Hello Everyone,
I just signed up to this forum to share a small build I just finished.
I modified a 3,7 liter case (Chopin clone) with an integrated PSU for APU builds in order to fit a GTX1650 and a full (brickless) 200 W PSU inside.
New build next to my old gtx 1060
Case: Nox Vexa 65 €
CPU: AMD Ryzen 1600 (AF) 90 €
Board: Asrock B450i Fatal!ty gaming 110 €
RAM: G.Skill Aegis 2x8 GB DDR4-3000 CL16 70 €
GPU: INNO3D GeForce GTX 1650 SINGLE SLOT 4GB 165 €
SSD: ADATA XPG SX6000 Lite M.2 2280 512 GB 80 €
PSU: Supermicro PWS-202-1H 50 €
PCIe Riser Linkup PCIe Riser 40 cm 55 €
GPU fans: 2 x UEETEK 5015 12V 0.18A 6 €
Others 8 Pin ATX Power Extention Cable 6 €
Door stoppers (as stands) 3 €
(...I added a 2 TB SATA HDD later)
Case:
Dimensions: 8 cm x 19,7 cm x 23,5 cm
I previously got this case for an APU build from spanish supplier Nox for about 50 Euros on amazon.
www.nox-xtreme.com
I heavily resembles the chopin case from inwin with I think mostly the exact same inner dimensions. The front panel makes it look a little cheaper than the chopin but this built is not about good looks but performance per volume per euro!
Like the Chopin, it features an integrated 150 Watt PSU and a drive bay below the motherboard that I never used. This precious empty space can be used for a larger PSU, a GPU…
The pre-installed PSU (see size comparison), however, is only rated for 5 Amps on the 12 Volt rail. Not sufficient for any external GPU above the GT1030, if any.
New PSU (left) vs. old (right)
Adding the PSU to the case was a hassle.
Most people who have added a GPU to their chopin case have used a split PSU to power their system but this is in fact additional volume.
As others have also pointed out, flex PSUs won't fit in the case because their height is mostly 8,2 mm whereas the case is only 8 cm high.
After searching for quite some time, I came across the PWS-202-1H from Supermicro which is the only 200 W PSU I found that has only 76 mm of height.
The PSU is just 4 mm shorter than the case:
To fit it in, I had to cut the base plate like this:
To make use of the additional volume in the drive bay:
GPU:
The 1650 (non-super) is not the best value gpu and got some bad reviews for that reason.
However, it has great efficiency and is currently the most powerful gpu that doesn't need an external power connector.
The INNO3D GeForce GTX 1650 SINGLE SLOT 4GB card is very slim. I thought it makes is my best bet for fitting it inside the drive bay.
It has a peculiar blower design with what looks like an axial fan used for radial ventilation.
With its 19 mm thickness it was still a little too thick to fit it into the drive bay
So i installed this PVC rail which has two purposes: guide the airflow over the lenght of the card and keep the card in place.
The card is held in place by plastic screws. It rests on a sheet of cardboard to prevent any contact of the PCB to the case.
The tool “argus monitor” lets me control the fans based on GPU temperature by taking the reading from the GPU Temp Sensor and controlling the voltage on the motherboard header.
Running the GPU at stock settings resulted in a gpu score of 3334 in 3D Mark. After running the Heaven benchmark at max. GPU utilization for half an hour, the card hit 80°C and started throttling.
However, the card is heavily memory bandwidth limied. While changes in core frequency result in very small changes in performance, changes in memory frequency have a bigger impact on performance.
I was able to undervolt the core to run at max. 900 mV at a max. freq. of 1666 Mhz. At the same time, I increased the memory freq. from 4,0 to 4,8 GHz.
This resulted in a stable 65°C and increased my GPU score to 3389.
I guess, the PSU could even deliver enough juice to support an undervolted GTX 1650 Super with a 100 Watt TDP. It comes with 2 Molex headers which could be combined to a 6 pin PCI-Power plug using an adapter.
The limited space for installing a suitable cooling solution in the case may require an even more severe underclocking/undervolting for the 100 Watt TDP card. But since the super GPU comes with much faster GDDR6 VRAM and the price gap between super and non-super is minimal, it may be worth a try.
Regards, David
I just signed up to this forum to share a small build I just finished.
