andrevautour

I went in and flipped the power supply over. 
 
Now the "platinum" graphic is showing on the side instead of the tech info 
 

 
 
This also takes care of the modular connections being so close to the fan that you cannot even plug them in or take them out without unscrewing the power supply 
 

 
 
And the Seasonic is right side up at the back now (not a big deal of course but just a note)
 
 
 
And here are a couple more shots I took as I was taking the side panel off to do this. 
 

 
 
I also took the sticker off the side of the hard drive (this picture was before I did that) 
 

 
 
I have not looked into putting a little shield on the sides of the power LED so it doesn't leak out of the case but I will do that soon.
 
Thanks for the feedback, John!

My case came in on Monday, which was early because it was estimated to be Tues or Wed. And my plans on Monday were postponed so I was able to go home that evening and put the system together.
 
First some pictures of the case.
 
The front of the case does have a very nice clean look. It does have two optical bays, but the bay covers are also made of real aluminum that matches well.  The entire front panel is made from a high quality solid piece of aluminum, as is the rest of the case. 
 

 
 
Around the side of the case is more handsome aluminum. Very minimal and clean looking. The intakes for the front fan are very nicely machined.
 

 
 
The right side of the case has the USB and audio ports.  These are attached to the inside front of the case (not the part of the front that comes off) which is good, and the ports are screwed in securely so it does not flex or feel flimsy when you plug things into it.
 

 
 
The front panel snaps off to reveal the front intake fans. They have their own filters and as you can see the fan intake area is completed open.  I remember back in the old days people would take a dremel and cut out the fan mesh area in the case for extra air flow, so it is nice to see this done from the factory here.
 

 
Around the back you can see a nice simple layout that I think is appealing. The inside is not painted which I actually like in this case for a sleeper PC.  The PSU is mounted either at the top to allow for CPU cooler up to 145mm, or it can be mounted at the middle and that allows for a 240mm AIO water loop.   There is a nice mesh plate that will cover whichever slot you do not use for the PSU, as well as some nice quality vented PCI slot covers. 
 

 
 
At the top the nice aluminum finishing continues. the stock configuration comes with one fan installed and one of the fan holes blocked off with a nice plate that matches the finish of the case, just like the optical bay covers.  The only thing is that they do not include a second mesh cover incase you do want to mount a rad, or a second cover incase you want to block off both fan mounts...
 

 
 
The bottom of the case includes another optional fan mounting point, this one does not come with a fan, but it does come with a nice fine filter just like the front ones to decrease dust making its way in through the bottom passively. 
 

 
Inside at the front there are 5 very high quality HDD/SSD mounting trays that are made of aluminum just like everything else in the case, and all of them can be individually removed with thumb screws. I was wondering how sturdy they would feel since they are only attached at the back and they are all individual not part of a cage with multiple drives, but they are very strong when installed.
 

 
 
One of the only aspects of the design that I don't really like is the way the top fan is positioned.  The maximum PSU length (if you have a top fan installed is 160mm, which is fine because that is how long my PSU is, but the fan is very close to the PSU to the point where if it is a modular PSU you may have to plug in any cables you need in the top row of cables on the PSU before you put the PSU in because its so close to the fan. If you had a non modular PSU then it would be fine.  The is basically because of the space allocated to the optical bays, which I don't plan on using and dont need. But I understand if they are going to include optical bays they needed to have space for them.  
 
DSC00754 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
As soon as I put the MB in with the fan on the top of the NH-C14s I realized that it was not going to work with the fan in the top position on the heatsink.  The specs list max cooler height as 145mm.  the C14s is 115mm without the fan so add 25mm with the fan on the top and that comes out to 140mm. It looked like the fan was exactly flush with where to side panel would be, so I had to install the fan on the under side of the heatsink. 
 

 

 
 
I did not get many shots of the individual hardware when I was putting it into the temporary case, so here are a few pictures.
 
When I was picking out memory it was between the Kingston HyperX and Corsair VLP. I liked the look of the heatsink on the Kingston better so I went with that.  The Corsair was available in 3200MHz for about the same price as the Kingston at 2666MHz, but I am not too worried about that because I dont think memory speed is very important.
 
 

 
The ASRock motherboard has been good so far and I think it is very nice looking. Mostly black with some copper colored heatsinks that work well with the Noctua colors. the chipset heatsink is a bit plain looking but that is okay.
 

