Black OSMI rev. 2 build

[Vitamin Moto]

It was that time again, when games no longer ran smoothly on ultra settings, OS needed to be reinstalled and Ivy Bridge seemed like it's just too old. I'm talking, of course, about my old system, which was encased in huge Fractal's Define R5.

It was time, to try something new.

After digging around in the interwebs, ITX seemed like the form factor to go with. Small, powerfull, silent... yes please.

It started with the case. I wanted something fresh, something special. I landed on three final options, S4 Mini, DAN's A4 and HG Computers OSMI.

Because I wanted as silent system as possible, S4 Mini & DAN's A4 got turned down, just because of cooler limitation. They fit only smaller fan Noctuas and that is potentially extra noise that I don't want. HDPlex seemed like interesting option, but in the end, decided to with standard SFX PSU.

Also, in Latvia (where I'm from) HG Computers had their official partners, so OSMI turned out just the right fit. I also talked to Peter, SEO of HG Computers as I understand, and he seemed like a really nice guy. I got the sense, that this case is really well though out, nothing is done by accident and all fits together with millimeter-precision.

I believe rev. 1 OSMI cases had some problems, but we'll gloss over that

So here we go. The job was to fit most powerful hardware the OSMI could take, considering thermal limitations. So I ended up with this.

• Intel Core i7 7700
• Asrock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming-ITX/ac
  
• 16 GB Corsair Vengeance
• Samsung 960 Evo 500 GB NVMe SSD
• GIGABYTE GTX 1070 Mini OC
• Corsair SF600 PSU
• Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B with a Noctua 120mm fan strapped to it

First thing was to change included BeQuiet fan for a Noctua. I wanted a PWM fan so I can regulate fan speeds. This was not so easy as I expected. Noctua needed to be cut down in corners, to fit flush with the case. Nothing extra difficult, but still fiddly. Patience is the name of the game here

BeQuiet is out, Noctua is waiting.

Here you can see cut plastic corners. Of course, rubber mounts is not an option here, if you want a flush fit.

Noctua in. Finally. It took about 2 hours just to get it fit properly and get to the small screws inside the case. You have to have proper tools to do this. I recommend thin (maybe even flexible) screwdrivers and hexagon ball-tips, just so you can get to the screws at an angle.

It starts to go faster from this point on. Test fitting the motherboard.

RAM and CPU get installed.

And finally Big Shuriken goes on top. With the Noctua fan it gives about 4-5mm clearance between PSU. It's tight, but I think it works well enough.

Haven't never worked with M2 SSD's, this is just awesome stuff. No extra cables, no extra fuss. Super compact and fast.

Next came the GPU and boy it was a challenge. OSMI has holes in the case through which you supposed to slide GPU in, but not with 1070. It's just too tall to fit through the holes so it's case dismantling time. Here ball-tip hexagon screwdriver really comes in handy, because you can get to the case screws only from inside the case sides.

It's finally in and what an relief! For a minute there I though it will not fit.

So in the end it looks like this.

All things considered, I'm happy with the build. After some tweaking in BIOS and Windows 10 power settings, CPU fan runs at 350 RPM in simple desktop tasks, and stays below 40 C at idle, and mid to high 40 C doing some basic work stuff, Photoshop, web browsing etc. Case fan runs at 500 RPM in desktop mode, and both are virtually silent at an arms length. 1070 stays at 0 RPM in desktop mode hovering in 40-50 C range.

While gaming, it's get quite a bit louder, but that's no really a big deal, if you game with headphones. CPU gets to about mid 60 C in games and GPU stays 60 to 70 C.

I have not tested it in prime95 or Furmark, but I bet it would get warmer for sure.

One more thing left to do is to change PSU from Corsair SF600 to SF450.
SF600 fan doesn't want to spin down after a gaming session and gets quite warm even in desktop mode. After reading some forum feedback, SF450 seems like a better choice in the end, as it is more quiet overall.

That's it. Hope you like it.

 

[Tek Everything]

Awesome build. I've been interested in this case for a while. How long did it take to ship?

 

[Vitamin Moto]

Awesome build. I've been interested in this case for a while. How long did it take to ship?

