Hey everyone,
I finally have a build that I can show off. I always wanted a Dan A4 or Ghost S1, but I really couldn't justify the price. I saw an opportunity with the GEEEK A50. I was thinking about getting the white variant, but I wasn't a fan of the black sides and interior. This build was a lot more difficult than it needed to be but overall I'm happy with the end results.
The case comes disassembled which I assume helps cuts down shipping cost. Putting together the case itself was pretty easy with the online manual.
GPU is mounted in the back side of the motherboard like the Dan A4. It was a bit hard to mount the GPU the first time but everything works as intended so far.
Here's the build with the stock side panels. The big GEEEK logo is not so great which is why I ordered some custom side panels.
So there was some hiccups with this build. Because I had not worked on a PC this small before, cable management was a bit of a challenge. The USB 3.0 pins on my motherboard was in between the RAM and PSU, making it hard to get to. I ended up snapping one of the pins off the motherboard. To make matter worse, my PC stopped posting after this happened. After spending an hour of diagnosing, I've determine one of the ram had died. I ended up buying a new set of memories (I was just using spare sticks before) and a new MSI Z270I Gaming ITX motherboard.
This gave me an opportunity to see how easy it would be to switch out the motherboard. Turns out it is very difficult to remove and install a motherboard in this chassis. There's barely any space to lift the motherboard out and it's very hard to drop a motherboard in as it presses up against the IO shield, causing the ports to catch on the IO shield holes.
Everything was fine for a while until my build turned out to be unstable. My PC would sometimes turn off, this happened the most often in Chrome. As it turns out, the Silverstone 450W SFX PSU I was using couldn't handle my build. So now I also have to swap out the PSU. This was surprisingly easier than swapping out the motherboard. All I had to do was unplug all the PSU cables, remove the top panel, and pull out the PSU. Then all I had to do to mount a new PSU in the top panel and drop it in. I went with a Corsair SF600 which should give a lot of head room for my parts.
After dealing with all of that, I got to work ordering my custom panels. I order the left panel from Ponoko.com as they offer $20 off your first order. The precision of the cuts are really good and overall I can recommend them for making panels. I wanted to get a black opaque frame spray painted onto the acrylic and I found a local business willing to do so, but it wasn't going to be cheap. However, they also offer a vinyl cutting service for free and that's what I went with. They also offered to make my other side panel for free which I couldn't pass on. They couldn't do my logo because their laser cutter wasn't precise enough, but I was OK with this.
The black frame hides the LED strips inside my case which makes the build look a lot cleaner in my opinion. With the lights off the case is a sleek black box. When you turn on the lights you can see the internals and all its glory.
Overall I'm pretty pleased with this build. The case is pretty great for the price except for the ugly logo on the stock side panels.
Specs:
CPU: i5-7600k overclocked to 4.9ghz
Memory: 16gb (8x2) Crucial Ballistix LT overclocked to 3000 mt/s
GPU: EVGA GTX 1060 6GB SSC with stock overclock
Motherboard: MSI Z270I Gaming ITX
Storage: WD Blue SSD 500gb
PSU: Corsair SF600
I finally have a build that I can show off. I always wanted a Dan A4 or Ghost S1, but I really couldn't justify the price. I saw an opportunity with the GEEEK A50. I was thinking about getting the white variant, but I wasn't a fan of the black sides and interior. This build was a lot more difficult than it needed to be but overall I'm happy with the end results.
The case comes disassembled which I assume helps cuts down shipping cost. Putting together the case itself was pretty easy with the online manual.
GPU is mounted in the back side of the motherboard like the Dan A4. It was a bit hard to mount the GPU the first time but everything works as intended so far.
Here's the build with the stock side panels. The big GEEEK logo is not so great which is why I ordered some custom side panels.
So there was some hiccups with this build. Because I had not worked on a PC this small before, cable management was a bit of a challenge. The USB 3.0 pins on my motherboard was in between the RAM and PSU, making it hard to get to. I ended up snapping one of the pins off the motherboard. To make matter worse, my PC stopped posting after this happened. After spending an hour of diagnosing, I've determine one of the ram had died. I ended up buying a new set of memories (I was just using spare sticks before) and a new MSI Z270I Gaming ITX motherboard.
This gave me an opportunity to see how easy it would be to switch out the motherboard. Turns out it is very difficult to remove and install a motherboard in this chassis. There's barely any space to lift the motherboard out and it's very hard to drop a motherboard in as it presses up against the IO shield, causing the ports to catch on the IO shield holes.
Everything was fine for a while until my build turned out to be unstable. My PC would sometimes turn off, this happened the most often in Chrome. As it turns out, the Silverstone 450W SFX PSU I was using couldn't handle my build. So now I also have to swap out the PSU. This was surprisingly easier than swapping out the motherboard. All I had to do was unplug all the PSU cables, remove the top panel, and pull out the PSU. Then all I had to do to mount a new PSU in the top panel and drop it in. I went with a Corsair SF600 which should give a lot of head room for my parts.
After dealing with all of that, I got to work ordering my custom panels. I order the left panel from Ponoko.com as they offer $20 off your first order. The precision of the cuts are really good and overall I can recommend them for making panels. I wanted to get a black opaque frame spray painted onto the acrylic and I found a local business willing to do so, but it wasn't going to be cheap. However, they also offer a vinyl cutting service for free and that's what I went with. They also offered to make my other side panel for free which I couldn't pass on. They couldn't do my logo because their laser cutter wasn't precise enough, but I was OK with this.
The black frame hides the LED strips inside my case which makes the build look a lot cleaner in my opinion. With the lights off the case is a sleek black box. When you turn on the lights you can see the internals and all its glory.
Overall I'm pretty pleased with this build. The case is pretty great for the price except for the ugly logo on the stock side panels.
Specs:
CPU: i5-7600k overclocked to 4.9ghz
Memory: 16gb (8x2) Crucial Ballistix LT overclocked to 3000 mt/s
GPU: EVGA GTX 1060 6GB SSC with stock overclock
Motherboard: MSI Z270I Gaming ITX
Storage: WD Blue SSD 500gb
PSU: Corsair SF600