Log Blacksheep's builds (Current: Jonsbo V9 Windows XP Build)

[Analogue Blacksheep]

Some updates. First of all, NF-A12x25 on IS-60:

Second, I've managed to get a Corsair SF600 Platinum in the case. I've removed the 2.5 bay to make cable management easier, but as you can see it's still a mess of cables. I have added a mount for two sata M.2's in the bottom of the case. Also changed the Blu-ray drive front with a white one.

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

Needing some advice. I'm stuck between B550 and X570 again, but it's mainly due to PCIE 4.0. I will be using one of the m.2's for graphic/motion design, while the other will be for games. The graphic/motion drive will be PCIE 4.0, but it's the games one I am uncertain about. I've learned the PS5 uses 4.0 for it's extra M.2. While this doesn't matter right now, I'm worried this could become a problem later. Games are built around the storage limitations of console drives and I fear this might have a knock on effect with PC games.

Probably overthinking this, but I could use some reassurance.

In short will a PCIE 4.0 M.2 matter for games in the immediate term?

 

[REVOCCASES]

Needing some advice. I'm stuck between B550 and X570 again, but it's mainly due to PCIE 4.0. I will be using one of the m.2's for graphic/motion design, while the other will be for games. The graphic/motion drive will be PCIE 4.0, but it's the games one I am uncertain about. I've learned the PS5 uses 4.0 for it's extra M.2. While this doesn't matter right now, I'm worried this could become a problem later. Games are built around the storage limitations of console drives and I fear this might have a knock on effect with PC games.

Probably overthinking this, but I could use some reassurance.

In short will a PCIE 4.0 M.2 matter for games in the immediate term?

I'm still running most of my games (also recent ones) from SATA SSDs. Some even from external USB drives. Didn't experience any issues except slightly longer loading times. If you can, and want the best performance I would go for PCIe 4.0 but I don't think you will have any issues using a PCIe 3.0 M.2 SSD.

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

I might go with PCIE 3.0 and by extension B550 (I value noise too much). The drive in particular I am wanting Is a 4TB Sabrent Rocket which I think would last me a long time. Steam games are beginning to hit the 100+ GB mark and my retro game collection has start to hit around 100+ GB as well. Only problem is the gen 3.0 4TB is still far too much. It's around £599 here. I would be comfortable with no more than £450.

Here is what I am thinking as a storage setup:

SATA M.2 1 - 250GB/500GB Boot/Programs
SATA M.2 2 - 1TB Scratch disk (I already own this)
4.0 M.2 - 2TB Content creation drive
3.0 M.2 - 2TB/4TB Games drive

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

Attached this to the case with some left over balsa wood. Now I have 5 drives! Will split the games drives into two. A 2TB gen 3 for Steam and I will reuse my 1TB for my retro games.

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

Managed out of some small miracle get an RTX 3060 from a smaller outfit known as Punch Techology. Took some effort to get it in the case. I also added a Crucial P5 2TB SSD for my Steam games.

If you are looking for a GPU in the UK I would also recommend Infinite Computing, they have a great backorder system in place.

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

Some pics of the build in a near final state. Just got the Resolve Scratch disk in (Crucial MX500 500GB).

Got two new projects for the future, a SG13 gaming/streaming build for a friend and something involving a Chenbro PC78338 and a DE10-Nano/MiSTer.

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

Chenbro PC78338 arrived today. Although I won't be doing much with it right now, the plan is to change the PSU to either a HDPLEX 200W, a J-HACK 200X + Meanwell or a FSP Flexguru 300W. Going to wait awhile until the right ITX conversion kit for the DE-10 Nano shows up from the MiSTer community.

Also if anyone has a spare Chenbro PC78376 face plate I would be interested in buying it off you. I think it has a nice games console appearance to it.

In the meantime here is a breakdown of the case:

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

After many false starts on what to do with my Lone L5, I decided to turn into a dedicated Windows XP 32-Bit gaming machine. Parts have been specifically picked to get the most out of 32-Bit Windows. Was also very cheap to build which made a nice change of pace.


Parts List:
Motherboard - Asus P8H61-1 LX R2.0/RM/SI - £39.99
CPU - Intel i3-3250 3.5GHz - £17.00
CPU Cooler - Scythe Shuriken 2 - From a previous build
CPU Paste - Nocuta NT-H2 - From a previous build
RAM - G.Skill Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1600MHz - £12.00
GPU - Gigabyte Geforce GT 710 1GB Low Profile - Acquired from friend for free, but needed a £3.64 low profile bracket
Hard Drive - Seagate Momentus 500GB - Shucked from unused external drive
PSU - HDPlex 200W + Dell 330 AC Adapter - £52.00 for HDPlex, AC adapter is from previous build
Case Fans - Noctua NF-A8 PWM Chromax - From a previous build

£124.63 spent so far.

