Geeek A30 finding a graphics card that fit!!!

[princess_daphie]

As the title says, I recently bought, received and assembled a build in the Geeek A30. I wanted a silent power supply so I went with my current HDPlex 160W DC-ATX with a 330W Dell brick (hopefully a genuine one...) My issues began when I wanted to use a new graphics card in it.

I bought the Zotac RTX 2060 Twin Fan expecting it to be 209~211mm max according to different online sources, but when I received it, it felt too big to fit, but didn't get to try a fit until I saw the same card's great review here on SFF and in it, it was said that the card was in fact 214mm long, contrary to stated in the specs, so I went and checked if it had any chance of fitting, and NOPE, it is indeed longer than 211mm and it doesn't fit in the Geeek A30, unless maybe I would insert the card with some uncomfortable bending and without the front drive plate (which I want to use). I initiated a return and should get my money back, because of the wrong specs on the vendor's website, phew.

But now I want to get an RTX 2060 fitting in my case, but I'm scared of buying another one and wouldn't fit again (I wouldn't want to use the same "excuse" again to RMA another card). There's Gigabyte and Asus that have short ITX versions of the card, but they feel very TALL to me.

Is there anyone that has any experience with this case and tall graphics card? Or anything?

 

[MatTKO]

Well, if you are going with RTX 2060 I guess these cards are your options. Minus the Zotac ones.

Also, the card on Geek A30 mini page looks like MSI GeForce GTX 1060 AERO ITX and that card's dimensions are 175 x 115 x 38 mm.

 

[Legion]

I have to point out right off the bat to you here that a RTX 2060 is too much for the HDPlex 160 !

Most reviews peg a 2060 @ around 160w peak (for the gfx card alone) with total system draw (gaming) at around 250w for the average ATX test system with a 6 core CPU.

I've ran few a GTX 1060's successfully on HDPlex 160's and KMPKT Mini's, the GTX 1060 has an average gaming draw of around 120w and pairing that with a 65w CPU works well.

The GTX 1060 about the highest powered GPU you can use with the HDPlex 160, even then no success guaranteed.

If you have your mind set on a RTX 2060 it's going to be a case of upgrading PSU to cope with it.
Seeing as you already have a Dell 330w brick it would make the most sense to buy yourself a HDPlex 400w DC-ATX unit.
https://www.hdplex.com/hdplex-400w-hi-fi-dc-atx-power-supply-16v-24v-wide-range-voltage-input.html

Back to your original question of which RTX 2060 cards will fit:

https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-RTX-2060-AERO-ITX-6G-OC

https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Card/GV-N2060IXOC-6GD#kf

https://www.asus.com/Graphics-Cards/PH-RTX2060-6G/

http://www.inno3d.com/products_detail.php?refid=416

http://www.palit.com/palit/vgapro.php?id=3139&lang=en

In the post above ignore the EVGA cards, while they are short enough they are also 2.75 slot thickness cards and will not work with an A30 case.

 

[princess_daphie]

Well, if you are going with RTX 2060 I guess these cards are your options. Minus the Zotac ones.

Also, the card on Geek A30 mini page looks like MSI GeForce GTX 1060 AERO ITX and that card's dimensions are 175 x 115 x 38 mm.

I have to point out right off the bat to you here that a RTX 2060 is too much for the HDPlex 160 !

Most reviews peg a 2060 @ around 160w peak (for the gfx card alone) with total system draw (gaming) at around 250w for the average ATX test system with a 6 core CPU.

I've ran few a GTX 1060's successfully on HDPlex 160's and KMPKT Mini's, the GTX 1060 has an average gaming draw of around 120w and pairing that with a 65w CPU works well.

The GTX 1060 about the highest powered GPU you can use with the HDPlex 160, even then no success guaranteed.

