SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project

[Sheepy7]

Amen.

[SaperPL]

I'm currently still working on manual and updating the file on the server:

 

http://zaber.com.pl/sentry/manual.pdf

 

I'd appreciate any feedback on what we could add more to this document to clarify how things work inside the case and how to assemble your rig in it.

I've added explanation on how the riser is mounted as well, in exploded view on page 9.

[Scatoogle]

It's probably a non-issue, but a picture of screw heads used in each step would be nice. Otherwise looks like a good contender for an hype build I'm planning. It's a conservative case that doesn't look boring.

[SaperPL]

Thanks, I know about this, I have that on my list to add both what you need at the start of the build, what are the contents of the package and which screws go where. I'm just thinking about how to make this clear without adding 5 more pages needlessly.

 

I'll draw up the screws we've got and make a list most likely tomorrow.

[ZombiPL]

First review units of SENTRY were delivered to Linus. We hope he'll find some time to test them 

[SaperPL]

Looks like Linus opened up the package:

 

https://twitter.com/LinusTech/status/759514273890439168

[ej24]

On 7/31/2016 at 6:54 AM, SaperPL said:

Looks like Linus opened up the package:

 

https://twitter.com/LinusTech/status/759514273890439168

I thought this day would never come. Needless to say, my PayPal account is ready to go, just for this purchase. 

[Sheepy7]

+1

[Reldey]

Made an account just to comment on this thing. I am super excited for this review, and can't wait to change out my Silverstone ML08 for this case. 

[Okjoek]

Fanje! This might just be an option for a low profile PC I have had in mind to build. There are a few concerns I have...

 

Firstly is cost. Looking at your main website I get the impression that this is a handcrafted piece of hardware and to be shipped from my ancestral homeland of Poland no doubt. This has me concerned that the price might not be as cheap as something from one of the more well known SFF case manufacturers like Fractal Design or Silverstone. As it is I'm looking at the Fractal Design Node 202 which without an included PSU costs in the ballpark of 80 dollars.

 

Second is when I would be able to purchase. I'm not exactly in a hurry to buy which seems to be alright because I haven't seen any method of purchasing yet.  I intend to have everything for said build sometime in the first half of next year with a mini-ITX motherboard with either an AMD Zen or Intel Kaby Lake CPU. Ontop of that I intend to use one of AMD's newer low-power GPUs the RX-460 which is to be a short card well suited to SFF builds with their small size and lack of need for extra power cables beyond the power drawn from the PCI-E slot it plugs into. I will aim to use at least a single, but possibly dual 500GB SSD. I haven't determined what CPU cooler to buy either, but it will be an air cooler.

 

The purpose of said build is to provide a mainstream, power efficient "daily driver" PC that can be positioned anywhere such as on desk vertical or laying flat, under my Monitor, wall mounted and even easily carried to LAN parties. 

 

I eagerly await a pricing metric to compare to Fractal Design's Node 202

[ItsTheDEMON1997]

I think we can expect a pricetag twice the price of the Node 202.

[Okjoek]

If that's the case (pun) I guess it depends on how I am economically in less than a years time and if pride for ojczyzna can propel me. 

 

One advantage over the Node 202 is that this appears to have is that it is slightly smaller by around 3 Liters I think. 

 

The Node has perks though. I prefer the SSD mount it has along the border between PSU and GPU divider and it has air filters.

 

 

[ItsTheDEMON1997]

The Node 202 indeed is a little bit bigger. A friend of mine has the Node. I really like the case, but I think the Sentry will be even better.

[Tech Inquisition]

12 hours ago, ej24 said:

I thought this day would never come. Needless to say, my PayPal account is ready to go, just for this purchase. 

I might just as well get one if they are willing to send to Australia

 

10 hours ago, ItsTheDEMON1997 said:

I think we can expect a pricetag twice the price of the Node 202.

Hope not... but I will see when this is actually priced.

 

 

[1shanghai]

21 hours ago, Okjoek said:

Fanje! This might just be an option for a low profile PC I have had in mind to build. There are a few concerns I have...

 

Firstly is cost. Looking at your main website I get the impression that this is a handcrafted piece of hardware and to be shipped from my ancestral homeland of Poland no doubt. This has me concerned that the price might not be as cheap as something from one of the more well known SFF case manufacturers like Fractal Design or Silverstone. As it is I'm looking at the Fractal Design Node 202 which without an included PSU costs in the ballpark of 80 dollars.

 

Second is when I would be able to purchase. I'm not exactly in a hurry to buy which seems to be alright because I haven't seen any method of purchasing yet.  I intend to have everything for said build sometime in the first half of next year with a mini-ITX motherboard with either an AMD Zen or Intel Kaby Lake CPU. Ontop of that I intend to use one of AMD's newer low-power GPUs the RX-460 which is to be a short card well suited to SFF builds with their small size and lack of need for extra power cables beyond the power drawn from the PCI-E slot it plugs into. I will aim to use at least a single, but possibly dual 500GB SSD. I haven't determined what CPU cooler to buy either, but it will be an air cooler.

 

The purpose of said build is to provide a mainstream, power efficient "daily driver" PC that can be positioned anywhere such as on desk vertical or laying flat, under my Monitor, wall mounted and even easily carried to LAN parties. 

 

I eagerly await a pricing metric to compare to Fractal Design's Node 202

It costs maybe 160 dollars before tax.

I'm guessing you can buy it in 3 months

I think it is half the size of the node 202

[Prokart2000]

@SaperPL Looks Great! I've always wanted to build a compact pc and this looks like a good case. What sort of temps are you getting?

