Our Smallest Build EVER? - Velkase Velka 3

[Yagop1]

I think this is so cool and I'm all about the portable form factor. I only have laptops such as a Dell XPS 9575. But it'd be great to have a small desktop. I don't do any gaming. Straight up productivity. Does anyone have any suggestions for building this without the gaming aspects of it?

[justpoet]

Depends on your particular productivity tasks if you want to put a little more towards CPU vs GPU, but really that'd be the main balance to look at and if a high clock intel or a high core amd will work best for your budget/workflow.

[Yagop1]

5 hours ago, justpoet said:

Depends on your particular productivity tasks if you want to put a little more towards CPU vs GPU, but really that'd be the main balance to look at and if a high clock intel or a high core amd will work best for your budget/workflow.

Mostly browser and programs and coding work. If I ever took up editing it'd be as a hobby so no graphics requirements. I guess that'd mean I'd go low on the GPU as long as it fits the form factor. I'm wondering if there'd even be a way to go for something smaller to fit other stuff that might help like storage. 

[amdorintel]

i have seen smaller pc's then that but then your talking about no bolt on easy building pc

[Jreynolds85]

I actually got good info from this build And was wondering is there a few things that you would change to make this more budget friendly I’m in the military and travel a lot and this would be amazing and would fit in a suitcase and travel a lot easier then a laptop 

[Yagop1]

On 11/18/2019 at 5:05 PM, Jreynolds85 said:

I actually got good info from this build And was wondering is there a few things that you would change to make this more budget friendly I’m in the military and travel a lot and this would be amazing and would fit in a suitcase and travel a lot easier then a laptop 

Check out some budget CPUs and get an external powerbrick instead of the an internal one. Do some research on if that's allowed though. I wouldn't want to be held up at the airport trying to go on TDY. But looking at the other associated costs (ie- keyboard, mouse, portable display) there's nothing budget about this build. 

 

Anyone know if there's a way to stuff more cores into this build without overheating?

 

[papajo]

These mini cases fail (atleast imo) due to pricing... they try to get maximum profit  from each sale individually than from consumption... 

There may be people interested only in a small case whatever the cost just to look pretty but I think these users are a small niece 

 

What would be exciting is a small case that is affortable.. 80 bucks (which is the cost for this veleka case) is the cost of a smal mobo + an entry level cpu or the price of a decent big brand atx case!  not to mention the delivery costs and taxes...

 

there are people that want to make rigs for secondary usages (small nas,router,surveilance or what not) and want to make it out of "bang for the buck" componets (such as a cheap apu + a cheap mini mobo etc) and they strugle to find cases for that usage.

 

Also hobbiest or gamers on the cheap who want to make a console replacement and spend money on decent but not pricey hardware (in order to achieve that 60FPS mark with as small a budget as possible) which again dont do it because puting that hardware on a cheap ATX case defeats the purpose cause its ugly and bulky.. and spending a lot just for the case again defeats the purpose because then the budget exceeds even more that of a console... 

 

Its basically some sheets of aluminium or steel or what not it costs just a few bucks especially if its going to be that small! 

 

Make one small case that is affortable and get profits due to consumbtion because suddenly your client base will be vastly bigger than if you place your small case with 200%+ profti like this one hoping for dozen or a few hundred extra enthusiasts with deep pockets to buy it... why not just have a small profit margin and sell to thusands ?

 

 

[Kilrah]

$80 is actually cheap for a good custom SFF case, not many options around there, there isn't even much to choose from below $200.

 

SFF entirely is a small niche, case designers can't have the economies of scale that come with mainstream form factors, they have to make small batches and the price goes to where it needs to for them to be able to find a manufacturer who is even willing to spend time on it.

[papajo]

11 hours ago, Kilrah said:

$80 is actually cheap for a good custom SFF case, not many options around there, there isn't even much to choose from below $200.

 

SFF entirely is a small niche, case designers can't have the economies of scale that come with mainstream form factors, they have to make small batches and the price goes to where it needs to for them to be able to find a manufacturer who is even willing to spend time on it.

Because there are no options it doesnt make it cheap that's exactly the point of failure. 

 

Its like saying RTX 2080 ti is a cheap flagship... its not and its not because there are no other competing GPUs the difference is that atleast the RTX has a resale value and actually does something the case has more of a passive use since you just put your hardware in it and forget about it .. oh and lets not forget we are talking about a couple of sheets of cheap metal. 

 

If you pay 100$ for the actual hardware paying 80$ for the case feels like an extortion and most rational users wont pull the triger and either buy a cheaper (and better in maters of airflow eas of assembly etc) normal case or will just throw said project to the bin and hope that in the future theyll find a small case in a reasonable price. 

