Cerberus: The 18L, mATX, USA-made enclosure

[Kabini]

Ports on the top would conflict with the power supply, or block its intake.

 

Ports on the side, like on the Enthoo Evolv are a good idea. Sure they aren't convenient as forward/top ports, but its better than having no front ports at all. It also does not break the clean looks of the front.

[SuggestionBot]

Ports on the side, like on the Enthoo Evolv are a good idea. Sure they aren't convenient as forward/top ports, but its better than having no front ports at all. It also does not break the clean looks of the front.

Speaking as an Enthoo Evolv owner I do not like the side ports or even the side power buttons.

 

I would ask that they either put the ports on the front or nowhere. I voted against any ports at all, on a case this small, there is no need to have "convenient" front I/O when the rear I/O will be as accessible, at least in the manner I plan on using this case: on my desk next to my monitor. I have a DasKeyboard 4 Ultimate with 2 USB3 ports on the top of the keyboard. I don't see me using the front I/O for anything really.

 

Subjective I know, but I want a case that makes no sacrifices for slimness and I want the looks that go with it.

[Aibohphobia]

I agree, having worked with several Prodigy builds I find the side-mounted IO annoying. Especially because with the case layout it would have to be on the right side which is inconvenient since most people have the case on the right side of their desk.

[Aibohphobia]

Got lucky and snagged a Intel 750 400GB from the first batch at Newegg. Then I ran some thermal tests to see how it held up when installed between two video cards:

 

Here it is installed between the two reference GTX 980s. Side panel was installed when running the tests though.

 

 

When running both Unigine Valley and pounding the SSD using Iometer with random 4K writes to the entire drive it got pretty warm.

 

1 hour of Iometer, GPUs running Valley, front fan @ 1020RPM

ambient: 28-29°C

750 temp: 72°C

 

Pretty toasty

 

 

Then with Valley still running I stopped the Iometer testing and ran ATTO:

 

 

So even with the video cards cooking the drive it doesn't seem to effect performance.

 

However the Intel spec rates the AIC version only up to 55°C operating temperature (2.5" version is rated up to 70°C) so for now I took the second card out and have the rig configured with the 750 in the top slot and the remaining 980 in the bottom slot.

 

Another bench for fun:

 

[OG Billy Mays]

So how much money would i have to throw at you for that prototype? 

[willemdoom1]

He will probably never sell it, a prototype is like a child, you put so many hours in it and hard work, giving it away/selling would be stupid. But have patience, they said they will start selling somewhere mid 2015.

[Aibohphobia]

So how much money would i have to throw at you for that prototype? 

 

I don't think I'd part with it for even $5000 

[willemdoom1]

Ate you guys testing any tower coolers? And how is the rest of production/testing going?

[Overkilled]

Better then my pc and its 3x smaller

[PlayfulPhoenix]

Ate you guys testing any tower coolers? And how is the rest of production/testing going?

 

Right now we're focused on finalizing the design, so we can turn around and take that to potential manufacturers, and begin solidifying our product pipeline.

 

Well, that, plus a bunch of other things - some web work, writing, legal stuff, and so on. Really, a hodgepodge of tasks that need to be nailed down as we approach a crowdfunding campaign.

 

A lot of it isn't terribly interesting and takes a lot of time, so if you're wondering why we don't talk about it too much, that's the reason    Still, I may write up a blog post to detail some of the more business-y stuff in the future. I'm sure that people who want to do similar projects would like to know about how we've been doing things, and a lot of it I find to be pretty interesting, at least!

 

Better then my pc and its 3x smaller

 

That's the goal! Or, at least, for self-built, that crazy performance/volume ratio is the goal... The "most powerful desktop per liter of volume" (that I know of) would be Apple's Mac Pro, but top-tier builds within Nova should be #1 for performance/volume efficiency across self-built mATX.

 

(And perhaps even mITX, too, when graphics are taken into consideration.)

[willemdoom1]

Sounds very good! Saved up enough to buy the case and a 970 so looking forward a lot to eventually building it. Did you already take the decision on the increase of size or still contemplating?

[AlexStriz]

So how much money would i have to throw at you for that prototype? 

You're Billy Mays. Just give him a special TV offer of sponges or OxiClean in return for a prototype

[Aibohphobia]

Sounds very good! Saved up enough to buy the case and a 970 so looking forward a lot to eventually building it. Did you already take the decision on the increase of size or still contemplating?

 

The poll is in favor and it has several advantages so unless there's a sudden, overwhelming outcry of protest we're doing the depth increase.

[PlayfulPhoenix]

Quick announcement, folks: we have a new update on the KI blog! It's just a simple summary of some of the additional changes we've made to the design - I like to elaborate a bit on the "how" and "why" of certain things, so it's in these posts where I often have the opportunity to do that.

 

I also threw in some neat testing Aiboh has done of Intel's new 750 SSD, when sandwiched between two GTX 980's in Nova 

[Aibohphobia]

I'm working on the ATX mount for the rear of the chassis and have run into a snag. Due to the height decrease up top there's not much room to fit the ATX cutout and it's proving tricky to keep enough room for the tubing holes for the FrozenQ M1 external reservoir.
 