 

[SaperPL]

38 minutes ago, 1shanghai said:

It costs maybe 160 dollars before tax.

I'm guessing you can buy it in 3 months

I think it is half the size of the node 202

Something like that, however it's not exactly half the size of node 202, rather 2/3 of its volume but that's the difference that makes it feel like a console and lets you pack it into a backpack.

 

7 minutes ago, Prokart2000 said:

@SaperPL Looks Great! I've always wanted to build a compact pc and this looks like a good case. What sort of temps are you getting?

 

It's not exactly the temps you want to know but the clocks - since it's a case that doesn't have additional fans the gpu gets up to its target temp of 75 or 80 degrees but so far running both GTX970 and R9-270X was quite okay and never dropped below marketed base clocks under full load. Anyway wait for the review from linus since he's the one that you should listen to about the performance of it rather than us

[Okjoek]

59 minutes ago, SaperPL said:

Something like that, however it's not exactly half the size of node 202, rather 2/3 of its volume but that's the difference that makes it feel like a console and lets you pack it into a backpack.

 

It's not exactly the temps you want to know but the clocks - since it's a case that doesn't have additional fans the gpu gets up to its target temp of 75 or 80 degrees but so far running both GTX970 and R9-270X was quite okay and never dropped below marketed base clocks under full load. Anyway wait for the review from linus since he's the one that you should listen to about the performance of it rather than us

If there's no fans in this case then would you recommend we use GPUs with "Blower" coolers as opposed to open air ones when picking a GPU for this case? It makes sense to me because a blower cooler would do a better job of getting the hot air out.

[SaperPL]

That depends on the config - if you're going for vertical stand then the open air cooler will have quite a lot of fresh air coming from the side and will easily throw hot air out through the top. If you're going for a desktop position then blower should work better but we still support and tested open air cooled cards in desktop position. It's just that we don't have enough high-end gpu's for it to be a significant test group to generalise the test results on all gpu's and that's where reviewers with tons of cards come in handy

[Sheepy7]

So...ehmm....any news?

[SaperPL]

Nothing yet. It takes time for LTT to get through their queue of products to make a particular review and also we want Linus to take his time and get to know our product so we're not rushing him or anything.

[mapegl]

3 hours ago, Sheepy7 said:

So...ehmm....any news?

Have you watched the last wan show? He explained how long benchmarking etc can sometimes take. 

I mean it is not like I am not waiting to see the review, but I know they need some time to finish it and really put it to the test.

[Sheepy7]

I don't even have the slightest interest in the review of LTT. It's a console-sized case there is nothing he could tell me that i don't know already. I just wanna start building. For me this is 90% publicity stunt and 10% genuine lack of expertise and equipment to test the product before release. I mean it´s not like the case is gonna be bought by complete morons and noobs who have no clue of what they are actually doing. 

 

The 2 brothers said themselves that they tested the latest prototype for a significant amount of time and have found no issues whatsoever when it comes to thermals and acoustics. Therefore the case is due to release in my opinion.

[ZombiPL]

5 hours ago, Sheepy7 said:

I don't even have the slightest interest in the review of LTT. It's a console-sized case there is nothing he could tell me that i don't know already. I just wanna start building. For me this is 90% publicity stunt and 10% genuine lack of expertise and equipment to test the product before release. I mean it´s not like the case is gonna be bought by complete morons and noobs who have no clue of what they are actually doing. 

We think 90/10 isn't a good proportion. I would say it is something like 50/50. We know the limits of such small PC case, but while reading many forums we see most of people don't feel it. What is more, we say many things, and people can believe us or not. We want to be honest with everyone, that is why we firstly send our SENTRY to the reviewers, so you can get objective point of view, before you buy it. "Publicity stunt", like You said it, is also important for us, but please remember SENTRY is a community project, and we didn't do any other marketing moves then answering to the questions in the forums. Youtube reviews are something new for this project, and maybe if more people will see SENTRY, then we will get bigger support for it.

 

5 hours ago, Sheepy7 said:

The 2 brothers said themselves that they tested the latest prototype for a significant amount of time and have found no issues whatsoever when it comes to thermals and acoustics. Therefore the case is due to release in my opinion.

We found no issues with the RIG's we have. We've made benchmarks with 150W (GTX970 Blower) and 180W (R9-270X Windforce 3) GPUs, but we can't say those are representative for all high-end stuff. At this moment, when new architecture is on the market, i would say our test GPUs become mid-range cards, so our last benchmarks are inadequate to the market situation.

In some forums we saw people who are asking if their 300W Radeon R9 290X will be ok in this case... Such questions stopped us from releasing the case before external reviews. People forget that SENTRY, which has actually the smallest internal volume on the market (6,9L) isn't made for every possible combination of components. We don't want people to be disappointed when they will install their almost 300W GPU's and 150W CPU's in a case with size similar to XBOX ONE, and they will not be satisfied with the thermals. That is another reason why we need those reviews. People are buying stuff mostly "with their eyes". We don't want that. We want people to understand what they are buying and if it is really for them.

 

Please wait a little bit. We hope Linus will draw the line, which stuff is the most optimal for SENTRY.

[TheGhzGuy]

I'm sure this question has been asked many, many times, but your case caught my eye and I just thought I should ask a quick question. I assume this will use an SFX or SFX-L power supply, or is it something totally different? 

 

Thanks for building this awesome looking case and I hope to buy this for college and for my dad.