The official HG partner had one in stock in my home town I just picked it up.

 

[leonroy]

Fantastic build - glad to see it all came together perfectly . That ASRock motherboard is IMO the best Intel ITX board. Wish ASRock would release something like it for Ryzen.

Couple of queries:

1. I saw that you had to remove the case bottom to fit the GPU. If re-doing the build would you remove the base of the case to fit the fan as well?
2. For the case fan any reason you went with a 140mm Noctua fan instead of a be quiet PWM fan?

 

[Vitamin Moto]

Thanks leonroy,

As for the case fan - you can't really reinstall top of the case with the fan attached, because screws that hold the top part of the case are hidden beneath the fan (near the fan cutout). You have to do some finger/screwdriver yoga to fit the fan inside the case, there's no way around it.

I had really good experience with Noctua fans. BeQuiet are great as well, but the rifle bearings they use (or FDB in PWM case) you can hear them from arms length in a dead quiet room (example of this would be working when everyone's sleeping). All fans I had tried had this slight bearing/tick/scratch noise to them, except Noctua - they are dead silent at low RPM's.

I had tried almost all of the top-brand fans in my previous builds and to my ears, most quiet were Noctuas and Phanteks. But it was 2-3 years ago, so maybe newer fans are different.

This is of course very, very subtle nuance - you could go for BeQuiet no problem. I understand, that Noctua colors are not for everybody

 

[leonroy]

This is of course very, very subtle nuance - you could go for BeQuiet no problem. I understand, that Noctua colors are not for everybody

Heheh, definitely an unusual colour but the performance is clearly there

On the matter of ball tips, what size ball tip did you end up using on the hex screws?

 

[Vitamin Moto]

On the matter of ball tips, what size ball tip did you end up using on the hex screws?

2 mm

Something like this

 

[Phuncz]

Very nice build, good photos and seemingly the result you were hoping for !

 

[KepKe]

If I might ask a few things:

- Rev. 2 is supposed to be mate black/white, yours is glossy for some reason?

- Rev. 2 should have 4 standoffs connecting baseplate and case for increasing the gpu airflow. If that's the case, could you test and see the difference between the plate on and off (case on its side)?

I remember that causing a high temp high noise gpu in rev. 1.

- what's the actual clearance for cpu coolers?

- Since this case is designed for negative pressure, why not remove the io shield and increase mobo cooling a bit? I also remember having the cpu fan pull air (reverse fan) can help with further reductions of cpu temperature.

- A pic of the ODD bay pls!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Vitamin Moto]

KepKe, these questions are best addressed to HG Computers, they really respond quite fast on Facebook.

However, I can provide my thoughts on this.

- As far as I know, both revisions are available in white and black. Also, I believe all OSMI's were always glossy.

- I noticed standoffs too. In HG promo pictures there is indeed a different standoff. Can't really say why. To me, single leg looks better. There's really not that much airflow blockage from the bottom plate. Cutouts are really large.

- I managed to squeeze in Big Shuriken 2 with 25mm Noctua fan. Together it's a 71 mm high package and I would say, it's the maximum. There's ~ 3-4 mm gap left between PSU and CPU fan.

- Sure, you can take IO shield off, but again, there's huge cutouts next to the IO - I don't think removing it makes much sense.

As for ODD - I dont' use it, I don't have it either. OSMI provides sticky tape to fix it to the case and there's a cutouts for SATA cables as well.

You can experiment with different fan configurations, but after speaking to HG's Peter, I have come to conclusion, that negative pressure config with exhaust fan is the best option here. It really depends on what you want to do with it.

 

[Vitamin Moto]

I wanted to say one more thing.

Regarding PSU. Changed Corsair SF600 to SF4500 and what a difference! Feels like they are completely different PSU's. While SF600 get's quite warm right away in idle, SF450 stays almost cold to the touch in most desktop tasks. It's get spinning and warms up as you start to game, but cools down' quickly after that and ramps down fan to 0 RPM, what SF600 never did. Also overall temperatures are dropped about 5 C across the system.

You can still hear SF450 fan at low RPM's (sort of ticking bearing sound), but I'm thinking of switching it to Noctua. I'll post results later.

