So I'm living up 2 flights of stairs this year for uni and having a PC weighing like 10kg and almost as big as me was not going to work out. mITX to the rescue I guess.
And then I thought it would be funny to put the baddest cooler in it for OCs and giggles.
I would like to thank the guy who lives across the hall from me for aiding in the building of this and not being put off by my endless cussing. I made dinner for him.
This is my second build ever (my first was like 5 years ago too) so please be gentle :d
THE PARTS
Node 304
3570k
Silver Arrow
P8H77-I which was promptly replaced by a P8Z77-I once I realised it ruined literally everything
4GB of some crappy crucial ram
EVGA GTX 650 (chose a stump card so I use whatever psu I want)
be quiet! straight power 480w
Corsair force F60 SSD and a bunch of hard drives from my old pc
THE BUILD
Before we start: god damn building in a case this small blows and why are all the screws so tight holy crap you can't call those thumbscrews
Ok it wasn't so bad. Except for the motherboard standoffs which I needed to spanner in after leaving them 2mm out of the board then realising none of the ports on the back lined up because of it. srsly why fractal
The heatsink mounting mechanism was absolutely disgusting as to be expected from any cooler ever. I did like how there were long nut things you could attach the backplate with before putting the heatsink though because that made it a lot less nightmarish than it could have been.
The thing on the side of the motherboard didn't get in the way of the heatsink but it did limit my fan choice to only having the 120mm one (the 140mm won't go in normally because it covers the PCI slot and it won't go in sideways because of the thing) . It also meant I had to use the clips for the large fan on that side and they proper bend (2nd image) which is a bit worrying.
We needed 2 people to get the last screw in too because of it. Someone holding the screwdriver upright and someone else using their fingertips to turn the screw...
Thanks to miracles from asus you can use a cooler almost as wide as the mobo, then have a graphics card too...
Having a second 120mm fan on the heatsink is a no go too since they hit the DIMMs (maybe not on samsung green ram) and you'd have to put your drives elsewhere (using backwards SSDs in the cages might work)
And here it is in the case:
PUT THE MOTHERBOARD POWER CONNECTORS IN AT THIS POINT BECAUSE THEY'RE LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT IN AFTER THE PSU GOES IN
Also put the front panel stuff in before the GPU
Also put the CPU fan connector in the CPU fan slot and not the chassis one or the motherboard cries every time you turn it on (they are right next to each other...) and good luck changing it after the mobo goes in
edit: connect the CPU fan right or it won't spin up under load. Changing it while everything is in is doable but I have little girly hands so YMMV
Same thing from the other side:
GPU goes in easily enough except for the world's tightest thumbscrew to remove the backplates GOOD GOD FRACTAL. You can also fit all the drive cages in with the 650 because it's so small so I plan on mounting my 3rd drive here as it doesn't block the CPU fan so much.
The bottom PSU screw was kind of awful because I only had a fat screwdriver with the right head so I had to hold it at an angle then the screw kept going in sideways and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
I a little bit forgot to keep taking pictures at this point so let's skip to having basically everything in:
And here it is booting:
After selecting the silent (600rpm) profile for the CPU fan in the bios, putting the case fans on low and putting my finger on the GPU fan it's virtually silent. Then when I let the GPU fan spin up it's the loudest PC I've owned, but I'm hoping this will be remedied by installing drivers so they keep the fan speed on a tight leash.
I don't have any proper measurements for temps yet because I put my old HDD in and windows immediately BSODed on me and I couldn't be bothered to reinstall last night but after like 10mins in the bios the CPU was at <30'C. Real measurements will be coming later this weekend. Also overclocking results.
THINGS TO TAKE AWAY FROM THIS
The resulting build is actually not light at all but the size means it's not unwieldy so that shouldn't really matter. Will practice carrying it up and down stairs once it's done and report back.
You can actually have a silver arrow and mITX provided that you buy the most expensive motherboard ever because it's the only one with the CPU slot far enough from the PCI slot
GTX 650 is the perfect size for this case
Buy thin/long screwdrivers for the fiddly screws and ones with beefy handles for the stupid tight screws if you're going to do this.