 
Interesting to see power supplies are now positioning the graphics on the side and the back for fan up mounting, which is something I have been a fan of when the power supply is in the bottom of the case, but in this case it will be in the top so it doesn't matter.  I have it fan facing down in the top of the case and the seasonic logo on the back is upside down
 

 
 
The back of the case is well laid out for something that is fairly small. There is only one rubber grommet for cables, but as you can see if you remove some of the HDD trays that will open up additional openings that you can use to pass cables through.  I didn't go too crazy with the cables at the back this time, but there aren't that many cables overall so it's not too wild back here. There is a good amount of space behind the motherboard I would say at least a full inch if not more.  There is a nice large opening for heatsink backplates and a large passthrough for the 8pin power cable for the motherboard. There is not any cable tie down points, but I just added a single stick on tie down point for the MB power cable just to keep it in place.  The side panel went on easily with no resistance and no forcing cables down at all.  
 

 
 
 
 
Here it is the inside chamber. I'm really happy with how it turned out. everything looks pretty clean and I like it a lot.
 

 
 
The power LED does shine through the optical bay covers and the side air intakes a bit, but not a big deal. It is also a very bright LED so at night when it is sleeping and the power LED is flashing it lights up the room. ASRock has a feature called goodnight mode that turns off the power LED when the computer is sleeping so that takes care of that minor problem.
 

 
With all the doors on it is nice and clean and it is quiet even with the stock fans. I might replace those with noctua fans later on but the stock fans are pretty good.
 

love the window in the top/front. makes me slightly regret my descision to not get a lian li pc 08

Here are some temperatures (case closed) 
 
After 30 minutes of OCCT 

 
30 minutes of CPU and GPU folding

I havent looked through this entire thread yet but I like this idea!! lots of pictures are always good.  
 
Also what keyboard is that!   

I went in and flipped the power supply over. 
 
Now the "platinum" graphic is showing on the side instead of the tech info 
 

 
 
This also takes care of the modular connections being so close to the fan that you cannot even plug them in or take them out without unscrewing the power supply 
 

 
 
And the Seasonic is right side up at the back now (not a big deal of course but just a note)
 
 
 
And here are a couple more shots I took as I was taking the side panel off to do this. 
 

 
 
I also took the sticker off the side of the hard drive (this picture was before I did that) 
 

 
 
I have not looked into putting a little shield on the sides of the power LED so it doesn't leak out of the case but I will do that soon.
 
Thanks for the feedback, John!

My case came in on Monday, which was early because it was estimated to be Tues or Wed. And my plans on Monday were postponed so I was able to go home that evening and put the system together.
 
First some pictures of the case.
 
The front of the case does have a very nice clean look. It does have two optical bays, but the bay covers are also made of real aluminum that matches well.  The entire front panel is made from a high quality solid piece of aluminum, as is the rest of the case. 
 

 
 
Around the side of the case is more handsome aluminum. Very minimal and clean looking. The intakes for the front fan are very nicely machined.
 

 
 
The right side of the case has the USB and audio ports.  These are attached to the inside front of the case (not the part of the front that comes off) which is good, and the ports are screwed in securely so it does not flex or feel flimsy when you plug things into it.
 

 
 
The front panel snaps off to reveal the front intake fans. They have their own filters and as you can see the fan intake area is completed open.  I remember back in the old days people would take a dremel and cut out the fan mesh area in the case for extra air flow, so it is nice to see this done from the factory here.
 

 
Around the back you can see a nice simple layout that I think is appealing. The inside is not painted which I actually like in this case for a sleeper PC.  The PSU is mounted either at the top to allow for CPU cooler up to 145mm, or it can be mounted at the middle and that allows for a 240mm AIO water loop.   There is a nice mesh plate that will cover whichever slot you do not use for the PSU, as well as some nice quality vented PCI slot covers. 
 

 
 
At the top the nice aluminum finishing continues. the stock configuration comes with one fan installed and one of the fan holes blocked off with a nice plate that matches the finish of the case, just like the optical bay covers.  The only thing is that they do not include a second mesh cover incase you do want to mount a rad, or a second cover incase you want to block off both fan mounts...
 

 
 
The bottom of the case includes another optional fan mounting point, this one does not come with a fan, but it does come with a nice fine filter just like the front ones to decrease dust making its way in through the bottom passively. 
 

