that gives me an extremely flat surface.

600grit, you can see that the outer edge is the highspot on this CPU's IHS.

Next onto 800grit, farewell any CPU markings.

It also picked up a very low sheen already

Next onto 1200grit

Can almost make it out

Finally 1500grit and its looking smexy, you could go to 2000grit for a high polish but I stopped here.

BLING!

Was it worth it? Well it wasn't as good as what I got out of the 3770k but, the 3770k was a very bad temp chip and this 4790k has been pretty good.

Strangely my idle temps are higher now, but load temps average nearly 12degrees cooler!

Thanks for stopping by again! Apparently I have some gifts in the mail so I'll be sure to update when they arrive but next weekend, we have some painting to do

 

[deegee]

So a small update I guess. I'm waiting on a bunch of stuff to show up but basically once I get some cabling stuff arrive this build will start to move into the NCASE and I can start measuring for watercooling and some custom case work.

Today I decided to paint a couple of heatsinks to match the build.

The removed heatsinks.

And fast forward and the chipset heatsink is black and the power delivery now white Much better.

Another small update is I finally installed the lightbar kits into the Dominator Platinums, because they weren't sexy enough!

Mmmm

Some kit

4x screws and its off

Aaaaaaaaaand installed

And yes, still on the test bench....