Future plan is to swap the Gigabyte GT 710 1GB for a VEINEDA GTX 750ti 4GB (From Aliexpress, seems to have good reviews) and the Seagate Momentus 500GB for a Seagate Barracuda Pro 1TB (I've heard older SSD's don't always play well with XP, but I would rather play it safe).

 

[Valantar]

These are some nice builds! That XP box looks great, love to see people SFF-ifying older systems as well (or at least ones meant to act old - XP's support for hardware a decade newer than the os is nothing to scoff at!).

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

These are some nice builds! That XP box looks great, love to see people SFF-ifying older systems as well (or at least ones meant to act old - XP's support for hardware a decade newer than the os is nothing to scoff at!).

Yeah, it would be pretty cool if someone tried to make an SFF case that would work with older setups.

So a modern SFF Baby AT case for anyone wanting to build an MS-DOS build for example?

 

[Valantar]

Yeah, it would be pretty cool if someone tried to make an SFF case that would work with older setups.

So a modern SFF Baby AT case for anyone wanting to build an MS-DOS build for example?

Yeah, that thought has been a recurring one for me over the past couple of years - what it would take to put together a "modern" SFF retro PC (DOS or W95-98). Some of those motherboards aren't all that large; with modern PSU tech it should be pretty trivial to put together a compact AT-compatible PSU (a sufficiently powerful 12VDC MeanWell + Ebay DC-DC converters for other voltages shouldn't take up that much space) especially given the very low wattages of those PCs; there should be a lot of room for playing with the form factor too as I can't imagine it would be too difficult to make riser cables for those old slots - I doubt they have the strict integrity requirements of PCIe 4.0

There are also these brilliantly compact industrial 486-ish era single board computers - I don't know if there's a name for them, but there are both ISA and ISA+PCI variants, and they look so **** good for making an SFF retro PC. From what I can tell they have everything crucial except for power onboard (though you'd likely want to add better graphics and audio), and they are meant to slot into a backplane/daughterboard (with power inputs) that breaks out the ISA/PCI into usable expansion slots. I might be overly optimistic, but just how complicated can it be to design a compact daughterboard with three slots - one for the "motherboard", one for a GPU and one for a sound card? With the right power components that really shouldn't need a large case. I don't know anything at all about PCB design or electrical enginerring though, but I would love to see someone make this happen

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

@Valantar This Pentium 4 ITX board exists. Has potential for a retro SFF build, but it's very expensive on eBay.

886LCD-M/mITX - KONTRON - Kontron Boards

Buy the KONTRON 886LCD-M/mITX from Kontron Boards after requesting a quote. Call us at +1 (972) 476-1899.

www.kontronboards.net

 

[Vlad502]

Also: KONTRON 986LCD-M/mITX

Another s479 itx: HP Asus MOCA-AR (Calcite) found on eBay

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

Going to ask the most universally asked question in SFF.

What is the smallest ITX case with an opitical drive that can hold a two slot ITX GPU? I might move the XP build.

 

[Arboreal]

TBH I'm struggling to think of anything widely available that's smaller than an SG05 / 06 / 13 if you want an (albeit slim) optical drive and 2 slot GPU.

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

Yeah, I spent the past two days trying to find something. There is a seller in Japan on Ebay selling a Lian Li case, but while it's a good looking case, it's out of my budget. Looking at plan B which is using a half height card.

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

Currently working on something:

 

[robbee]

Oh wow, IDE cables, good luck getting those SFF'ed!

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

@robbee The plan is to move the build into this case here. It's under 20 litres so it keeps it SFF. I've discovered round IDE cables which should make cable management easier. The motherboard takes 24-pin so I plan on getting a modern EVGA 550W Gold ATX modular unit to go with it.

As for what's in it; there's a Pentium 4 651, a Maxtor 80GB IDE drive, 512MB of Ram, a Sound Blaster Live 5.2 PCI card and an Intel D865GSA motherboard. As for the GPU, there an Nvidia Geforce FX5200 AGP card in there, but I want to switch it over to a Geforce3 Ti 200 when I get a chance. I want to use this thing for DOS gaming as well.