Elite 110: ITX CUBE

[mapegl]

UPDATE2: scroll down for newly updated post and the revival of the Elite 110

 

 

UPDATE1: I unfortunately got my GPU to throttle due to high load temps in BF4......I really don't know why,  but all other games ran failry well, this one is just crap and now I have to find a solution......crap.

 

 

 

 

Hi there dear community.

 

I have posted all my different configurations in more or less depth on this forum and while the last build I made was rather unexciting, I feel like the upcoming one is a little more interesting and might be an inspiration for others trying to go the very small route with an AMD GPU that is not the Nano. ;-)

It involves some minor modding, but nothing too crazy and it mostly to prove a point to myself and make my system portable since I am basically the only one left from my old PC Gaming group who still has a PC. That means I take that thing to other people's houses more and more often to game and that means the "big" TJ08e is not practical anymore.

 

Parts I will use:

• Intel i5 6600k
• ASUS Z170i Pro Gaming
• Kingston Hyper X Fury 8GB
• RX 480 Reference
• Samsung 850 and 840 EVOs
• Silverstone SST-ST55F-PT 550W Platinum ATX PSU
• Silverstone PP05-E Short cable kit
• Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B
• Arctic Accelero Mono Plus
• Cooler Master Elite 110 (duh!)

 

GPU:

 

For the most part this should all work, but the GPU needs some minor modding. My idea for that came from the overclockers.net forum, more specifically the user PCIEgate over there.

He/She cut the VRM and VRAM heat-sink to get a fitting VRM heat-sink that can be screwed on and still works with the Arctic cooler.

I will do the same thing, just not with the Accelero Twin Turbo II, but with the Mono Plus.

This is why I decided that I should go with the Elite 110 for and ITX case. I thought I would not be able to mod my RX480 to an ITX card despite its short length, since most ITX cases only support 2-slot cards, at most 2.5-slot cards. The Elite 110 on the other hand basically can hold a 3-slot card, obviously not a regular triple-slot card, since those are then also very long.

Back to what I was getting at: Cutting the heat-sink will make the RX480 only 170mm long and with the Arctic Accelero Mono Plus adds no or only little to the length of the card, making it perfect for the Elite 110.

 

CPU cooler:

I have so far never used an actual low-profile cooler and finally ordered the Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B. The reason for it being that it will most likely let me use my Noctua NF-A15 on it. However I will have to test this since it might interfere with the PCIe slot....not sure yet.

 

Other than this, the build should be pretty straight forward, but I am really looking forward to the challenge of making it look very clean and then tuning it to be quiet and cool enough. Let's see how far I can overclock while keeping noise down. 4Ghz is the magic mark I would like to overclock to, more would be nice though. I have pushed my CPU to 4.5 already, and ran pretty well, however with the small heat-sink it will not be possible I think.

 

Let me know what you think:

Have you built a system this small before?

What would you like to know?
Any last minute suggestions before my stuff arrives Monday?

 

 

...pics will be following soon, but I can basically only show you the case right now...

[mapegl]

preparation steps have been taken. I had to cut the heatsink of my GPU an reattached it and I have to say that it was super easy and I would definitely recommend this mod. However my warranty is now void.....definitely.

Click the spoiler beow to check out my video card preps.

 

Spoiler

some images

 

 

finished the preparations for now. I only added the VRM heatsink. VRAM cooling is not really necessary as I won't be doing any overclocking to the card.

 

[mapegl]

So I finally got my stuff. Not everything went as smooth as I hoped but I will share that along the way:

 

First my GPU. I needed it to be shorter and wanted to increase cooling due to the confined space I was going to put it in. Thus I purchased an Arctic Accelero Mono Plus.

 

This was pretty straight forward and just as I expected it to be, although it was a little longer than I had hoped. Not a problem though.

 

The motherboard an CPU combo was also nothing exceptional and I am sure all of you have seen millions of those pics, so I will jump straight to the CPU cooler and how it didn't work:

 

 

Now this would have been great, but due to the heatsinks shape when a 120mm fan is attached is can sink into the heatsink.....don't know how to explain this any better, but a 140 thus sits a little higher and therefore it did not work.....bummer.

 

So this is how it came together:

 

I just realized I do not yet have a pic with my GPU and I should definitely add that later tonight, because I also modded that stupid Arctic cooler. The fan was ticking and instead of sending it back, I decided to use an "old" NF-F12 from Noctua and strap it on there with zap-straps. Great choice. It runs cooler and quieter.

