Log A journey from the tower to something SFF

[mikejmcfarlane]

SSD​

Modern NVMe storage is pretty fast and I had no real need to mess with this. But as I was tweaking and exploring it seemed worth a look. I wanted to look at two areas.

RAID​

The Asus ROG Strix z790-i supports dual NVMe in RAID 0 or RAID 1. I spent a little time refreshing my knowledge on RAID performance and google made it clear there are no easy wins here. Wendel from Level1Techs also recommends don't even bother with RAID for NVMe!


That was a quick test!

Different NVMe drive​

This was another quick look. Swapping between the fitted WD Black SN850 1TB, a Corsair MP600 PRO XT 1TB and a Samsung 990 PRO 1TB and using aida64 disk test showed really variable results from run to run (I was measuring on the OS drive with no other programs running so some variablity expected) with no clear winner, but the Samsung 990 Pro was particularly erratic in the results.


So the WD Black SN850 is staying in the build. I didn't really expect any real difference here, these are all great PCIe 4.0 drives!

 

[mikejmcfarlane]

Overclocking and undervolting​

This was a new area of knowledge for me. When I bought the tower system from Scan I went with a high spec including a K series processor so that at some point I could spend some time tweaking performance. But that never really happened for various reasons. Mainly the system was stable and I just didn't want to mess with it. Whilst I enjoy building and tweaking hardware, I need my daily driver to just work. Every day, every time I turn it on!


Now with the SFF build not migrated to my daily driver yet I have some latitude to explore the K series processor, and there is some imperative to do so to help manage thermals in the SFF case, and also rising energy costs.


First to learn about overclocking and undervolting. Lots of YouTube and reddit! I decided to keep the overclocking simple given my limited knowledge and use the Asus motherboard built in "AI overclock" performance functionality vs the "normal" performance. For undervolting, whilst the voltage offset can be set in the BIOS, I used Intel XTU software during my experiments to make it easier to tune voltage offsets. Then once I have a voltage offset I am happy with it is set in the BIOS. aida64 was used to load the system.


There are six sets of test results for thermals and power consumption below including a comparison to my tower system as I had been running it, and also applying some learnings on undervolting to it that I know won't effect it's stability:

1. i7-13700K SFF, AI overclock, no undervolt
2. i7-13700K SFF, AI overclock, undervolted
3. i7-13700K SFF, no overclock, no undervolt
4. i7-13700K SFF, no overclock, undervolted
5. i9-12900K tower, no overclock, no undervolt
6. i9-12900K tower, no overclock, undervolted

I found this whole process really intriguing and fun, the Intel XTU software is brilliant for experimentation and getting immediate feedback. And the final results were not what I was expecting at all.


I'd really welcome any suggestions or critique on what I have done, feedback is a great way to learn. Thanks.

 

[mikejmcfarlane]

1. i7-13700K SFF, AI overclock, no undervolt​

2. i7-13700K SFF, AI overclock, undervolted​

Final voltage offset value = -0.075V.


nb In Asus AI overclock mode, it appears the BIOS voltage offset value is not used. Googling around suggested this is a common problem with Asus AI overclock mode. So I can only set the offset value in Intel XTU software.

3. i7-13700K SFF, no overclock, no undervolt​

4. i7-13700K SFF, no overclock, undervolted​

Final voltage offset value = -0.10V.


nb with the i7-13700K I could drop the voltage offset much lower without effecting stability or performance, but it had no further effect on power consumption. Perhaps some other value needs set. -0.1V was giving a good result so I didn't investigate further.

5. i9-12900K tower, no overclock, no undervolt​

This is what I have been running for the last year. It's a performance and power consuming monster.

6. i9-12900K tower, no overclock, undervolted​

Having gained some confidence with undervolting on the SFF build I applied some undervolting to the notoriously hot and hungry i9-12900K.

Final voltage offset value = -0.125V.

Wow! I would not have expected such a drop in power consumption or cpu temps. This is mind blowing!

Geekbench results for all tests​

 

[mikejmcfarlane]

Dan A4-H20 performance improvements conclusions​

My conclusions for potential performance improvements are pretty clear.

Changes to the NVMe storage were not worthwhile, and I have stayed with the already excellent WD Black SN850. (That's not the X version).

