andrevautour

hey guys my GTX 970 "mini-ITX" version arrived a few days ago DSC05513 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05512 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05519 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05516 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05518 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05517 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05515 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05520 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05532 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr the 970 is not too loud and the performance is good. i left unigine valley running for 24 hours straight and the highest the gpu temperature got was 80c. the fan will get to about 70% on auto speed but bad. I ordered an SSD to replace the faulty crucial m4 (im running on a mechanical hdd drive temporarily) so i will move to that when it arrives. after that the CPU cooler is pretty much the last thing i have in mind. still deciding between a corsair AIO unit and a noctua L12. i will post some benchmarks later on.

Okay I have some more updates. There have been a few changes in my hardware plans due to some consequences. I installed my two drives in the 2.5" spaces in the drive cage. Each of the drives has screws on one side only. DSC05466 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05468 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr The 3.5" slot has rubber grommets that you install the screws through. the cage itself has 2 pegs that slide into rubber grommets when the cage is installed DSC05470 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI motherboard DSC05477 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05480 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05483 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05488 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr IMG_5292 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr Processor 4690K IMG_5293 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr Before I tidied up any of the cables DSC05490 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr I have decided that I may not go for an air cooler. I might use something like a corsair H60. This seems like an ideal solution here because there is a nice 120mm fan mount in the roof the the case. That way there will be more space around the CPU/memory area. I have not decided yet. First startup IMG_5302 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr There are two different BIOS interfaces to pick from. The "classic" gigabyte UEFI bios and the newer Smart Tweak mode. Personall I prefer the color scheme and layout of the classic mode. IMG_5304 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr IMG_5305 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr IMG_5307 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr After it was up and running I cleaned up the cables a bit. DSC05495 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05499 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05500 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05501 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05502 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr I noticed that there is actually screw holes for a 180mm fan as well as 140 and 120. Now that I think of it I think I remember reading that the regular version of the case comes with a silverstone 180mm fan in the top. DSC05503 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr Now here is the first thing that I did not anticipate. I was thinking I would be able to run a full length graphics card, but when I got the PSU and motherboard installed I noticed that the PSU actually blocks the PCI-E slot. This is where getting the silverstone 140mm small form factor PSU would have been good, because then I would have been able to install a full size GPU. Luckily I measured the space between the rear of the case and the PSU and there is almost 7.5 inches, so I ordered a Gigabyte GTX 970 "mini" with only one fan. This also happened to be on sale so that is an added bonus. I imagine this will run hotter and louder than a regular card, but I decided to go with it anyway. DSC05504 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr Unfortunately I did run into another error. The PC will freeze up and eventually blue screen sometimes, and when you start it back up it will not see the startup drive. If you leave it off for a bit and start it again it will see the drive again, but this does happen again eventually. It seems to be that this looks like a faulty SSD. The drive that is in there is an older crucial m4 that has been sitting around for a few years, so I guess it is not too unbelievable that it is faulty. So I'm looking to get another SSD. I am looking at the Intel 535 and Samsung 850 pro (these are also on sale at NCIX right now). Overall I am really pleased how it turned out. IMG_5328 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05506 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr DSC05507 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr I have had it running and I installed some benchmarks and stuff on it. I haven't done too much graphics related since it is just intel graphics at the moment, but I have ordered the GTX 970 and it should be here Tuesday or Wednesday, so I will have another update at that point.

I starting putting what I have so far into the case today. I am heading out shortly to get the motherboard and CPU. Seasonic G 550 Noctua NF-P12 for the case fan Patriot Intel Extreme memory. I have 16GB of this, but it is in 4GB sticks so only 8GB will fit into this motherboard. This is a spare SSD that I had around from previous builds. I am going to use this for now. I was looking at what I had around for storage drives and I didn't really have much in full size drives, but I found this 750GB 2.5" drive. I'll use this for now and maybe add a larger storage drive later. Here is a look at the case before I started disassembling it This is the panel that holds a slim optical drive. I will not be putting an optical drive in here, so I'm planning to just leave this out and that will free up some space in the top of the case at the front for storing cables. At the top of the case there is a panel that holds a 120mm or 140mm fan. There is a removable (slide out) dust filter here and the entire panel is removable with screws if you will not be using a fan. According to the reviews of the non-LITE version of this case, silverstone has the top fan setup as an intake. The bottom of the case has a full cut out for a 120mm fan (from the PSU) and it is covered by a removable dust filter (this one has screws). If you look there is even a little divider to separate the PSU air intake from the graphics card bottom ventilation. The front of the case has 2X USB3 jacks and HD audio. The HD audio cable is removable if you want to take that out to cut down on cables, but the USB3 cables are not removable. The power button is on the front of the case along with the HDD and power lights, but the reset button is one the rear of the case. Again, the reset button is actually a removable button so you can take that out too if you dont care about it. There is a cable that plugs into the power supply at the front of the case and it is routed along the top frame of the case into a power plug at the rear of the case. My copy of the case has some slight bubbling in the paint on the top front corner, and a bit on the drive bay. At first I thought I would be able to slide the PSU in without removing the PSU mounting bracket, but it is too tight to fit in, so you have to remove the PSU bracket install the PSU then install the bracket. The case has a drive bay that will support 1X 3.5" drive and 2X 2.5" drives. This is also removable with screws and you have to take it out to install drives. My copy of the case had a small dent in the drive cage, it was easy enough to straighten out by hand View from the top This is the hardware that comes with the case PSU bracket I was impressed that the drive cage includes nice large cable mounting points And there are also a couple at the front right where the optical bay panel goes It may even be possible to store some cables up in there and then put the optical bay panel back in to hide them. there is no ventilation mesh at the front of the case at the top, so you won't see the cables either way, but if you wanted to install an optical drive you could do that.