[Kilrah]

34 minutes ago, papajo said:

the case has more of a passive use since you just put your hardware in it and forget about it

I've been following the SFF market for 2 years now (and just did my 2nd SFF build), in this circle the case is usually very much considered an integral part of the "pride" of the finished system. Often people choose a case first and choose the components afterwards based on what can work well with that. SFF builds are also most of the time "premium" configs.

The market for a super basic cheap SFF case is small, and there's already enough offering from China for those. If you go on aliexpress/taobao you can find relatively decent SFF cases for 50 bucks or so. There's also some stuff from mainstream manufacturers like the InWin Chopin, about $100 but you get an integrated PSU, which often costs you close to that alone in SFF.

 

This demand is what has been shaping the offerings towards mostly small "boutique" style manufacturers that concentrate on a particular aspect. The Velka 3 is basically the smallest case around that houses a GPU and an internal PSU out there, and you're paying (little compared to the standard) for the "exclusivity". If you're not looking for that you're looking at the wrong place.

 

 

[papajo]

Just now, Kilrah said:

I've been following the SFF market for 2 years now (and just did my 2nd SFF build), in this circle the case is usually very much considered an integral part of the "pride" of the finished system. Often people choose a case first and choose the components afterwards based on what can work well with that. SFF builds are also most of the time "premium" configs.

The market for a super basic cheap SFF case is small, and there's already enough offering from China for those. If you go on aliexpress/taobao you can find relatively decent SFF cases for 50 bucks or so. 

This demand is what has been shaping the offerings towards mostly small "boutique" style manufacturers that concentrate on a particular aspect. The Velka 3 is basically the smallest case around that houses a GPU and an internal PSU out there, and you're paying (little compared to the standard) for the "exclusivity". If you're not looking for that you're looking at the wrong place.

 

 

Yea there are people that pay 10k rims on a toyota yaris. 

 

Good for you I already included people like this but believe me you are just a small niece as mentioned in my initial post to this topic. 

[Kilrah]

And as I said yes SFF itself is a small niche, and those who want super cheap SFF cases are a small niche within this small niche which is why nobody cares about them since doing that would require the opposite, large volumes.

[papajo]

9 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

And as I said yes SFF itself is a small niche, and those who want super cheap SFF cases are a small niche within this small niche which is why nobody cares about them since doing that would require the opposite, large volumes.

man you are going to make me reytpe what I sad just because you did not read my posts yet you reply on them... anyway here it goes

 

No its not a small niece there are people that want to make 2ndary purpose rigs such as DIY routers/switches/surveillance rigs, people that want small naslike media players hobbiest that want to make console replacements etc there is a big market for small formfactor cases but such people usually again as I wrote in my previous posts either go and buy a more rational priced midi ATX or some other case like that or just drop the project in hopes they will tackle with it on the future. 

 

and in general there are MANY systembuilds (I say many but plausibly they could be the vast majority of consumer builds) with cheap bang for the buck hardware for which buying a case that cost as much or almost as much as the actual hardware does not make much sense. 

 

And I cant stress it enough its about a few sheets of cheap metal bended into a case shape.. there is no alien technology/state of the art rnd and big corporal funds involved.. there simply isnt any company that bothers to do it at an affortable price all the companies that do such cases seem to pray upon small nieces to get huge profit margins out of small sale numbers 

[Kilrah]

7 minutes ago, papajo said:

man you are going to make me reytpe what I sad just because you did not read my posts yet you reply on them... anyway here it goes

 

No its not a small niece there are people that want to make 2ndary purpose rigs such as DIY routers/switcher/surveillance rigs, people that want small naslike media players hobbiest that want to make console replacements etc

No need to retype, I got what you meant, I just think you're overestimating the number of people who are interested, and saying that those have cheap options already. It's pointless saying after someone like Velka should cater to them since that's not what they're after, and there are options for those people already.

 

I mean, if you want to put $100 worth of gear in a case and don't care about the appearance, just low cost there are many case designs you can 3D print for a few bucks out there.

 

  

7 minutes ago, papajo said:

and in general there are MANY systembuilds (I say many but plausibly they could be the vast majority of consumer builds) with cheap bank for the buck hardware which buying a case that cost as much or almost as much as the actual hardware does not make much sense. 

If you follow SFF circles those people are few and far between, not "the vast majority".

 

If you think it's that big a market why don't you go and design a cheap case to sell to them? Should be making a fortune anytime soon

[papajo]

9 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

No need to retype, I got what you meant, I just think you're overestimating the number of people who are interested, and saying that those have cheap options already. It's pointless saying after someone like Velka should cater to them since that's not what they're after, and there are options for those people already.

 

I mean, if you want to put $100 worth of gear in a case and don't care about the appearance, just low cost there are many case designs you can 3D print for a few bucks out there.