If you have your mind set on a RTX 2060 it's going to be a case of upgrading PSU to cope with it.
Seeing as you already have a Dell 330w brick it would make the most sense to buy yourself a HDPlex 400w DC-DC unit.
https://www.hdplex.com/hdplex-400w-hi-fi-dc-atx-power-supply-16v-24v-wide-range-voltage-input.html

Back to your original question of which RTX 2060 cards will fit:

https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-RTX-2060-AERO-ITX-6G-OC

https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Card/GV-N2060IXOC-6GD#kf

https://www.asus.com/Graphics-Cards/PH-RTX2060-6G/

http://www.inno3d.com/products_detail.php?refid=416

http://www.palit.com/palit/vgapro.php?id=3139&lang=en

In the post above ignore the EVGA cards, while they are short enough they are also 2.75 slot thickness cards and will not work with an A30 case.

About the power consumption, thanks for pointing it out, and I also forgot to mention I have taken that into consideration already. I purchased an 400W DC-ATX unit from HDPlex already I'm just waiting for it to come home in the eventuality I get another power hungry GPU. I just hope my Dell 330W is a genuine one that will be able to power it up when the time comes. It works fine with the 160W unit as currently configured.

My current configuration for reference:

Spoiler

MSI B450I Gaming Plus AC
AMD Ryzen 7 1700x
Gigabyte RX 560 16CU
2x8gb T-Elite DDR4-3000 (running at 2666mhz ATM)
1x Samsung 970 Evo
1x Intel 545s ssd
1x Seagate 2tb hdd
2x 80mm fans (mismatched)

Issues I've had and fixed already:

Spoiler

I actually posted on reddit about issues I was having at just making my system POST when plugging in any graphics card requiring the PCIe connector, and someone pointed me to the right direction. It was the actual PCIe cable that I got along with my HDPlex unit, it was wired REALLY wonky, crossing up ground and +12V all over the connector, lol I was lucky the OVP protection was working somewhere along the line (either the HDPlex or the motherboard was clicking when I would attempt to power it up, and immediately shut down)

As for the graphics card you both recommended, I have been trying to find more specific information about them, because as I've said, I've already hit a concrete wall with one of the supposedly compatible graphics card in the list, the ZOTAC RTX 2060 Twin Fan. It's listed as 209.6mm long on Zotac's website, but they're not measuring it correctly. In @confusis's review of the card, he also points out the card is actually 214mm long, not the advertised size.

It's also really tall, and it didn't feel to me like it would've fit height-wise, or that I would've been able to slot it in. That's where I'm worried with the other shorter models. I'm considering these ones that are available on Newegg Canada:

Gigabyte:
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ...tx 2060&cm_re=rtx_2060-_-14-932-117-_-Product

Asus:
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ...tx 2060&cm_re=rtx_2060-_-14-126-287-_-Product

A little note about the EVGA one, it's impossible for me to test, but I'm almost certain it could fit the case, but that would requiring dremelling out the backplate down to 2 slots, lol

 

[Legion]

The Gigabyte is a solid card and if it were me, I'd take that over the Asus.
I'm a stickler for quiet builds, I've had a few Gigiabyte SFF cards now and been happy with all of them.
The 2060 is exactly the same size as the 2070 in the review below (with the exception that the 2060 has no backplate making it a little thinner) It's 121mm tall I've seen the old Zotac 1060's in A30 cases before (The Zotac 1060's were 128mm tall) So the Gigabyte will fit no problem (or any other card around those heights)




As I said previously, those EVGA cards are all 2.75 slots thick, if you want to destroy a 500 dollar card and leave yourself with no warranty that's your business

 

[princess_daphie]

The Gigabyte is a solid card and if it were me, I'd take that over the Asus.
I'm a stickler for quiet builds, I've had a few Gigabyte SFF cards now and been happy with all of them.
The 2060 is exactly the same size as the 2070 in the review below (with the exception that the 2060 has no backplate making it a little thinner) It's 121mm tall I've seen the old Zotac 1060's in A30 cases before (The Zotac 1060's were 128mm tall) So the Gigabyte will fit no problem (or any other card around those heights)

All right thanks! Always reassuring to hear a second opinion! If I bring myself up to ordering one, that might be it! I do STRONGLY favor silence over performance as well.

