Advice needed: i7-2600k inside a (very) small case and good air cooling NO GAMING

MvKeinen

Caliper Novice
Original poster
Jan 17, 2017
24
4
Hi!

I need some advice to transform an old gaming monster into a mobile little desktop for professional audio recording in the studio and on stage. I've built PCs in the past but that was a long time ago, so I'm not a complete noob, but I need help.

My brother gave me his old Gaming monster:
i7-2600k
gigabyte z68 motherboard M-ATX
2x AMD HD6900 in crossfire
2x intel SSD
8MB RAM
liquid cooling

I think the CPU is still great. For multitrack audio recording through a professional Audiointerface the single-core speed is crutial. Also for many audio applications I use, the utilisation of many cores is still problematic because of realtime issues. So single-core speed it is.

NO GAMING, not even a bit.
So there is no need for a discrete GPU. This also will save power, heat and space.

NO RGB.
I dont know if I'm right but as a musician you learn to not introduce unnecessary electrical interferences in your system because Audio over USB (prof. Audiointerface) tends to be sensitive to these kinds of things.

STABILITY BEFORE SPEED.
In the club on stage you need your system as stable as possible for obvious reasons. Its hot (up to 50 C°) noisy fans don't matter (I don't use microphones and the music is hopefully louder as than the fans :-). In the studio it matters a bit more, but also here I don't use Mics so the fans noise won't make it onto the recording) My conclusion to this: No OC! Maybe different Fan profiles.

MOBILITY!
I will carry that thing (not the monitor) every day inside a backpack. So the main goal would be:

AS SMALL AS POSSIBLE (for mobility)
AS BIG AS NECESSARY (for stabilty and coolness)

I thought the existing CPU, the 2 SSDs and the RAM is a great point to start. I would need a MB, a case and a Cooler.

Here are my Questions:
Motherboard M-ITX:
1.1 As I'm not planning to overclock it might be better to get a non-Z chipset because you never know what OC-tinkering the previous user did and it might be worn off by that. Right? Wrong?
1.2 What Chipset do you recommend? Which chipsets are compatible with the k2600? I need as many USB ports as possible. Do the z/h7x chipsets give me more value than the z/h6x?
1.3 I know AsRock is very good nowadays, but I remember talk of some quality issues back in the day (2011) Right? Wrong?

Case:
2.1 I like the InWin Chopin. Will the 150W power the CPU/MB/SSDs and 1-2 USB powered devices (NO GPU)?
2.2 Is the Chopin good for strong air cooling?
2.3 Other possible cases?

Air-Cooler: (PERFORMANCE BEFORE SILENCE)
3.1 The InWin Chopin ok for the Cryorig c7? Judging from the technical details of the case (43mm) no, but I've read threads here where people say it fits. Could you confirm that? If yes, does the tiny space left between case and cooler affect the cooling negatively?
3.2 Other possible coolers?

I hope the read was not too long. Please feel free to point me to some online information.

Thanks in advance
 

LeChuck81

SFF Lingo Aficionado
May 6, 2019
129
36
Do you have a budget in mind?
As for the MoBo, nowadays, especially X-6x/X-7x chipset based ones, are only available on the second hand market therefore I'd go for a Z chipset 'cause those are usually of higher quality(=last longer).
 

mijffs

Caliper Novice
Aug 20, 2019
28
4
not sure about the z chipset,they may have been better built but they will have more likely had a long hard life by now and they still go for pretty strong money.secondhand h6 and h7 chipsets are dirt cheap relativily, ebay has quite a lot just look at whats on them usb 3 isnt guaranteed on the board or i/o and some dont even have hdmi.

the chopin looks like a nice case but for an igp only portable build you could get something smaller plus i cant see that mesh gauze protruding from the case lasting too long if your transporting it all the time.

power and heat shouldnt really be an issue if your using single threaded workloads .run it up with whatever your going to use it with and see what it consumes might give you a better idea of water power/cooling you will need.
 
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LeChuck81

SFF Lingo Aficionado
May 6, 2019
129
36
As for the case, I'm in love with Streacom FC8 Alpha, I definitely have to build something in it, one day or another…
Unfortunately, it doesn't come cheap. At all.
 

thewizzard1

Airflow Optimizer
Jan 27, 2017
333
248
"H" chipset recommended, for price reasons. The "Z" chipsets carry a premium for older stuff, comparatively - Also, a 7-series will have more features.
 

MvKeinen

Caliper Novice
Original poster
Jan 17, 2017
24
4
Thanks a lot for the replies! Good point about the chopin not beeing perfect for relocation all the time.
I looked around in the forums and found that the loneindustries seems to be a perfect fit and it seems to be available. I don't mind an external brick so I think some kind of picoPsu would be ok. The solution would be a bit more expensive but I'm willing to pay a bit more for convenience. The built has to work at home running relatively silent, but also in very hot places like clubs. So any kind of passive cooling is out of the question. That also rules out the Streacom FC8.