 
Inside at the front there are 5 very high quality HDD/SSD mounting trays that are made of aluminum just like everything else in the case, and all of them can be individually removed with thumb screws. I was wondering how sturdy they would feel since they are only attached at the back and they are all individual not part of a cage with multiple drives, but they are very strong when installed.
 

 
 
One of the only aspects of the design that I don't really like is the way the top fan is positioned.  The maximum PSU length (if you have a top fan installed is 160mm, which is fine because that is how long my PSU is, but the fan is very close to the PSU to the point where if it is a modular PSU you may have to plug in any cables you need in the top row of cables on the PSU before you put the PSU in because its so close to the fan. If you had a non modular PSU then it would be fine.  The is basically because of the space allocated to the optical bays, which I don't plan on using and dont need. But I understand if they are going to include optical bays they needed to have space for them.  
 
DSC00754 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
As soon as I put the MB in with the fan on the top of the NH-C14s I realized that it was not going to work with the fan in the top position on the heatsink.  The specs list max cooler height as 145mm.  the C14s is 115mm without the fan so add 25mm with the fan on the top and that comes out to 140mm. It looked like the fan was exactly flush with where to side panel would be, so I had to install the fan on the under side of the heatsink. 
 

 

 
 
I did not get many shots of the individual hardware when I was putting it into the temporary case, so here are a few pictures.
 
When I was picking out memory it was between the Kingston HyperX and Corsair VLP. I liked the look of the heatsink on the Kingston better so I went with that.  The Corsair was available in 3200MHz for about the same price as the Kingston at 2666MHz, but I am not too worried about that because I dont think memory speed is very important.
 
 

 
The ASRock motherboard has been good so far and I think it is very nice looking. Mostly black with some copper colored heatsinks that work well with the Noctua colors. the chipset heatsink is a bit plain looking but that is okay.
 

 
Interesting to see power supplies are now positioning the graphics on the side and the back for fan up mounting, which is something I have been a fan of when the power supply is in the bottom of the case, but in this case it will be in the top so it doesn't matter.  I have it fan facing down in the top of the case and the seasonic logo on the back is upside down
 

 
 
The back of the case is well laid out for something that is fairly small. There is only one rubber grommet for cables, but as you can see if you remove some of the HDD trays that will open up additional openings that you can use to pass cables through.  I didn't go too crazy with the cables at the back this time, but there aren't that many cables overall so it's not too wild back here. There is a good amount of space behind the motherboard I would say at least a full inch if not more.  There is a nice large opening for heatsink backplates and a large passthrough for the 8pin power cable for the motherboard. There is not any cable tie down points, but I just added a single stick on tie down point for the MB power cable just to keep it in place.  The side panel went on easily with no resistance and no forcing cables down at all.  
 

 
 
 
 
Here it is the inside chamber. I'm really happy with how it turned out. everything looks pretty clean and I like it a lot.
 

 
 
The power LED does shine through the optical bay covers and the side air intakes a bit, but not a big deal. It is also a very bright LED so at night when it is sleeping and the power LED is flashing it lights up the room. ASRock has a feature called goodnight mode that turns off the power LED when the computer is sleeping so that takes care of that minor problem.
 

 
With all the doors on it is nice and clean and it is quiet even with the stock fans. I might replace those with noctua fans later on but the stock fans are pretty good.
 

true, the airflow in the case should be pretty good. i have had internal exhaust style GPUs in the past and the overall temps have always been fine, but i just figured it won't hurt to have the GPU exhaust out the back. if anything it should help keep case temp lower and maybe the case fans and cpu can fan all run slower.  I'm sure either style would have been fine, though. the 1070 is not any louder than any of the cards i have had in the past though. it is quieter than my last card that i had in my cube (the mini itx size 970) 

hey guys
 
i got all of my hardware on thursday, except for the case which will not be here till next week because its shipping from the US.
 
but i thew it together in an old case i had in the basement just so i could set everything up and start using it right away.
 
here are some photos, nothing special, i will have more photos when i start building in the actual case!
 
of course i had to take a picture of all the boxes 
 

 
 
i did not get to take glamor shots of all the hardware (i will do this when i build it in the real case later) but i did get a shot of the motherboard, which i think is very attractive. the copper heatsinks look very nice in real life.
 