As I said previously, those EVGA cards are all 2.75 slots thick, if you want to destroy a 500 dollar card and leave yourself with no warranty that's your business

Yeah I know it would be crazy, but I know it wouldn't be above some people in the modding community I really like the look and form factor of those cards. They probably are better cooled as well, but I wonder who they are made for, lol

 

[princess_daphie]

still waiting on that RMA to go through, bad weather conditions delaying return shipment. i'm a little anxious, lol

 

[princess_daphie]

so i got my RMA accepted and went ahead to order the gigabyte itx rtx 2060 and i got it yesterday. already rebuilt my A30 with it. a few things to note:

Geeek told me by email that video card height compatibility in this case is 123mm. This is an "absolute" measurement as it's the space between the top motherboard bracket and bottom of the card: it doesn't take into account the wiggle room needed to actually insert and plug the cable into the slot! the gigabyte card is 121mm and it was quite the challenge to slot it in. I had to completely unscrew the motherboard standoffs from the bracket in order to PRY away the motherboard a few mm to be able to slot the card in. I chipped a few bits and pieces of acrylic here and there while doing it. Luckily it's minor, but still, SCARY!

That video card delivers all right! I tested running unigine heaven to see if using the video card to its fullest would trip any of my power units in chain and my setup seems to work! However that card throws out MASSIVE heat when taxed, it was insane, even on the open bench I could feel the heat pouring out of the card. I'm setting it to 80% power limit in MSI Afterburner for normal use. I still have to play more with different games and settings, but I seem to draw between 200 and 240w total from the wall when gaming. My Dell 330w brick and HDPlex 400W seem to be able to handle it great.

I totally butchered the flex atx to dc acrylic bracket i have in order to adapt the hole to the larger hdplex 400w DC socket thing (the hdplex 130w bracket was much smaller), so i'll probably order another one to cover my OCD. it still holds the connector and all, but it's cracked and my crazy glue attempt was botched because i'm an idiot. so it's ugly. but it's not visible. and it works. but it annoys me. lol

i have ONE QUESTION about the Gigabyte card if anyone else has it:

does it, like, act weird when settting the fan speed lower than 30% ? mine goes like it has its PWM circuit on opioids. it's like i can hear it rev up, down, up, down. i know PWM is supposed to be in the microseconds range, but it's like under 30% the PWM is on 1 second, off 0.5 second, etc. crazy. anyone else noticed this?

 

[Legion]

i have ONE QUESTION about the Gigabyte card if anyone else has it:

does it, like, act weird when settting the fan speed lower than 30% ? mine goes like it has its PWM circuit on opioids. it's like i can hear it rev up, down, up, down. i know PWM is supposed to be in the microseconds range, but it's like under 30% the PWM is on 1 second, off 0.5 second, etc. crazy. anyone else noticed this?

Some cards just really don't like having their fan curves messed with especially ITX cards which have been tuned by the factory to cope with situations like being stuffed into tiny, poor airflow boxes.
Did it do that before you messed with it?
What are you using to modify fan curves, Afterburner?

There is going to be a heat penalty in the Geeek case they are not particularly well engineered for heat dissipation.

 

[princess_daphie]

Some cards just really don't like having their fan curves messed with especially ITX cards which have been tuned by the factory to cope with situations like being stuffed into tiny, poor airflow boxes.
Did it do that before you messed with it?

i thought it didn't, but i was excited with my new toy, lol. really now i can hear the issue all the time, and without loading any tool like MSI AB or EVGA or anything. i mean the issue is quite widespread and is not a specific problem to the ITX variant, it happens with double fans cards too, across 1000 and 2000 series GTX/RTX video cards, especially those by Gigabyte. it seems Zotac avoided the issue by simply disabling zero fan mode, while from what I've been reading, MSI's implementation works fine. of course i can't buy one of MSI's ITX RTX 2060, i haven't found any in Canadian retailers.

What are you using to modify fan curves, Afterburner?

yes. i tried EVGA Precision tool and it has the same behavior with lower speeds. stock fan curve on stock bios does the same thing without the use of any tool. i'll try to screenshot the graph, it shows in data what i hear in reality.

There is going to be a heat penalty in the Geeek case they are not particularly well engineered for heat dissipation.

well i've been quite impressed with my A30. it's a straightforward design and while there is a kind of "heat bubble" that forms around both "chambers" (graphics side and motherboard's side), with the 2 80mm fan on top, it's very efficient at avoiding to become a hot box. even my back-mounted NVME SSD seems to hold its temps steady when I'm gaming.

