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Completed Circle Pro - Solid Alu CNCed mini-itx case - 240mm liquid cooling
- Thread starter CircleTect
- Start date
@CircleTect, modular internal frames will be awesome. I would love to purchase them when they are ready! 
I received the FSP FlexATX 500w power supply. I never realized how small they are. The PSU fan spins up to max rpm for a couple of seconds during boot and it does sound like a server fan. However during regular use, extended gaming, or extended cpu and gpu stress, the FlexATX fans never got as loud as during boot.
I couldn’t get either of my 240mm AIOs (Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme S, and Enermax Liqfusion 240) to fit with the 2080FE and FlexATX in the case. It was like a puzzle shifting the components around, but ultimately went with a 120mm AIO to improve CPU thermals over the Cryorig C7 Cu. The radiator sits on the back half of the top cover. I mounted the A12x25 below the Corsair H75 radiator. This allowed the radiator barbs to be further away from the GPU, and less kink to the tubing. Having the 120mm radiator mounted directly under the top cover meant that that I am limited to fitting a 92mm fan towards the front of the top cover.
Here are some pictures GPU side. The brown fan is kind of an eyesore... but I wanted to first test thermals with the best 120mm fan I had, and maybe switching to a Redux in there for aesthetics. I put the SSD mount back in the case to help hide the fixed ketchup and mustard cables coming out of the FlexATX:
SSD on top of the PSU to hide the bare galvanized sheet metal. I might wrap the PSU in black vinyl in the future, and move the SSD to the opposite side, below the GPU. That’s thermal paste on the front panel, not scratches:
The H75 fits quite nicely in there:
You can see the 92mm fan up top, also set to exhaust:
I am pretty happy with the thermals, and looks so far. The 2080 FE does run warm, but acceptable. I intend to collect all these, and future updates into a separator Build Log.
I received the FSP FlexATX 500w power supply. I never realized how small they are. The PSU fan spins up to max rpm for a couple of seconds during boot and it does sound like a server fan. However during regular use, extended gaming, or extended cpu and gpu stress, the FlexATX fans never got as loud as during boot.
I couldn’t get either of my 240mm AIOs (Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme S, and Enermax Liqfusion 240) to fit with the 2080FE and FlexATX in the case. It was like a puzzle shifting the components around, but ultimately went with a 120mm AIO to improve CPU thermals over the Cryorig C7 Cu. The radiator sits on the back half of the top cover. I mounted the A12x25 below the Corsair H75 radiator. This allowed the radiator barbs to be further away from the GPU, and less kink to the tubing. Having the 120mm radiator mounted directly under the top cover meant that that I am limited to fitting a 92mm fan towards the front of the top cover.
Here are some pictures GPU side. The brown fan is kind of an eyesore... but I wanted to first test thermals with the best 120mm fan I had, and maybe switching to a Redux in there for aesthetics. I put the SSD mount back in the case to help hide the fixed ketchup and mustard cables coming out of the FlexATX:
SSD on top of the PSU to hide the bare galvanized sheet metal. I might wrap the PSU in black vinyl in the future, and move the SSD to the opposite side, below the GPU. That’s thermal paste on the front panel, not scratches:
The H75 fits quite nicely in there:
You can see the 92mm fan up top, also set to exhaust:
I am pretty happy with the thermals, and looks so far. The 2080 FE does run warm, but acceptable. I intend to collect all these, and future updates into a separator Build Log.
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That is an awesome looking build!
Did you gouge the front/right (mid-way up), or is that something else on the case?[/user]
@CircleTect design one where we can fit two AIOs to cool the GPU They run kinda hot and they'll throttle for sure!
They run kinda hot and they'll throttle for sure!I saw the update on the 2 tone version of the case and almost bought it. I know it has been beat to death but the price kind of killed it for me. I was hoping by the emails wording that there would be a discount of some sort due to it being a "bad batch". Especially on the heels of the louqe 2nd run I might've got this case instead had it been around $320ish. At the risk of sounding miserly, do you plan on selling any lightly scratched cases or other color mismatched cases at a discount. As an engineer I know the pre-order price is a great deal but I guess maybe the case isn't for me if I can't justify it's cost on a personal level.
Zotac and Inno3D are releasing 2070 Minis.
Source (German): https://www.computerbase.de/2018-10/geforce-rtx-2070-inno3d-zotac-mini/
Source (German): https://www.computerbase.de/2018-10/geforce-rtx-2070-inno3d-zotac-mini/
I just received this yesterday (and am waiting for my parts to arrive to start the build: primarily will be used for music production-namely Native Instruments software along with Ableton and some light gaming on the side) and I have to say: this thing blows away every other enclosure/case I have ever seen and is clearly on another level. If anyone has ever wanted to get a compact version of the old Apple PowerMac G5 tower, this is it. The pictures on the website and this thread don't do it justice, you really need to see this in person.
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I have to say that it looks amazing, and some of the nicest chunky alu that I've seen in ages.
If I had a use for it, I'd be tempted, but I don't water cool and need a more portable workstation.
Great work @CircleTect, you can be justifiably proud of your creation.
BTW, I really liked the concept of selling the 2 tone 'mistake' variant; maybe a small discount would have been in order - unless rarity value will make it hugely valuable in the future!
If I had a use for it, I'd be tempted, but I don't water cool and need a more portable workstation.
Great work @CircleTect, you can be justifiably proud of your creation.
BTW, I really liked the concept of selling the 2 tone 'mistake' variant; maybe a small discount would have been in order - unless rarity value will make it hugely valuable in the future!
This something you're considering going ahead with? If so any time frame in mind / costs involved?
BTW, I really liked the concept of selling the 2 tone 'mistake' variant; maybe a small discount would have been in order - unless rarity value will make it hugely valuable in the future!
Looks like the messed up version is technically discounted because they raised the price of the normal one $10.
We would need to properly define what layout the frame kit would support. If we can lock down a B configuration layout, I can draw up the sheet metal files and get quotes for manufacturing.
Thoughts @Nanook ?
Would enabling FE-length GPU compatibility force the usage of a PSU smaller than SFX?
Other than build quality and SFF, one of the biggest perk of this case is 240mm cpu cooling. Using an FE card will create a kink to the tubing. I want to test whether this kink impact CPU cooling, but haven’t figured out how to test this easily. I also want to look at how severely the 92mm aio tubing gets bent inside of an Dancase A4-SFX.
As for PSU mounting, I’ve been looking at using a G-uniq kit, a SFX up top, or a FlexATX behind the FE card. My current set up uses the FlexATX PSU behind the gpu, but also want to try putting the FlexATX PSU below the graphics card - the PSU will block some of the bottom air flow, but may look the cleanest.
So the TL/DR version is that I’m still tinkering with the components, and dont have a recommended configuration B just yet.
Also curious on this. If there was someway to Tetris in an FE card + SFX PSU that would be perfect.