I modified a 3,7 liter case (Chopin clone) with an integrated PSU for APU builds in order to fit a GTX1650 and a full (brickless) 200 W PSU inside.
New build next to my old gtx 1060
Case: Nox Vexa 65 €
CPU: AMD Ryzen 1600 (AF) 90 €
Board: Asrock B450i Fatal!ty gaming 110 €
RAM: G.Skill Aegis 2x8 GB DDR4-3000 CL16 70 €
GPU: INNO3D GeForce GTX 1650 SINGLE SLOT 4GB 165 €
SSD: ADATA XPG SX6000 Lite M.2 2280 512 GB 80 €
PSU: Supermicro PWS-202-1H 50 €
PCIe Riser Linkup PCIe Riser 40 cm 55 €
GPU fans: 2 x UEETEK 5015 12V 0.18A 6 €
Others 8 Pin ATX Power Extention Cable 6 €
Door stoppers (as stands) 3 €
Total: 705 €
(...I added a 2 TB SATA HDD later)
Case:
Dimensions: 8 cm x 19,7 cm x 23,5 cm
I previously got this case for an APU build from spanish supplier Nox for about 50 Euros on amazon.
Nox-xtreme
Vexa es un chasis perfecto para aquellos que necesitan un chasis de pequeñas dimensiones.
Like the Chopin, it features an integrated 150 Watt PSU and a drive bay below the motherboard that I never used. This precious empty space can be used for a larger PSU, a GPU…
The pre-installed PSU (see size comparison), however, is only rated for 5 Amps on the 12 Volt rail. Not sufficient for any external GPU above the GT1030, if any.
New PSU (left) vs. old (right)
Adding the PSU to the case was a hassle.
Most people who have added a GPU to their chopin case have used a split PSU to power their system but this is in fact additional volume.
As others have also pointed out, flex PSUs won't fit in the case because their height is mostly 8,2 mm whereas the case is only 8 cm high.
After searching for quite some time, I came across the PWS-202-1H from Supermicro which is the only 200 W PSU I found that has only 76 mm of height.
The PSU is just 4 mm shorter than the case:
To fit it in, I had to cut the base plate like this:
To make use of the additional volume in the drive bay:
GPU:
The 1650 (non-super) is not the best value gpu and got some bad reviews for that reason.
However, it has great efficiency and is currently the most powerful gpu that doesn't need an external power connector.
The INNO3D GeForce GTX 1650 SINGLE SLOT 4GB card is very slim. I thought it makes is my best bet for fitting it inside the drive bay.
It has a peculiar blower design with what looks like an axial fan used for radial ventilation.
With its 19 mm thickness it was still a little too thick to fit it into the drive bay
So i installed this PVC rail which has two purposes: guide the airflow over the lenght of the card and keep the card in place.
The card is held in place by plastic screws. It rests on a sheet of cardboard to prevent any contact of the PCB to the case.
I bought a set of 3 blower style fans that are normally used on the hot side of for 3d printers (d = 40 mm, height = 15 mm). I run two of them connected on a single molex header on the motherboard. The blowers take the air from outside the case and blow them over the heatsink. I installed another PVC rail on the heatsink to route the hot air right out the drive slot.
The tool “argus monitor” lets me control the fans based on GPU temperature by taking the reading from the GPU Temp Sensor and controlling the voltage on the motherboard header.
Running the GPU at stock settings resulted in a gpu score of 3334 in 3D Mark. After running the Heaven benchmark at max. GPU utilization for half an hour, the card hit 80°C and started throttling.
However, the card is heavily memory bandwidth limied. While changes in core frequency result in very small changes in performance, changes in memory frequency have a bigger impact on performance.
I was able to undervolt the core to run at max. 900 mV at a max. freq. of 1666 Mhz. At the same time, I increased the memory freq. from 4,0 to 4,8 GHz.
This resulted in a stable 65°C and increased my GPU score to 3389.
I guess, the PSU could even deliver enough juice to support an undervolted GTX 1650 Super with a 100 Watt TDP. It comes with 2 Molex headers which could be combined to a 6 pin PCI-Power plug using an adapter.
The limited space for installing a suitable cooling solution in the case may require an even more severe underclocking/undervolting for the 100 Watt TDP card. But since the super GPU comes with much faster GDDR6 VRAM and the price gap between super and non-super is minimal, it may be worth a try.
Regards, David
