Banzai Revived

aisle9 · April 22, 2017

So after several months of flipping PCs, my SFF gaming build, Banzai, was left in rather sorry shape. No RAM, no CPU (previously had contained an i3-6100), no GPU, essentially just a shell with a mobo, a solid Seasonic PSU and a Micron SSD that I somehow forgot about in there. Clearly, some work was needed to bring Banzai back.

I was finally inspired to revive Banzai when I finished Hypnotoad up and realized that that PC really needed an unlocked chip. The plan, at that point, was to buy an unlocked i5, pass Hypnotoad's 6500 down to the exercise room PC, and pick up a Pentium G4560 for Banzai. I pulled his MSI low-profile 750 Ti back out, but realized quickly that this was not doing Banzai justice. He needed to be a truly fierce little slimline...and he would.

Banzai started life as an HP s3200n slimline PC that I purchased from a local secondhand computer shop. His specs when I adopted him were as below:

Throughout his life with me, Banzai has cycled through RAM (anywhere from 8-16GB of DDR4), multiple GPUs (GTX 750 Ti, GT 730, FirePro V3800, integrated graphics) and CPUs (i3-6100, i5-6500, i7-6700). Today, Banzai arrives in his final form: MechaBanzai.

The decision between i5 and i7 wasn't really that hard for me. A new 6600K for Hypnotoad would have cost $220. Moving the 6500 over would have resulted in a power draw of 65W, plus 75W for the GPU, then tack on everything else and suddenly we're looking at 200-225W on a 300W Flex ATX PSU. It's a Seasonic, sure, but there are some levels of close that I don't like to cut. It was at that point that a sale on eBay caught my eye: an i7-6700T for $249 or best offer, free shipping. It took about ten seconds to realize that an eight-threaded locked i7 is a better buy for the future than an unlocked quad-threaded i5, and getting the seller down to $220 with free shipping was the icing on the cake. A few days later, my 6700T is here, and boom:

Why a downclocked 6700T? Three reasons. One: power draw. I feel a lot better about a 35W chip in there than I do a 65W. Two: thermals. There is no case fan in this tiny little slimline chassis, and there's no way to install one without making it look completely ghetto. Three: cost. If you could have an i7 for the cost of a high-end i5, why not? For cooling, only the best: the Rosewill RCX-Z300.

Wait, that's not the best? Au contraire. You're not overclocking a 6700K on this thing, but it's $11, it's got a copper core, it's got a 92mm PWM fan that's damn near silent, and as a stock cooler replacement that's much quieter and considerably better at the job, you could do a whole lot worst. Also, the red fan looks awesome in the black cave that is Banzai's interior when he's closed up.

The GPU upgrade was next. The tiny little MSI low-profile 750 Ti was in there previously, but Banzai needed an upgrade. Why not the 750 Ti's beefier, younger brother, the 1050 Ti? A price tag of $149 with a $10 MIR on top of that plus $50 in Amazon gift cards made the MSI LP version of the 1050 Ti my pick:

I was initially surprised at how much longer it is than its older brother (that's what she said). I still managed to make it fit...if just barely.

The Micron M500 240GB SSD is held to the optical drive tray with a 3M Command picture hanging strip. I also slapped a 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda in the HDD bay.

And then the fun part of any USFF build without a modular power supply: dat cable management tho

Hey, improvisation works just fine. Time to install the Rosewill cooler:

And now we close him up. From this angle, you'd never know what's in there:

A red CPU cooler...huh...pretty sure that's not stock...

The outside of the case is totally untouched, including the secondhand store's spec and pricing sheet, which is still attached up top. But the inside of that side panel...