Before it wasn't a big deal to include support but now I want to make sure there's actually interest in this feature before going to the trouble to fit it in.
 
So, are you interested in using the FrozenQ M1 reservoir with Nova?

[Poster]

Nope, not interested.

[Neemil]

Personally I'm not keen on using the reservoir. This case would be more useful to someone who could use the ATX mounting and just transfer their current or parts of their current desktop over into this chassis instead of forking out for an SFX PSU as well. I don't think Ncase was a huge hit with the watercooling market as well.

[Aibohphobia]

Still looking for feedback on the FrozenQ M1 reservoir

 

Are you interested in using the FrozenQ M1 reservoir with Nova?

 

 

Did some hardware testing today.

 

Testing out the Noctua L9x65 heatsink.

 

5930K at stock clocks and ambient at 23.5°C it was idling at about 38°C with the NF-A9 PWM 92x25mm fan (this isn't the included one) running at ~900 RPM.

 

After 10 minutes of Prime96 Blend @ 10 threads it got up to about 90°C and the fan was running at 2040 RPM. CPU was throttling slight, dropping briefly from 3.6GHz down to 3.5GHz.

 

So I tried adding a 120mm on the side bracket blowing towards the heatsink and after 20 minutes of Prime it got to about 81°C.

 

Left to its own devices, the L9x65 isn't suited to cooling a socket 2011 CPU at heavy load, but with additional case cooling the temps are reasonable considering the small size.

 

 

Here's a 3.5" HDD installed. So in this configuration you could fit a 3.5" drive, a video card, PCIe SSD, and a sound card.

 

 

Here you can see the HDD mounting screws, can't really see in this pic but there are rubber grommets that the drive is sitting on.

 

 

Did some thermal tests.  The drive is a Toshiba DT01ACA300 3TB 7200RPM. At ~25.5°C ambient the drive got up to 48°C with the drive idling but the GTX 980 running Valley after 25 minutes.

 

Then I ran CrystalDiskMark 4K tests on the HDD to work it out while still running Valley and after 30 minutes the drive got up to 53°C.

 

With both GPU and HDD idling the drive sits at 43°C.

 

So perhaps having the video card in the third slot isn't ideal for HDD temps but that's easily fixed by moving the GPU to the top slot.

[PlayfulPhoenix]

A slew of updates today!

 

First off, take a look at these:

 

 

James is currently putting the finishing touches on the rear plate system that Nova will be using. For the green, one can rear-mount an ATX power supply, and for the blue, you get the expected A/C inlet/fan mount/WC cutouts.

Fortunately, a tolerance issue we thought could prevent use of the FrozenQ reservoir has been mitigated, so - although we're waiting to confirm with FrozenQ - we expect that their M1 res will work!

 

Also, at the moment we've left the rear-mounting option as ATX only, but we wanted to hear from you guys as to why someone might want to rear mount a SFX unit, since we and others have proposed that in the past. We can very easily make a plate to support that, but when we've considered builds with a SFX unit in the back... well, it's almost always been just better to put it up in the front.

 

 

For the second update, I'm pleased to note that we've been in considerable communication with a few manufacturers, and have started to receive samples! This is mostly to do with looking at various paint colors and finishes, but it's a milestone that's indicative of how close we are now to manufacturing the final prototypes - which will of course be followed by the crowdfunding campaign and production run We've been trying to maintain a good pace that isn't rushed but progresses quickly, and we're so far very happy with our speed.

 

Anyway, I'm sure we'll share pics once we have some paint chips in our hands, but if there are any colors you'd like to have up for consideration, feel free to voice out on that now!

 

 

Finally, I've just thrown up a new post on the KI blog today, but rather than talking about Nova, it's a write-up on the work we've been doing behind the scenes to build up Kimera Industries into the business and legal entity that will see Nova through to production.

 

When you have community projects, startups, and similar things, you don't tend to hear about all the legwork that had to be done to make all of that possible. Yet, it's all really important in realizing products and projects such as Nova, and I worry that it can act as a barrier that prevents some from realizing their idea. So, I wanted to shine a light on the research and work I did, and share some of the knowledge and documentation that we've got, if only to help out those who are a bit overwhelmed by it.

[Aibohphobia]

How important is front audio connectors?

 

We have some things in mind for the case that will make it much more flexible but we'll probably only have room for either 2 x USB 3.0 OR audio, not both.

[Aibohphobia]

Ok, did some rejiggering of the frame and both will fit and looks aesthetically pleasing to boot  B)

[willemdoom1]

I would still like to see it without any connectors but I understand the choice of including them, do you have a render of the design for the front?

[Aibohphobia]

I would still like to see it without any connectors but I understand the choice of including them, do you have a render of the design for the front?

 

No renders for now, I still have to verify with the manufacturer that the front IO PCB will work the way I imagine.

[EldarNi]

 

How important is front audio connectors?

 

We have some things in mind for the case that will make it much more flexible but we'll probably only have room for either 2 x USB 3.0 OR audio, not both.

 

not important at all, the case is so small that it's not a problem to reach a back i/o panel, imo

[Poster]

It is my opinion that having them in the front will actually cheapen the look.  I would not at all be a fan of it.