CLEAN SG13 lockdown impulse build

[thevicparable]

I've been living overseas for a year now, only have an Asus ultrabook and Nintendo Switch here with me, so I've pulled l the trigger on a mini ITX build. Realistically, I still won't be gaming too much, and I only have a 60Hz 1080p TV as a display, so I don't want or need to go all out. Honestly a second hand Xbox One would do me fine, but I love the process of building too much. And I got an unexpectedly fat tax refund.

 

I ordered everything except the GPU less than two weeks ago, and it's all arrived. I think I managed to get some of the last of the local Amazon stock before most things went on back order. Unfortunately the part number on the PSU comes under the recall, but due to current stock problems I've decided to hold onto it until it either fails or the shipping problems have eased up a bit.

 

The GPU is coming out of my old i5 4690k rig at home. My parents were sending me a parcel anyway, so it's on its way and will hopefully be here soon. My budget doesn't yet have any room for a new GPU, but my little 1060 will do perfectly for now. Same idea for the CPU, I would have liked a 3600 but current price and stock levels made it unrealistic. I know if I had built earlier or waited I could have had better deals or different parts, but I've also been feeling a bit down lately so I think this will be a nice little pick me up.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor	Purchased For €100.00
Motherboard	Gigabyte B450 I AORUS PRO WIFI Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard	Purchased For €135.99
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	€94.00
Storage	Sabrent Rocket 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	Purchased For €84.99
Video Card	EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6 GB GAMING Video Card	Purchased For €0.00
Case	Silverstone SG13 Mini ITX Tower Case	Purchased For €41.65
Power Supply	Corsair SF 450 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply	Purchased For €99.90
Case Fan	be quiet! 85 CFM 140 mm Fan	Purchased For €23.00
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	€579.53
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-06-13 19:58 CEST+0200

 

Photo of everything I have now: 

 

I didn't initially intend to go black and white, it was determined by case stock availability. But having seen the RAM and the case fan in the flesh, I think it'll look sharp. My first PC build had gold mobo accents and blue ram so I'm at least trying to coordinate this one.

 

Will update as I start building soon.

 

[Xayrn]

Looks good, but I'd go for a better PSU. The SF series is getting recalled by Corsair right now.

[thevicparable]

4 minutes ago, Xayrn said:

Looks good, but I'd go for a better PSU. The SF series is getting recalled by Corsair right now.

Yeah, I addressed that in the post. I ordered it a couple of days before the recall was announced, and considered cancelling it. Unfortunately there weren't really any other options available so I'm living with it for now.

[Xayrn]

1 minute ago, thevicparable said:

Yeah, I addressed that in the post. I ordered it a couple of days before the recall was announced, and considered cancelling it. Unfortunately there weren't really any other options available so I'm living with it for now.

Ah I missed that.

[thevicparable]

I'm still waiting on my GPU, so I've decided to put together what I have for a test fit and see what kind of cable management I can achieve in the tiny SG13.

 

 

 

This is also my first time really attempting to document each stage of a build and really keep it clean.....ish.

[thevicparable]

Here are some pics from the out of case installation of CPU, RAM, SSD and cooler.

 

 

This is also my first ever AMD build. I gotta say, I really love the socket style over Intel's.
 

First time ever working with an m.2 drive. Very happy not to be using any extra cables, as you'll see in further posts.

Ideally I would have a 1tb drive, but I tend to play only a couple of games at a time, and hardly go back to them, so the 512gb drive was a good compromise on price. This machine doesn't need to have any mass storage, as my perfectly good old rig has 4tb. This machine is for me to game on while I live abroad medium-term and it will be easy to move between apartments and potentially countries.

 

 

[thevicparable]

Some comments about cooler installation. Stock will do me just fine for now, if I have some extra money in the future I might look into a nice low profile Noctua or something. I've seen people put small AIOs in this case and while it'd be nice, this machine will probably end up in cabin baggage one day, so keeping it light and waterless is the way to go. Maybe I can watercool my next project?

 

 

You'll notice that I've taken the ring off the fan. If I left it on I couldn't fit the RAM underneath, and if I mounted it the other way I wouldn't get the fan cable oriented cleanly like so:
 

Excuse the fuzziness, phone camera has a mind of its own.

 

[Miles1991]

Looking great so far. 

 

On the subject of cooling, I am sure that the stock cooler will do an alright job for the use case that you mentioned and that 140mm at the front provide HEAPS of airflow in that little case. So far with my SG13 I have been super happy with my temps. If you find that CPU temps are high I would recommend against a low profile cooler. They will cool the unit but at the cost of noise and they will struggle to keep up with a 2600 regardless of what they claim on their website (even Noctua). Maybe instead you could look for a super cheap AIO on local forums of Ebay? That way you can just sell it on it chuck it before you take the PC back overseas with you and you can always use the stock heatsink on arrival until you find a more permanent solution. 

 

Looking forward to the rest of the build! 

[Nena Trinity]

It's looking good!

[thevicparable]

6 hours ago, Nena Trinity said:

It's looking good!

Thank you!!