 
 
the graphics card has a nice subtle aesthetic to it and i think the glowing asus logo is a nice touch. although you can see the LEDS glowing between the PCB and the cooler shroud 
 

 
 
as always the noctua NH-C14s cooler is extremely quiet and performs impressively well (more details on this later)
 

 
 
here it is setup in a stripped down case from the 1990s, a taste of whats to come
 

 

 
 

hey guys
 
i got all of my hardware on thursday, except for the case which will not be here till next week because its shipping from the US.
 
but i thew it together in an old case i had in the basement just so i could set everything up and start using it right away.
 
here are some photos, nothing special, i will have more photos when i start building in the actual case!
 
of course i had to take a picture of all the boxes 
 

 
 
i did not get to take glamor shots of all the hardware (i will do this when i build it in the real case later) but i did get a shot of the motherboard, which i think is very attractive. the copper heatsinks look very nice in real life.
 

 
 
the graphics card has a nice subtle aesthetic to it and i think the glowing asus logo is a nice touch. although you can see the LEDS glowing between the PCB and the cooler shroud 
 

 
 
as always the noctua NH-C14s cooler is extremely quiet and performs impressively well (more details on this later)
 

 
 
here it is setup in a stripped down case from the 1990s, a taste of whats to come
 

 

 
 

After more consideration of various moderation small cases I am now leaning more towards the PC-A41.
 
Pros
It is very basic looking (which is exactly what I want) but still seems to be well built from nice aluminum.
It checks all the boxes I'm looking for in terms of layout and cooling compatibility. All the HDD tays are removable with thumb screws, so I can remove the ones I'm not using for better airflow. It has 2X 140mm fans at the front 1X 120mm top and 1X at he bottom that is optional. the CPU mount is not blocked by the PSU, so I can install a good cooler (up to 145mm)   and it's not completely riveted together (roof is removable with screws, and the HDD trays aren't riveted like the M25, font panel also removable)
It also has some space behind the MB so I can do some better cable management vs the M25 which has no space behind MB.
And it is cheaper than the M25.
 
Cons
It is not as sleek looking as the M25 from the outside since it is not one continuous piece of aluminum on the top/font/bottom like the M25.
It has 2X optical bays which I do not want or need.
 
But it seems like the pros outweigh the cons here. 
 
 
I can install a Micro or Mini ATX board in this, so I figured I might as well go Micro and get those extra memory slots and PCI slots. 
 
I am considering 
ASRock Z170M Extreme4
GIGABYTE Z170MX-Gaming 5
 
They are both similar in price but I am leaning towards the ASRock because I have never been a fan of "gaming" branding, or the red color scheme of the Gigabyte. Not that it matters much since there are no windows.
 
I have also decided that a blower style GPU would be best since it will further help with the cooling. So I am looking at the ASUS GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Turbo Edition since it is well priced right now and the cooler is nice and minimal looking. 
 
For the CPU cooler I'm thinking about the Noctua NH-C14S this time. I used the NH-L12 in my last build and it was impressive with my i5, but since I have the space this time for something larger and I'm doing an i7 I feel it makes sense to go with the NH-C14S.
 
 
I am confident that with the Noctua cooler, blower style GPU and available case fan options in this case I will be able to produce a system that is very quiet, relatively cool, in addition to being very plain looking from the outside.

Looking forward to this. Have u considered this for grahics? http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=08G-P4-6278-KR

Oy, Andre, you're still alive! Long time no see.
 
I'm quite liking the A41 to be honest. Can't say much on the rest of the hardware though, I haven't really been keeping up (still rocking my LGA1366 Xeons  ).

People complain more than they praise. For every person who got a doa board, there were countless others that got perfectly working boards. I haven't noticed any higher of a failure rate on lga 1151 boards. I wouldn't worry about it. 

Hi guys!
 
I must say even though I use macs on a daily basis and I like mac OS etc. every so often I still get this strong desire to play around with hardware.  
 
I quite like the A41 too! I hope I do because I just ordered one! something about a very plain looking case with powerful hardware inside is appealing to me right now. I don't need a ton of LEDs and flashy stuff.
 
John, I'm sure that hybrid card is good but I have never really liked AIO loops that much -- You know me and my air cooling  Plus the Asus blower card is on sale right now and the reviews say that it is actually pretty quiet to I'm not too worried about it.
 
I don't have any pictures of the hardware yet but here's a couple of my desk including my fairly new dell 4K display. I know that shelf behind is kind of ugly but its also kind of rugged and its useful for putting computers and parts on so my entire desk is more clear. 
 