I didnt even know Velka existed in the first place (as the majority of the human population) and I am sure there are other small companies like them which just stop exist at some point and that was my rant this companies fail (= they wont become e.g Thermaltake, Coolermaster etc)  Simply because they are after huge profit margins out of a small number of sales. 

 

 

Because a person doesnt want to pay an overpriced pricetag for a case it does not mean that said person doesnt care about the case's appearance or quality it is just that after a price point and beyond it doesnt make sense to get said case and thus compromises into an other formfactor where pricing is more competitive. 

 

up until midiATX form factors prices are rational but if you get smaller than that then you just gonna get ripped off. 

 

Again its a few cheap sheets of metal bend into a boxlike shape it doesnt cost much to manufacture. 

 

If there was a widly available rationally priced option($20-$50ish max)  in such a small formfactor  there would be a lot of builds surfecing up with such cases simply because in many usage scenarios even midiATX is too big but on the other hand it has cheap options. 

[Kilrah]

1 minute ago, papajo said:

Again its a few cheap sheets of metal bend into a boxlike shape it doesnt cost much to manufacture. 

Manufacturing doesn't work how you think it does.

Firstly "a few cheap sheets of metal bent" don't cost less becasue they're smaller. Same amount of work for an SFF case than for a full size one, or more since tolerances need to be tighter.

Again SFF is a small market. I'm in another industry which has the same problem, a supplier of ours has trouble getting parts made for a product we use becasue companies who can make these parts have contracts with big companies who order 100K pieces, so when our supplier comes to them with an order of 100pc they just get laughed at /put in the back of the queue as low priority so sometimes they have to wait several more months than quoted until their stuff is produced. 

SFF is the same, not many customers so small orders, and companies who make the SFF cases also make ATX cases in 1000x larger volumes so they couldn't care less.

 

[justpoet]

1 hour ago, papajo said:

No its not a small niece there are people that want to make 2ndary purpose rigs such as DIY routers/switches/surveillance rigs, people that want small naslike media players hobbiest that want to make console replacements etc there is a big market for small formfactor cases but such people usually again as I wrote in my previous posts either go and buy a more rational priced midi ATX or some other case like that or just drop the project in hopes they will tackle with it on the future. 

 

and in general there are MANY systembuilds (I say many but plausibly they could be the vast majority of consumer builds) with cheap bang for the buck hardware for which buying a case that cost as much or almost as much as the actual hardware does not make much sense. 

 

And I cant stress it enough its about a few sheets of cheap metal bended into a case shape.. there is no alien technology/state of the art rnd and big corporal funds involved.. there simply isnt any company that bothers to do it at an affortable price all the companies that do such cases seem to pray upon small nieces to get huge profit margins out of small sale numbers 

Please bring your cheaper and better case to the mass market so we can all benefit and you can enjoy the profits.  It sounds like you have it fully worked out, so please "Just do it!" and make life better for us all.

[UnknownG]

where to buy power cable like this?

 

[charliedunn9869]

i really like the idea of this case im an otr truck driver it would be perfect size for the truck at this time ive been looking to replace my old laptop and zotac mini pc watching this has given me the idea of trying to build

[jakkuh_t]

On 12/30/2019 at 1:09 PM, UnknownG said:

where to buy power cable like this?

 

https://cablemod.com/product-category/power-cords/

[Kepha]

Did you guys ever had any Power Consumption in that build? 

 

Currently I have a similar case (Chinese version) with a Gigabyte B450-I Aorus Pro WiFi running the AMD 2400G with an ElGato HD 60 Pro as my Dedicated Streaming/Holiday PC.

I am planning to update the CPU to a 2600 (same 65W TDP; I have considered the 2600X for 15GBP more but the TDP is 95W), replace the ElGato HD 60 Pro for the external version, HD 60 S, and add a GTX 1660 Super, which seem to consume around 130W tops according to some reviews.

 

 

[Kilrah]

For the record I get 330W continuous in my custom case of similar dimensions (in signature, just slightly enlarged to fit 2x 15mm HDDs and better fans on top), although that's with good channeled airflow instead of the open holed pattern.

[Marcoadj]

hello anyone know if this motherboard would fit?  

 

MSI MPG B550I Gaming Edge WiFi Gaming Motherboard (AMD AM4, DDR4, PCIe 4.0, SATA 6Gb/s, M.2, USB 3.2 Gen 2, AX Wi-Fi 6, HDMI, Mini-ITX)

[masterofn0ne]

Curious if there are better/newer parts that should be used if one were going to attempt this build 1.5 years later?

[SFFDesigns]

9 minutes ago, masterofn0ne said:

Curious if there are better/newer parts that should be used if one were going to attempt this build 1.5 years later?

Yes. New Vk3 revision, 3060 Ti Aero ITX coming soon, etc.

 

I'd recommend the ENP 7660B PSU too, it's a 600W FlexATX which is pretty impressive