Thermal performance from the Corsair H100i RGB Pro XT is excellent for the CPU and well suited to the i7-13700K in the Dan A4-H20. CPU temps are well controlled with no thermal throttling at stock settings. The RTX A4500 GPU looks after itself with a blower style cooler with near direct air inlet from the case side. The addition of a small fan directly cooling the motherboard wasn't necessary, but did offer about 10degC improvements to RAM and VRM temps.

The big win was in undervolting. I'm not going to overclock on a regular basis. There might be some jobs I do occasionally where it is worth having the performance, but on a daily basis I don't need the extra GHz. Dropping power consumption and temps through undervolting, with a small corresponding drop in fan noise, is a big win.

And a comparison to the tower build? Compared to what I was running for the last year (before I knew how to undervolt), the SFF build has more performance, lower energy costs and is a quieter PC!

I'm stunned how good this SFF build is. I'm in a lucky position to be able to afford good components, and it's great that there is so much information on this forum, reddit and the internet at large to help me chose and tune wisely. And I love this Dan A4-H20 case. The thought that has gone into the design, the engagement wth the SFF community to make it the best it can be, shows clearly. Thank you all!

Here is a summary of the performance testing results:

Next, tidy up the cables, and time to make the SFF my daily driver.

 

[mikejmcfarlane]

Wiring tidy​

Time to try to tidy the wiring mess.

I had a lot of hope at this point for pretty cables. Shorten the cables removing excess plugs and wrap the longer and bulkier cables with some mesh wrap and shrink tube.

After a few attempts, and ugly, stiff bulky cables I reverted to simply removing un-needed plugs and cable ties on longer cable runs. It's a bit neater than it was and removes some clutter in the build.

In bits again!

As the Asus ROG Strix z790-i doesn't have an HD-audio header I removed that cable.

Bulky cables that needed to bend tightly I stayed with the velcro cable tidies.

Honestly this looks neater irl! :-)

Small and ridiculously powerful black box back together.

 

[mikejmcfarlane]

Done​

Time to work.

Thanks for reading and have fun.

 

[hrh_ginsterbusch]

Done​

Time to work.

Thanks for reading and have fun.

now the only question left: is this a linux terminal I spy on the left monitor?
(but from the looks, could also be a full inux system - guessing ubuntu or debian - with XFCE4 running in semi-mac OS-style)

cu, w0lf.

 

[mikejmcfarlane]

now the only question left: is this a linux terminal I spy on the left monitor?
(but from the looks, could also be a full inux system - guessing ubuntu or debian - with XFCE4 running in semi-mac OS-style)

cu, w0lf.

I think you read my mind! It's still Win 11 Pro, but I have been considering moving back to linux as my daily driver machine. My photography workflow is quite different to how it was a year ago due to changes in camera systems, and Darktable may now be able to do what I needed Lightroom/Photoshop to do. Adobe was the main reason I have a Windows workstation. Although I do rather like Win 11 as an OS, there are issues technically and ethically, but there are some UI/UX choices I really like. Apart from the ads and endless reminders to sign in to MS account, Win 11 does just work for me. It's useful to now have a spare workstation so I can try some more experimentation with OS and tools.

Anyway, what you see is Firefox and Sublime Text, which look about the same regardless of OS. The terminal on the left is Ubuntu running in Windows Subsystem for Linux, which is pretty cool. Full linux terminal with support for nvidia docker and other nvidia tools.

 

[hrh_ginsterbusch]

I think you read my mind! It's still Win 11 Pro, but I have been considering moving back to linux as my daily driver machine. My photography workflow is quite different to how it was a year ago due to changes in camera systems, and Darktable may now be able to do what I needed Lightroom/Photoshop to do. Adobe was the main reason I have a Windows workstation. Although I do rather like Win 11 as an OS, there are issues technically and ethically, but there are some UI/UX choices I really like. Apart from the ads and endless reminders to sign in to MS account, Win 11 does just work for me. It's useful to now have a spare workstation so I can try some more experimentation with OS and tools.

Anyway, what you see is Firefox and Sublime Text, which look about the same regardless of OS. The terminal on the left is Ubuntu running in Windows Subsystem for Linux, which is pretty cool. Full linux terminal with support for nvidia docker and other nvidia tools.