 

[Legion]

@Tek Everything Is this something you witnessed in your Gigabyte RTX 2070 mini? Did or does it have any of these issues?

 

[princess_daphie]

@Tek Everything Is this something you witnessed in your Gigabyte RTX 2070 mini? Did or does it have any of these issues?

You can see the erratic fan speed on the graph:

 

[princess_daphie]

Some cards just really don't like having their fan curves messed with especially ITX cards which have been tuned by the factory to cope with situations like being stuffed into tiny, poor airflow boxes.
Did it do that before you messed with it?

i realized why i didn't notice the fans weird ramp-up at first and i was annoyed by it when i noticed it, it's because i played with nvidia control panel and had enabled "prefer maximum performance", it was locking frequency to base clock and never slowed down when doing normal desktop usage, thus heating up the gpu above 60C too quickly and needed to ramp up the fans every minute or so. in default mode, the gpu doesn't usually heat up above 60C, so the fan just doesn't spin up at all. it's less annoying this way for sure, it will only spin up in-game that way!

 

[Legion]

And that's exactly what you want it to do.
I'm glad you figured it out

 

[princess_daphie]

And that's exactly what you want it to do.
I'm glad you figured it out

i know right! i thought that "prefer maximum performance" option only applied while gaming. it is in the "Manage 3D Settings" section after all, lol

i think i'll start a proper build thread for my pc soon, since i *have* found my graphics card that fits, haha!

 

[Legion]

You should set the power profile to adaptive and let it do it's own thing.
Adaptive can have issues though with older games and if you run into issues just set it to optimal for best compatibility.

I'd also stop trying to control the card with afterburner, use it for monitoring by all means.
Disable the power restriction you've set and see how it goes.
It will get hotter in synthetic tests than it will in games, that's what synthetics do, they hammer cards with "mostly" unrealistic loads!

 

[princess_daphie]

You should set the power profile to adaptive and let it do it's own thing.
Adaptive can have issues though with older games and if you run into issues just set it to optimal for best compatibility.

I'd also stop trying to control the card with afterburner, use it for monitoring by all means.
Disable the power restriction you've set and see how it goes.
It will get hotter in synthetic tests than it will in games, that's what synthetics do, they hammer cards with "mostly" unrealistic loads!

you're right, the card's bios can control itself on its own, haha! i've always liked Afterburner though and I don't see myself not using it! i planned on throttling the card with it, because the rtx 2060 is pushing it with the A30 cramped space and my not-so-sure-it's-a-genuine DELL 330w power brick, lol

i have tried playing RoTR and Metro 2033 redux and Doom without AB or throttling though, and it seemed fine, but power consumption at the wall was creeping up to 250W+. it stays closer to 200 when using 80% power.

thanks for the inputs btw!

i can say there's an actual conclusion to this thread though:​

Geeek A30:

Zotac RTX 2060 Twin Fan -> DOES NOT FIT
Gigabyte RTX 2060 ITX -> FITS! It juuuuuuuuuuuuust fits.​

I wouldn't try fitting a card that is even 1mm taller! And as for the card's length, 211mm is cutting it way too close. I would stick to cards that are 121mm tall max, and 208mm long max!

 

[RayJones]

Wait it really doesn't fit? I just got this card and iI' looking for this case...

 

[princess_daphie]

Wait it really doesn't fit? I just got this card and iI' looking for this case...

well I don't see how it could've fit. MAYBE without the front 2.5" bracket since they say 226mm fits when not using it but even then it felt too thick to fit and too high maybe even. I'm not saying it's completely impossible though. but not with the bracket that is a definite no.

I'm pretty sure it could fit without its shroud though...

since I made steps to return the card I didn't want to attempt to fit in with modifications to avoid having issues with the RMA. So I can't say for sure how it could've fit. Also it doesn't have a zero rpm fan mode and it was a deal breaker for me.

 

[green_reaper]

recently just bought the A30 case as well, i am curious as to what graphics card to get, i would prefer to get the zotac 2070 mini because of the dual fans, but im not sure it will fit, i have seen dual fan cards fitted into it, but im not entirely sure because geeek is kind of vague with alot.