Also, did some measurements, seems like there's a room, for 92 mm Noctua fan on GTX 1070 if I remove the plastic shroud (which could help cool the GPU even more) - it's the only audible part in the system.

I will get some 4-pin mini PWM connectors for GPU and 2-pin connector for PSU and try to change out those fans.

If it works, it will be truly silent system.

 

[KepKe]

To keep it in order:

- I knew the osmi rev 1 was glossy but rev 2 is advertised as mate.

- the single stand of the rev 1 blocked big parts of the fan and users had bad Temps in general with the base on. The new standoff looks much less restricted.

- when I said to try and rotate the fan, i meant the one on the cpu cooler. I read a lot that top down coolers can profit from a reversed fan.

Edit: I would like to know how the 1070 mini performs with a 92mm noctua on it!

 

[Vitamin Moto]

I can't find any sources suggesting rev. 2 is mate. There are some pictures that looks like a mate surface, but I'm not entirely sure. I you have some evidence, please share.

Rev. 1 had power button in the middle, had less cutouts on the back and smaller cutout on the outer skin for the PSU.

Rev. 2 on the other hand, has power button above PSU, has more cutouts on the back and larger PSU cutout.

As for bottom plate - they seem identical in both revisions only direction of the cutouts and stand leg seems to be different. I don't see anything, that would effect airflow.

As for rotating CPU cooler - I think that's a bad idea. Downward airflow cools not only CPU heatsink, but also heatpipes below and provides some airflow to the motherboard components. Reversed CPU cooler would just push air towards PSU.

I have ordered 4-pin PWM to GPU 4-pin adapter, I think it will take a week to get here. I really hope it fits, it will be super tight in there. Main reason I want to change it is noise, not so much performance. 1070 seems to be relatively cool card for it's performance, but this one has annoying fan rattle, just when fans start to spin, then it goes quiet. Also while gaming, it can get audible.

Loudest noise now is slight PSU and GPU electrical buzz & coil whine, but I guess you can't really get rid of it if you want powerful system. All my build had this.

Probably will change SF450 fan to Noctua this weekend.

 

[fminus]

I have ordered 4-pin PWM to GPU 4-pin adapter, I think it will take a week to get here. I really hope it fits, it will be super tight in there. Main reason I want to change it is noise, not so much performance. 1070 seems to be relatively cool card for it's performance, but this one has annoying fan rattle, just when fans start to spin, then it goes quiet. Also while gaming, it can get audible.

Plug the 4pin PWM into the Motherboard. Install speedfan and have it linked to the GPU temp. Set fan curve as desired. I do not know how you will escape the temps though. It's a very compact build.

 

[leonroy]

- I knew the osmi rev 1 was glossy but rev 2 is advertised as mate.

Mine's matte white. I've seen glossy in both colours, a perforated black one even. Guessing there's some sample variation out there between manufacturing runs.

 

[Vitamin Moto]

Plug the 4pin PWM into the Motherboard. Install speedfan and have it linked to the GPU temp. Set fan curve as desired. I do not know how you will escape the temps though. It's a very compact build.

Escaping temps is not the main goal here. Lowering noise is. Thanks for tip, I'll think about it. There is one more 4-pin PWM header left on motherboard.

 

[KepKe]

https://gear2game.ch/search/?q=osmi

This partner has it listed as "black mate". Maybe there are glossy and mate options available.

 

[Vitamin Moto]

I seems like there's been a couple of styles to OSMI over the year.

 

[alexep7]

The only one I can find in my country is this one, which I'm assuming is the first edition of the case still with the optical drive slot:

I wish I could find the matte version around here...

 

[Vitamin Moto]

Seeing this perforated cover, I wanted to say one more thing.

Negative pressure in OSMI really works.

I had taken the cover off when changing PSU and left it off for a while. I noticed, that GTX 1070 in idle stays 50-51 C and periodically spins it fans, to cool below 50 C.

While PC was running, I put the cover back on, and in matter of minutes GTX 1070 cooled down to 41-44 C.

The top exhaust fan is running ~500 RPM all the time.

So I would suggest not to mess with a cooling solution HG Computers has created here. Clearly a lot of planning & work went into OSMI and it works in the end.