I'm using 64 GB of RAM explicitely because of that .. "Linux vs the rest of the world" issue - so I'm able to spin up a VM whenever needed.
But so far, havent needed that option at all. I've recently switched from my ancient PS 9 install (Win 7 Pro VM) to Krita, and haven't ever looked back. Krita feels a lot like Paint Shop Pro, but with a PS touch, streamlined and really nice to work with, and there also are animation editing options that I havent used yet.

A quick dive into what I use as a web developer / designer / amateurish audio engineer:

- OS: MX Linux KDE 21.3 + Liquorix kernel (multiboot, Siduction was my base install, because MX Linux wasnt out yet with an up-to-date - read "proper support of current Intel CPUs" - kernel; added MX Linux on secondary partition when they released a 6.0 kernel update shortly after)
- IDE: Geany + XAMPP (because lightweight AND cross-platform, ie. works on all 3 major platforms), Kate as a fallback option
- Graphic Editor: Krita (all-purpose, PS replacement), Inkscape (Vector graphics + related, Freehand replacement), ImageMagick (for batch conversion, and complicated things like 600 DPI JPEG scans to multi-page PDF)
- Browser galore: Pale Moon (active fork of Firefox XUL), Firefox, Vivaldi, Chrome
- VPN: ProtonVPN (their Linux app is okayish, they also got options for 'pure' OpenVPN and a simple cli app)
- Mail: Interlink (fork of Thunderbird XUL)
- File Manager: Krusader (best Total Commander replacement)
- Audio: Mixxx (DJ Mixer, cross-platform), Audacity (Audio Editor, cross-platform), Qjackctl (GUI for JACK), pagraphcontrol (GUI / patchbay similar to qjackctl, but for Pulse Audio)
- Video: OBS Studio (cross-platform), Kdenlive (Premiere replacement), gtk-youtube-player (standalone YouTube player)

A lot of other programs like eg. Telegram, Discord or Strawberry (fork of Clemetine player), Ferdium (Fork of Ferdi, which in itself is a fork of Franz) have always been available cross-platform, so I dont mention them (the list would turn out to be endless)

cu, w0lf.

 

[mikejmcfarlane]

I'm using 64 GB of RAM explicitely because of that .. "Linux vs the rest of the world" issue - so I'm able to spin up a VM whenever needed.
But so far, havent needed that option at all. I've recently switched from my ancient PS 9 install (Win 7 Pro VM) to Krita, and haven't ever looked back. Krita feels a lot like Paint Shop Pro, but with a PS touch, streamlined and really nice to work with, and there also are animation editing options that I havent used yet.

A quick dive into what I use as a web developer / designer / amateurish audio engineer:

- OS: MX Linux KDE 21.3 + Liquorix kernel (multiboot, Siduction was my base install, because MX Linux wasnt out yet with an up-to-date - read "proper support of current Intel CPUs" - kernel; added MX Linux on secondary partition when they released a 6.0 kernel update shortly after)
- IDE: Geany + XAMPP (because lightweight AND cross-platform, ie. works on all 3 major platforms), Kate as a fallback option
- Graphic Editor: Krita (all-purpose, PS replacement), Inkscape (Vector graphics + related, Freehand replacement), ImageMagick (for batch conversion, and complicated things like 600 DPI JPEG scans to multi-page PDF)
- Browser galore: Pale Moon (active fork of Firefox XUL), Firefox, Vivaldi, Chrome
- VPN: ProtonVPN (their Linux app is okayish, they also got options for 'pure' OpenVPN and a simple cli app)
- Mail: Interlink (fork of Thunderbird XUL)
- File Manager: Krusader (best Total Commander replacement)
- Audio: Mixxx (DJ Mixer, cross-platform), Audacity (Audio Editor, cross-platform), Qjackctl (GUI for JACK), pagraphcontrol (GUI / patchbay similar to qjackctl, but for Pulse Audio)
- Video: OBS Studio (cross-platform), Kdenlive (Premiere replacement), gtk-youtube-player (standalone YouTube player)

A lot of other programs like eg. Telegram, Discord or Strawberry (fork of Clemetine player), Ferdium (Fork of Ferdi, which in itself is a fork of Franz) have always been available cross-platform, so I dont mention them (the list would turn out to be endless)

cu, w0lf.

that's a useful list thanks. I started experimenting with Inkscape today, seems good so far. Haven't tried Krita yet, will check that out.