 

So if you have any questions, I would be happy answer them. Overall the PC runs pretty quiet for its size.

 

CPU is now not overclocked but tops out at about 55°C which is great. GPU runs up to 80°C, but you have to consider that with the reference cooler it would reach 84°C in a more open case with better airflow.

 

All the other components are ok and do not go above 60°C which is also ok for such a small case. The NF-A15 in the front sure does a good job of showing cool fresh air into the chassis.

 

Oh and btw, it is pretty hot here right now, so these temps are even better than they might first appear. We had almost 30°C outside...which was also almost the temp in my room.

 

Very happy with the project....very

 

 

Update 1:

 

I reworked some of the cable management and undervolted my CPU and GPU with very good results. The CPU now runs at 3.9Ghz on all cores with only 1.05Volts, and there might still be more room for improvements here. I am tinkering.

 

However I decided to show the cable management and how I modded the Arctic cooler on my GPU as well.

Here you go:

 

As you can see, I cleaned up the cables right in the airflow path of the NF-A15 so more fresh air can reach the system. The 24-pin is now routed somewhat through the space in the very front of the case and out of the airflow-path.

 

 

 

 

 

Above you can see what I am particularly proud of: The Arctic Accelero Mono Noctua Edition. ;-)

The Arctic fan was ticking and I decided to just take one of my beloved NF-F12s that I have from my previous build and strap it on. That is one of the reasons I chose the Elite 110, because it has so much space next to the GPU that you can do some modding on the GPU cooling. Most ITX cases have no space next to a double-slot card, this is probably more than three slots already.

 

 

 

Just another shot above to show the clear path for the incoming air.

 

And the finished product. Of course with the cables for the SSDs it does not look as clean anymore, but there is no real room for cable management here and I would say it is decent. I still kept everything out of the way of the incoming air and that's the most important part.

 

Now some of you might wonder when this jet engine might take off, because it obviously must be very loud. I decided to add two videos of the machine on idle and under load in DOOM.

Enjoy the silence and decent quietness of those two. ;-)

....oh and the ticking noise is from my camera. It is the auto-focus that has suffered on my last vacation that was two weeks ago. I took it to the beach and there must have gotten some sand into the system.....sad.

There is absolutely no ticking from the PC, just the wooshing noise of fans moving air:

 

Idle noise

Load noise

[Heesleemer]

depending on how the CPU mounting system is, you may have to mess around with the order you install components. I know putting my Dark Rock TF was a pain in my Hadron air. until I cut the back of the motherboard tray... and it's still a pain 

[mapegl]

18 hours ago, Heesleemer said:

depending on how the CPU mounting system is, you may have to mess around with the order you install components. I know putting my Dark Rock TF was a pain in my Hadron air. until I cut the back of the motherboard tray... and it's still a pain 

Thanks for the input. It will definitely be a pain, but I would see it as more of a challenge. I want it clean and pretty inside and I love tinkering with cables and such to get a good result.

I am kinda spoiled by Noctua coolers up till now, so this will be different for sure.

[Heesleemer]

Yeah man, it will be like a jig saw.. really excited to see the mod.

[mapegl]

1 hour ago, Heesleemer said:

Yeah man, it will be like a jig saw.. really excited to see the mod.

first pics are up, in the second post. It is just modding the heatsink for now, but tomorrow I will add the Arctic cooler to the GPU.

[mapegl]

Check out my pics and the soon to be uploaded videos of the noise of my system. It turned out to be pretty quiet.

[Heesleemer]

fantastic! how are the VRM temps on the GPU? i read through the other thread where the other dude had issues. 

[mapegl]

38 minutes ago, Heesleemer said:

fantastic! how are the VRM temps on the GPU? i read through the other thread where the other dude had issues. 

VRMs get up to 109°C. That is absolute worst case scenario though and they are rated for up to 125°C. I am not really worrying about that. I know it is not very low, but with the reference cooler, the temps were also slightly above 100°C. All good.

What temps did the other guy have?

 

BTW: videos of the noise levels are up

[mapegl]

Just as a conclusion for the project....I declared it as "failed" in a way, becuase the GPU had some minor throttling issues. Nothing too bad, but it was due to thermals. 