Regarding picoPSUs: When I first was interested in SFF I read about some electrical problems in PicoPSUs. As I stated earlier Audio over USB is very sensitive to these kinds of things, but I didn't follow the market after that.

What PicoPSUs are you recommending when it comes to electrical stability? Or is that just nonsense and anything is good? I guess 150W is ok? But I would invest a bit more money if you recommend going for pricier, better ones.

As for the motherboard I found some ebay offerings of the Asus P8H77-I at reasonable prices.

Thanks again, as for the picoPSU questions, feel free to point me to existing threads and online recources.
 

LeChuck81

SFF Lingo Aficionado
May 6, 2019
129
36
How much would you be interested into M.2 SSD, either SATA or, even better, NVMe ones?
If you plan on relying only on the iGPU, I read it's possible to boot up from a PCIe-to-M.2 card with Z77 chpset. It would even support NVMe for faster SSDs.
 

GuilleAcoustic

Chief Procrastination Officer
SFFn Staff
LOSIAS
Jun 29, 2015
2,967
4,390
guilleacoustic.wordpress.com
What PicoPSUs are you recommending when it comes to electrical stability? Or is that just nonsense and anything is good? I guess 150W is ok? But I would invest a bit more money if you recommend going for pricier, better ones.

HDPLEX has HiFi oriented DC-DC with circuit dedicated to ripple noise suppression: https://hdplex.com/hdplex-400w-hi-fi-dc-atx-power-supply-16v-24v-wide-range-voltage-input.html

How much would you be interested into M.2 SSD, either SATA or, even better, NVMe ones?
If you plan on relying only on the iGPU, I read it's possible to boot up from a PCIe-to-M.2 card with Z77 chpset. It would even support NVMe for faster SSDs.

Booting from the PCIe on Z77 requires a custom BIOS, it is not possible with a genuine BIOS image. The machine could still boot from regular SATA SSD and use fast PCIe SSD as scratch drive while recording...
 

LeChuck81

SFF Lingo Aficionado
May 6, 2019
129
36
Booting from the PCIe on Z77 requires a custom BIOS, it is not possible with a genuine BIOS image. The machine could still boot from regular SATA SSD and use fast PCIe SSD as scratch drive while recording...
Indeed it's not out-of-the-box but it's doable. Even though I read about some beta BIOS released from AsRock for some of their Z77 models that enabled PCIe-to-M2 boot support…

Also, if @MvKeinen doesn't want to try his luck with modded BIOS, using a faster SSD as it's working drive, as you mentioned, could still be interesting.
 

Stevo_

Master of Cramming
Jul 2, 2015
449
304
I used one of these pcie to m.2 SATA adapters on my p8z77i(3770K turbo shut off) mobo just uses slot for power then use sata cable. As mentioned above and I and tried on my z77, it will not boot stock bios from pcie nor the usb3 header. Edit: If you want to get smaller than case below(MX500 now availabel USB3 in front ine 2.0) Morex 557B is a good one USB 2.0 though..
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NGFF-M-2-B...913037?hash=item4b6bf73fcd:g:pRgAAOSwvCpdkhpO

 
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MvKeinen

Caliper Novice
Original poster
Jan 17, 2017
24
4
thanks a lot LeChuck81 and GuilleAcoustic for that great info. It is a bit of a game changer for me because the two things I'd be missing in the long run with this built would have been NVMe and TB3.

Maybe there is even the possibility to have a low profile PCIe -> dual M.2 card. One M.2 for the NVMe and the other one for TB3. But here is what I don't understand about TB3: Will the chipset/CPU have to be able to "understand" TB3 or is it just data as soon as it is connected to PCIe lanes? I'm asking because in 2011/12 there was no TB3. Does a M.2->TB3 adapter even exist? I didn't find any.

Anyway thats really good to know. But would be a part of a later update because my budget now is at 350€ max for case, cooler, Mobo and PSU. I also suspect the SSDs I have will be capable of handling the workload, although I'll be recording up to 16 audio channels at 24bit/96kHZ for hours. But let's see how that goes. according to this: https://www.sounddevices.com/audio-record-time-calculations/
the load would be 4.39453125 MiB/sec but I don't know how to translate this to SSD speeds. Also I don't know how the RAM is utilized by the recording software but a recording of 3 hours would be 47.5 GB so it wouldn't work with RAM only.

NVMe as a boot device sounds tempting but I'm sceptical about BIOS tinkering when it comes to stability. Although the dream machine would be NVMe as a boot device and two SSDs for data redundancy via raid. But I guess I would have to update the chipset and CPU for that.

here is where I'm now:
1. loneindustries L5 + shipping 130€
2. h77 asus Mobo 70€? (I've seen it go on ebay for 40€ last week)
3. HDplex dc-dc 60€ (200W) or 90€ (400W)?
4. some power brick maybe 50€
5. cooler, don't know yet.