 

13 hours ago, Miles1991 said:

Looking great so far. 

 

On the subject of cooling, I am sure that the stock cooler will do an alright job for the use case that you mentioned and that 140mm at the front provide HEAPS of airflow in that little case. So far with my SG13 I have been super happy with my temps. If you find that CPU temps are high I would recommend against a low profile cooler. They will cool the unit but at the cost of noise and they will struggle to keep up with a 2600 regardless of what they claim on their website (even Noctua). Maybe instead you could look for a super cheap AIO on local forums of Ebay? That way you can just sell it on it chuck it before you take the PC back overseas with you and you can always use the stock heatsink on arrival until you find a more permanent solution. 

 

Looking forward to the rest of the build! 

 With the SF PSU the clearance with the stock cooler is actually pretty good so yeah, I'll definitely have good airflow for what it is. No point adding a louder cooler, we'll see how temps go.

[Zando_]

Ooooooohhh looking nice! Also due to your case choice, I must summon @Fasauceome

[Fasauceome]

Clean, attractive.

 

Note, the 140mm fan will obstruct some GPU length, if that becomes a concern in the future.

[thevicparable]

2 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

Clean, attractive.

Thank you! Here's hoping it stays that way!

 

GPU is still a little while away so I've started figuring out possible cable runs. That'll be my next post.

[thevicparable]

I lied, next post is case fan, but I suppose the beginning of cable management.
 

 

Installs with rubber pins rather than screws which made it far less fiddly than regular fans, and nice and quick too.
 

 

As you can see the case only supports three mounting holes for 140mm fans. This doesn't cause any problems with stability, but it definitely makes me glad I went with a fan that has a big rubber ring around it, to dampen any noise in case it rattles against the case a little bit.

 

 

Weeeee bit bothered that the fan, ram and case are all different shades of white. But looking sharp overall. I mounted the fan this way because it initially seemed like the best idea for a clean cable run. But I have since turned it left 90 degrees.

 

 

[thevicparable]

Cable time. Any ideas and feedback appreciated. 

 

 

The SG13 is a great little case. However, if I could change only one thing about the design, it would be to have the I/O cables attached to the frame itself so the front panel could come off cleanly. When I made the decision to rotate the fan, it was a real pain in the butt because I had already started routing cables..

 

 

The motherboard clearance is actially decent, which gave me an idea...

 

 

...to use just a little bit of tape to try and train the cables around the standoff so they can poke up from underneath the motherboard a little bit. Ideally it won't have to stay taped down and will hold its shape after a few days.

 

 

I rotated the fan so the cable could run with the USB 3.0 connector. Neither cable is really long enough to go under the motherboard and back out again, so I went around the right side to keep it cleanish. My GPU is only single fan and as long as the motherboard so the cables won't be in the way.

 

The most awkward cable is by far the HD audio which just kinda runs up the middle. It's too short to join and then run past the USB/fan cable. If ITX motherboards had their audio header with the rest of the I/O it wouldn't be a problem either. For now I'll be just leaving the cable as is and then see how I can tuck it under the GPU.

[thevicparable]

Had a go at fitting the PSU today. It's a great little unit, and I really hope that when it comes to finally testing the machine it won't be defective.

 

In most SG13 builds I've seen people keep the PSU cables together in one bundle, but I tried to do something a little different.
 

The 24-pin cable is quite short so there was no option but to have it go directly down to the motherboard. I've left the bend that was already in the cable because it avoids a bundle in front of the case fan. Also pretty happy with the stock cooler clearance with the PSU.

 

 

For CPU and GPU power I tried to route the cables around the frame of the case, with a bit of tape to help train them because the Corsair ribbon cables are quite stiff. The aim is to keep as much out of the way of the fan as possible.

 

 

I've also seen some people mount the PSU fan down to have it work as some kind of exhaust for the whole system. But I think mounting upwards so its airflow is completely separate from the system is the way to go. Considering that the unit is from the recall batch I'd also rather not expose it to temps any higher than I have to.

 

[thevicparable]

Finally I can update this thing because my GPU arrived from home today! 
 

My trusty 1060 survived about a month of transit in its anti-static bag, bubble wrapped and surrounded by fabric and other soft items. The whole parcel was barely dented at all so I'm impressed!

 

As mentioned in a previous post, I was left wondering how to run the HD Audio cable.

 

 

...with this being the clearance once the GPU is in. It looks kinda big by there really isn't much space between the card and the header. Oh well, worth a shot.

 

 

Hope the angle isn't too harsh, there really isn't any other routing option that doesn't snake right across the m.2 heat spreader.

 

 

Perfect fit!

[thevicparable]

Some photos of the completed inside. The SG13 getting old now but after looking through some older build logs, it seems like only now parts are truly ready for it. With the rise of affordable NVME storage I hope we'll finally see more clean builds in the case.

 

 

Photo below is taken through the back grille of the PSU bracket. Next to zero fan obstruction. Gonna be nice and breezy inside.

 

 

Haven't tested it yet because I don't actually have a keyboard at the moment. Working on it!