I switched to a Fractal Define Nano s and the blower cooler. Kinda sad that my project didn't work.....I guess I would have needed an AIO for the GPU to make it work, but I really don't see the point in getting a 200€ card and the using another 60 or more for a cooler....

 

I kept the case though and now I will just try to build a secondary system with used parts from eBay. I was thinking about an APU build....

another thought was replacing the front panel with a small LCD and permanently mount my RaspberryPi in there to make it a tiny SNES station....

[lolxd]

thoose coolers omg

[mapegl]

1 hour ago, lolxd said:

thoose coolers omg

I can still highly recommend what I did there....just with a slightly lower TDP GPU. A GTX 1060 would have been perfect, but unfortunately that's not what I have and also doesn't provide freesync support for my monitor.

[mapegl]

UPDATE: 
I finally made it work. My system has changed quite a bit since the initial build:

Ryzen 5 1600 @ stock

ASROCK B350 Fatality ITX/AC

16GB Corsair LPX DDR4 3200 @ 2933Mhz

EVGA GTX 1060 SC 6GB @ Stock

Samsung 850 EVO m.2 1TB

Silverstone SST-ST55F-PT

Noctua NF-A15 as intake

Noctua NH-L12 with bottom fan only (92mm Noctua NF-A9 PWM)
Noctua NF-F12 as exhaust ghetto mounted to the top

 

I never thought upgrading to a six-core would bring temps down, but it did ;-). The CPU runs in the low 50s when gaming, so that is pretty much perfect. I decided to let the fan blow upwards into my PSU, which lets my PSU fan spin most of the time, but it really helps with exhausting that hot air.
However, the biggest change was probably the switch from my RX480 to the EVGA 1060 SC 6GB. That thing is very efficient. I adjusted the fan curve to quiet mode and now it sits at just under 80°C when gaming, which is perfectly acceptable, especially at the noise levels it produces. I can hear it a bit, but it is very quiet. Fine for gaming without headphones. That is where that ghetto-mounted fan at the top comes in. Temps and noise were ok before, but it reached more like 83°C and was more noticable. So that was quite the improvement and was only possible because of the m.2 drive that freed up the top (I had a small 2.5 SSD and 3.5 HDD there before).
One thing I worried about a little bit was the new m.2 drive and overheating, but it stays under 60°C. Obviously it could do better, but there is virtually no airflow where it is mounted and the max temp before it throttles is 70°C, so I am perfectly fine with that. 

I will add two or three pics here later and if there are any questions, feel free to ask. 
I finally got my itx system to work. I just love that little Elite 110. Oh and I am even using the Demci-Flex dust-filters, so the temps are even more impressive imho.  

 

Overall the build was fairly easy to do. Especially due to the lack of 2.5" and 3.5" drives it is much easier to cable manage. I also used the short cable kit from Silverstone, which is a blessing. I wishe I could have done an even better job with cable management, because I love when it looks good, but my main priority was to get the cables out of the way of the airflow path and that worked......also there are like zero tie-downs for cables....well there are a few, but still.

 

[Heesleemer]

looking good

[mapegl]

4 hours ago, Heesleemer said:

looking good

Thank you. 

[Drcyberjr]

On 15/05/2018 at 06:08, mapegl said:

ATUALIZAÇÃO: 
Eu finalmente fiz funcionar. Meu sistema mudou bastante desde a compilação inicial:

Ryzen 5 1600 @ stock

ASROCK B350 Fatalidade ITX / AC

Corsair LPX DDR4 3200 de 16 GB @ 2933Mhz

EVGA GTX 1060 SC 6GB @ Stock

Samsung 850 EVO m.2 1TB

Silverstone SST-ST55F-PT

Noctua NF-A15 como ingestão

Noctua NH-L12 apenas com ventilador inferior (92 mm Noctua NF-A9 PWM)
Noctua NF-F12 como gueto de exaustão montado no topo

 