-> 3. It would be nice to find out if the effords put into the 400W model concerning noise ripple also went into the 200W model. 200W would be more than enough for me I gathered from some threads around here. I know there is a lot of voodoo around hifi enthusiasts, some of it matters, some is marketing bla. I don't know which is which. :-)
-> 5. Looking at the L5 the noctua nh-l9x65 or the Noctua NH-L12S are possible but I'll have to look what kind of RAM I have. I wouldn't replace it for the sake of using the 12S. Are there even better ones? looking at the round up thread the l9x65 looks great but I don't know if there are newer ones that haven't been taken into account yet.

Question about PC PART PICKER:
are the compatibilities listed there 100% reliable? I'm asking because I've read in some tests about the Asus P8H77-I that some coolers might not be compatible because of part placement in the backside. Also it doesn't list the i7-2600K as being compatible to the P8H77-I. As far as I know the z-chipsets are not a necessity for K CPUs?

Thank you all! Please excuse it if some of my questions are answered elsewhere here. I'm slowly slipping into the SSF rabbit hole and it's a lot of information to take in and I'm really looking forward to this built. This is a great forum!
 

MvKeinen

Caliper Novice
Original poster
Jan 17, 2017
24
4
As the audio interface will work with USB2 I'm quite sure any ssd can handle the datavolume. When it comes to big sampling libraries that's another story but that's not my primary use yet.
 

Stevo_

Master of Cramming
Jul 2, 2015
449
304
thx for that. Looks very interesting and might be a cheaper alternative to the L5. But I'm not sure if the airflow would be good with 2 SSDs mounted above the CPU cooler.


Yeah, this is really only M.2 possible setup unless you have a real low power embedded mobo and as mentioned disable turbo. James(Lone) makes great cases, was very tempted by L5, have an L1 and L2 presetly not being used as I wanted PC under my monitor so it just didn't make sense only have about 80cm clearance plus there's no USB on the front panel. With an L5 you should be able to get the dual SATA SSD low profile version of the above adapter
 

LeChuck81

SFF Lingo Aficionado
May 6, 2019
129
36
[snippete]
NVMe as a boot device sounds tempting but I'm sceptical about BIOS tinkering when it comes to stability. Although the dream machine would be NVMe as a boot device and two SSDs for data redundancy via raid. But I guess I would have to update the chipset and CPU for that.
[snappete]
If you don't want to mess around with modded BIOS, I wouldn't care too much about booting from an NVMe SSD, the difference with a SATA SSD would be in the order of few seconds, not really noticeable.
But I would still invest in a PCIe-to-M.2 adapter for data storage, particularly if you plan to work on big files.
It would also be easy-peasy; if you don't need to boot up from it, it should only be a matter of drivers and Win10 should support it out-of-the-box, AFAIK.

But anyone with more knowledge on the matter, feel free to fill in the blanks or correct me if I'm wrong on anything.

Oh, if you plan on bifurcating the PCIe lanes, watch out for MoBo support. I read that it's a per case scenario. With some producer (i.e. Asus) not supporting it at all out-of-the-box not even in their last products.
And, above all, AFAIK (and I'm interested in it too, considering I too have a P8Z77 Mini-ITX MoBo I plan to use for a build soon), with 7x gen of chipset you need to work on the Bios, it was not a thing back in the days.
 
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LeChuck81

SFF Lingo Aficionado
May 6, 2019
129
36
@MvKeinen
As for the case, may I intrigue you in a custom mod? I don't think anyone as attempted it yet, I was thinking one of those vintage turntables, those made into a suitcase? There should be plenty of room, if you're willing to sacrifice the turntable in itself (maybe leaving the exterior for cosmetic purpose) and, with no mechanical parts, it would be the very definition of mobility! And think of the coolness of it!
 

GuilleAcoustic

Chief Procrastination Officer
SFFn Staff
LOSIAS
Jun 29, 2015
2,967
4,390
guilleacoustic.wordpress.com
@MvKeinen
As for the case, may I intrigue you in a custom mod? I don't think anyone as attempted it yet, I was thinking one of those vintage turntables, those made into a suitcase? There should be plenty of room, if you're willing to sacrifice the turntable in itself (maybe leaving the exterior for cosmetic purpose) and, with no mechanical parts, it would be the very definition of mobility! And think of the coolness of it!

Awesome idea mate ! I have an old Pathé Marconi wax record player that I store at my wife's parents place...

 
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MvKeinen

Caliper Novice
Original poster
Jan 17, 2017
24
4
OMG, nooooo go away!! :-) :-)

this looks funny, but this built is for professional use. I'm no DJ so I have absolutely no ties to vinyls. Rather the opposite.