 

love it. i think the silver interior actually suits this.

Sounds really good! hopefully we will see a thread about this soon! 
 
I'm planning on posting some benchmark screenshots from this build soon. I have also been doing some folding with this system for the Linus folding team.  And I'm sure I will do a video on the case and the system soon as well. 

thanks guys
 
 
i think there was a little too much thermal paste on there the first time. when i added the 92mm fan i cleaned the cpu and the base of the cooler then reapplied a smaller drop of paste.  not sure what makes the most difference the new paste or the 92mm but the 92mm does blow directly onto the CPU base area so it makes sense that it helps.  it's not too loud, either. if you leave the fans on PWM they are practically silent most of the time. the curve for speeding them up as the temps go up is pretty mild. even with both fans at 100% its not bad.
 
what kind of a case are you using for the new build? the be quiet looks nice. reminds of of a mix of the C12 and C14. cryorig looks good too. and you can't really go wrong with noctua. 

i was curious myself how the L12 would perform with the 92mm fan installed, so i went and added the fan. i had to remove to L12 to get the 92mm fan on since there was not enough space to get it on when it was installed, so I reapplied thermal paste while i had it off.  here is OCCT temps at stock CPU settings with 1 fan and with both fans.
 
stock settings 1fan by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
stock settings 2fan by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
i think it looks alright with the 92mm installed. the Y splitter fan cable does add extra length/bulk to the fan cables though Untitled by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

hey, thanks! i was just wondering how it would be with the bottom fan. i will probably put it in to see how much difference it makes. 970 temps are okay. it usually is around 75-80 during gameplay. it will get to 85 if you run fur mark.
 
update: temps for GPU are more like 70c in game now with the new CPU cooler 

My Noctua NH-L112 arrived! here's some pictures from the installation process.
 
 
Out of the box it comes with the 92mm and 120mm already installed. I decided to try it with just the 120mm first and see how the performance was, because I dont really want the 92mm.
 
DSC05600 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05605 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05606 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05601 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
Hardware 
 
DSC05608 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
I disconnected the motherboard connects and kind of left all the stuff in it's place if possible. in the SG08 there is not a lot of space between the edge of the motherboard and the PSU mounting plate/HDD bay so I had to move some cables in order to get the MB out.
 
DSC05621 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
Noctua gives you a kit to install the cooler without the backplate, for miniITX MBs that don't support backplates, but i was able to install the normal Noctua backplate on this board. 
 
DSC05623 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
here it is setup for the way I was orignally planning on setting up the cooler, but as you will see that way did not really work out 
 
DSC05622 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
here is how much memory clearance there is.  the memory shown here is patriot viper 3 and that is 41mm tall. Noctua says you have 43mm of memory clearance with this. I see about 5-6mm between the top of the memory heatsink and the fins of the cooler.
 
DSC05624 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
if you install it this way you will get the most amount of space between the GPU and the cooler. 
 
DSC05627 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
but it also overhangs over the edge of the motherboard on the memory side. this is what caused an issue for me because this part of the cooler was too close to the PSU. 
 
DSC05629 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
here is my cables for the front panel buttons/LEDs. on the SG08 the reset switch is on the back, so if you want to connect that you will either have to find a nice way to route it, it just have an extra cable coming from the back. 
 
DSC05634 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
this is the way I ended up installing it. with the ends of the heatpipes facing down at the GPU. there is less space between the GPU and the cooler this way, but overall there is a more even amount of space on all sides of the cooler in the SG08.
 
DSC05635 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
DSC05636 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
this is what i originally did with the restart cable from the back. i just routed it straight down the back of the GPU and then under the motherboard. for some reason I was thinking this might be too hot, so i changed it to routing along the bottom of the GPU instead of the top. 
 
DSC05640 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
 
 
So, here it is - a view from the top with the top fan removed.
 
DSC05638 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
Here you can see the restart cable at the back
 
DSC05649 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05644 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05643 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05651 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05650 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05642 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05616 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05617 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05615 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
 
DSC05613 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

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. 

thanks, guys.
I know what you mean with AIOs and small paces. I was just thinking about the the noctua l12 because it provides airflow to the motherboard, and the AIO does not.
also i have always had good experiences with noctua quality and I've seen a few AIOs with annoying pump noises.

Great log