And then I thought it would be funny to put the baddest cooler in it for OCs and giggles.
I would like to thank the guy who lives across the hall from me for aiding in the building of this and not being put off by my endless cussing. I made dinner for him.
This is my second build ever (my first was like 5 years ago too) so please be gentle :d
THE PARTS
Node 304
3570k
Silver Arrow
P8H77-I which was promptly replaced by a P8Z77-I once I realised it ruined literally everything
4GB of some crappy crucial ram
EVGA GTX 650 (chose a stump card so I use whatever psu I want)
be quiet! straight power 480w
Corsair force F60 SSD and a bunch of hard drives from my old pc
THE BUILD
Before we start: god damn building in a case this small blows and why are all the screws so tight holy crap you can't call those thumbscrews
Ok it wasn't so bad. Except for the motherboard standoffs which I needed to spanner in after leaving them 2mm out of the board then realising none of the ports on the back lined up because of it. srsly why fractal
The heatsink mounting mechanism was absolutely disgusting as to be expected from any cooler ever. I did like how there were long nut things you could attach the backplate with before putting the heatsink though because that made it a lot less nightmarish than it could have been.
The thing on the side of the motherboard didn't get in the way of the heatsink but it did limit my fan choice to only having the 120mm one (the 140mm won't go in normally because it covers the PCI slot and it won't go in sideways because of the thing) . It also meant I had to use the clips for the large fan on that side and they proper bend (2nd image) which is a bit worrying.
We needed 2 people to get the last screw in too because of it. Someone holding the screwdriver upright and someone else using their fingertips to turn the screw...
Thanks to miracles from asus you can use a cooler almost as wide as the mobo, then have a graphics card too...
Having a second 120mm fan on the heatsink is a no go too since they hit the DIMMs (maybe not on samsung green ram) and you'd have to put your drives elsewhere (using backwards SSDs in the cages might work)
And here it is in the case:
PUT THE MOTHERBOARD POWER CONNECTORS IN AT THIS POINT BECAUSE THEY'RE LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT IN AFTER THE PSU GOES IN
Also put the front panel stuff in before the GPU
Also put the CPU fan connector in the CPU fan slot and not the chassis one or the motherboard cries every time you turn it on (they are right next to each other...) and good luck changing it after the mobo goes in
edit: connect the CPU fan right or it won't spin up under load. Changing it while everything is in is doable but I have little girly hands so YMMV
Same thing from the other side:
GPU goes in easily enough except for the world's tightest thumbscrew to remove the backplates GOOD GOD FRACTAL. You can also fit all the drive cages in with the 650 because it's so small so I plan on mounting my 3rd drive here as it doesn't block the CPU fan so much.
The bottom PSU screw was kind of awful because I only had a fat screwdriver with the right head so I had to hold it at an angle then the screw kept going in sideways and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
I a little bit forgot to keep taking pictures at this point so let's skip to having basically everything in:
And here it is booting:
After selecting the silent (600rpm) profile for the CPU fan in the bios, putting the case fans on low and putting my finger on the GPU fan it's virtually silent. Then when I let the GPU fan spin up it's the loudest PC I've owned, but I'm hoping this will be remedied by installing drivers so they keep the fan speed on a tight leash.
I don't have any proper measurements for temps yet because I put my old HDD in and windows immediately BSODed on me and I couldn't be bothered to reinstall last night but after like 10mins in the bios the CPU was at <30'C. Real measurements will be coming later this weekend. Also overclocking results.
THINGS TO TAKE AWAY FROM THIS
The resulting build is actually not light at all but the size means it's not unwieldy so that shouldn't really matter. Will practice carrying it up and down stairs once it's done and report back.
You can actually have a silver arrow and mITX provided that you buy the most expensive motherboard ever because it's the only one with the CPU slot far enough from the PCI slot
GTX 650 is the perfect size for this case
Buy thin/long screwdrivers for the fiddly screws and ones with beefy handles for the stupid tight screws if you're going to do this.