Eu nunca pensei que a atualização para um seis núcleos reduziria o tempo, mas foi ;-). A CPU roda nos anos 50 quando joga, o que é praticamente perfeito. Decidi deixar o ventilador soprar para cima na PSU, o que permite que o ventilador gire na maioria das vezes, mas isso realmente ajuda a esgotar o ar quente.
No entanto, a maior mudança foi provavelmente a troca do meu RX480 para o EVGA 1060 SC 6GB. Essa coisa é muito eficiente. Ajustei a curva do ventilador para o modo silencioso e agora ela fica abaixo de 80 ° C quando joga, o que é perfeitamente aceitável, especialmente nos níveis de ruído que produz. Eu posso ouvir um pouco, mas está muito quieto. Ótimo para jogos sem fones de ouvido. É aí que entra a ventoinha montada no gueto. Temps e ruídos eram bons antes, mas chegavam a mais de 83 ° C e eram mais visíveis. Então essa foi a melhora e só foi possível por causa da unidade m.2 que liberou a parte superior (eu tinha um pequeno SSD de 2,5 e 3,5 HDD antes).
Uma coisa que me preocupou um pouco foi o novo drive m.2 e superaquecimento, mas ele permanece abaixo de 60 ° C. Obviamente, poderia fazer melhor, mas praticamente não há fluxo de ar onde está montado e a temperatura máxima antes de acelerar é de 70 ° C, então estou perfeitamente bem com isso. 

Vou adicionar duas ou três fotos aqui mais tarde e, se houver alguma dúvida, fique à vontade para perguntar. 
Finalmente consegui que meu sistema itx funcionasse. Eu simplesmente amo esse pequeno Elite 110. Ah, e até estou usando os filtros de poeira Demci-Flex, para que as temperaturas sejam ainda mais impressionantes.  

 

No geral, a compilação foi bastante fácil de fazer. Especialmente devido à falta de unidades de 2,5 "e 3,5", é muito mais fácil gerenciar o cabo. Também usei o kit de cabos curtos da Silverstone, que é uma bênção. Sabia que poderia ter feito um trabalho ainda melhor com o gerenciamento de cabos, porque adoro quando parece bom, mas minha principal prioridade era afastar os cabos do caminho do fluxo de ar e isso funcionava ...... também lá são como amarrações zero para cabos ... bem, existem alguns, mas ainda assim.

 

Hello.  I recently discovered your post.  congratulations.  it's cool.  I was interested in this elite 110 case. It has a bigger Motherboard space than itx.  Could you tell me the maximum size for the Motherboard?  thank you.

[mapegl]

On 5/20/2020 at 3:27 PM, Drcyberjr said:

Hello.  I recently discovered your post.  congratulations.  it's cool.  I was interested in this elite 110 case. It has a bigger Motherboard space than itx.  Could you tell me the maximum size for the Motherboard?  thank you.

I guess you could go for DTX. Basically you could probably go for a short GPU that is thicker than two slots. Not entirely shure what you are looking for though. 

[Fraya]

If i am to be honest i think using an inverted layout is best for a m-itx build.  this is very compact unit. 

there are many options to make a small, quiet, yet powerful m-itx build but you are better to look into design and build your own case or choose one on the market that will fit all your components, to make it a nice clean build that is cool & quiet. 

 

I don't understand why the PSU looks like its stuck out of the back? 

 

[mapegl]

4 hours ago, Frayia said:

I don't understand why the PSU looks like its stuck out of the back? 

...that's just how the case is built. I really don't like that very much and I was already thinking about modding it to be flat. 

 

4 hours ago, Frayia said:

If i am to be honest i think using an inverted layout is best for a m-itx build.  this is very compact unit. 

there are many options to make a small, quiet, yet powerful m-itx build but you are better to look into design and build your own case or choose one on the market that will fit all your components, to make it a nice clean build that is cool & quiet. 

I really don't have the time to build something myself (would like to put it into an ammo case though and I have an M56 danish ammo box here), and I really have not found a case on the market that I want. Either too big or too small with too many compromises. Nevertheless, I have switched the PSU to an SFX unit which enabled me to add a 120mm fan to the CPU cooler and now the build is actually pretty quiet.

[Drcyberjr]

On 21/05/2020 at 18:13, mapegl said:

Eu acho que você poderia ir para o DTX. Basicamente, você provavelmente poderia optar por uma GPU curta com mais de dois slots. Mas não confia inteiramente no que você está procurando. 

Thanks for the trouble!

[mapegl]

5 hours ago, Drcyberjr said:

Thanks for the trouble!

So weird..everything I wrote in....I want to say Spanish? No idea. 

 

I would honestly rather get Silverstone's SG13 now. Build quality is worse, but not too bad and you can fit longer GPUs.

[porterj5]

Nice work