Here's what I have so far for specs. Some of this may get changed later on. I have a Crucial M4 128GB SSD that I will use as an the OS drive. there will be a storage drive too, but I'm not sure what that will be yet. My sister has my 650D build at the moment, but I swapped out my Intel Extreme Masters Patriot memory from there, and I will use that here in this build (it will only be 8GB, though since it was 4X4GB and miniITX boards only have 2 memory slots) If the memory doesn't end up working out with the L12 cooler I may get something more low profile. I like the aesthetics of Mushkin Stealth. For cooling I will use a Noctua L12 as long as everything fits. The memory will be close but Noctua says there is 43mm of memory clearance and the Patriot memory is 41mm so it should be do-able (I used the patriot memory with the NH-D14 on the other build it I think there was a few mm of space between the top of the memory and the cooler fins). I will also check that it does not overhang the PCI-E slot of the motherboard. I tried to install a L12 cooler on a mini-ITX board in the past and it did not work out because it was just slightly too close to the PCI-E slot. It was only by a matter of a few mm, though so if the CPU or PCI-E slot is positioned slightly differently on my motherboard it may work out. If not I will think of some other options. I also have a Noctua NP-P12 case fan that I will use in the ceiling of the case. Update: I looked at motherboard I tried installed the L12 on before (it was a Mini-ITX Motherboard) and there is clearly more space between the CPU socket and the PCI-E slot on the Z79N board so it looks like it should be okay. The memory may actually be a tighter fit. I think I will just do an i5 this time, since this PC will be for gaming only pretty much. Probably the 4690K. Originally I was looking at this ST60F Silverstone. I liked this because it is 140mm instead of 160, which would give a nice bit of extra space in the case, but I ended up going with a Seasonic G-550 instead. I got the G 550 for $99 on NCIX with free shipping. The Silverstone was $106 but it was low stock so they would not offer free shipping. Also, the Seasonic is 80 plus gold and the Silverstone is 80 plus bronze. I was looking at motherboards and I think the Gigabyte Z97N looks nice. I also looked at the MSI Z97I gaming but I don't care for the red on that. Asus Z97I Plus looks good as well. I'm thinking PNY GTX 970 for the graphics card. I like the clean look of the cooler and I think a blower design with rear exhaust will be good for a small case. I ordered the PSU on monday and it will be here tomorrow. After that I just need motherboard, CPU, graphics card, which I will get soon. I know what I like aesthetics wise but I am open to suggestions about any of the hardware that I've mentioned. Feel free to let me know what you think!

Hey guys, Hope everyone is doing well. Some of you may remember my last build in a Corsair 650D. I've been out of the PC scene for awhile but I am back now with a new build. Even back when I had the Corsair 650D build I found something very intriguing and appealing about cube cases and the concept of building a very small PC with a lot of power. I had seen some reviews on the Silverstone SG08 a couple years ago and I really liked the look of the case back then. So I figured it was time to go ahead and pick one up and start a new PC build based around the SG08 case (I got the SG08 LITE) The hardware will be a mix of some components I have left over from previous projects, but all the stuff that "counts" will be new. Stay tuned for a complete list of hardware coming soon. Here are some pictures of the case, which I got a few days ago. These are just pictures of the front of the case for now, but I will take more in depth pictures of the case shortly. Some of the hardware I have ordered already/will order soon and some I already have. I will have more in depth pictures everything in the next few weeks!

Love green and black. Looks great!

Love this. The cube case looks so good. I don't think I've seen a build with that case before. The LEDs on the fans looks really nice. Very clean.

Neat idea. I don't think I've ever seen this before! Good log

Great log! I love the work shop. Fan looks amazing

I found this at my dad's work recently. It's nothing special, not buckling spring or anything, but I thought it looked neat. I took it home and added it to the collection.

Fantastic work.

Nice images. I like the box on the new intel cpus. Your room looks great!

Waiting for more pictures

Here is some of the stuff I used for cable management. I got these at the local Lowes. Any home improvement store should have similar stuff.

Assorted pictures

Thanks everyone. Here is a recently picture

This is more for my laptop but it is good and I would recommend it. http://youtu.be/oSohXZVFCjc

I like the case of that old system. I'm a fan of short, deep cases. Specs look great for the new system.

Such clean cables! Very nice.

Here are a few new pictures of the LaCie Minimus 3TB drive, which I like a lot so far.

I like the look of those Alienware cases a lot and I love the look of Palit jetstream cards. nice build.

Here is a video I made today showing the replacement parts for Corsair.

it's tight getting it in but when it's seated it's fine. thanks!