Production Lazer3D HT5 - Low Profile APU Case

[W1NN1NG]

@K888D do you know what kind of ballpark range we would be looking at for cost of this thing? I like it. With a low profile GPU it'd be perfect as I'm seeing pretty much everyone's opinion feels that way.

 

[K888D]

@K888D do you know what kind of ballpark range we would be looking at for cost of this thing? I like it. With a low profile GPU it'd be perfect as I'm seeing pretty much everyone's opinion feels that way.

Target price is £80 Ex VAT.

 

[W1NN1NG]

Target price is £80 Ex VAT.

That's a steal excited to see this progress

 

[K888D]

That's a steal excited to see this progress

Well the main criticism (and rightly so) is the price tag of the LZ7, so a big driver for me on this project is to deliver this case at a much lower price point. Hence why you don't see any 3D printing in this design

 

[ignsvn]

What do you think about modular case design, so user who want external GPU can just buy some sort of case extension?

Obviously such extension won't be as structuraly secure compared to a one piece case, but..

 

[musikmann]

Is there any time schedule about the availability of the case?
I am very interested in getting one

 

[K888D]

What do you think about modular case design, so user who want external GPU can just buy some sort of case extension?

Not sure this will be possible within the scope of the design and target price, but I'll give it some thought.

Is there any time schedule about the availability of the case?

Target is Q1 2018, but there is a good chance it could slip into Q2.

 

[musikmann]

Thanks for the information.

Would it be an option replacing the 80x80x25 fans with 92x92x14 (Noctua fans)? Could increase the air-flow and would make it less noisy?

 

[Nasp]

Thanks for the information.

Would it be an option replacing the 80x80x25 fans with 92x92x14 (Noctua fans)? Could increase the air-flow and would make it less noisy?

Would probably increase the size of the case though. Noctua also makes 80mm fans.


K888D, are you partnering with SFFLabs for this case? Would be great to see your products there as well as being able to use their shipment logistics.

 

[K888D]

Thanks for the information.

Would it be an option replacing the 80x80x25 fans with 92x92x14 (Noctua fans)? Could increase the air-flow and would make it less noisy?

I considered doing this, at first I was going to place the HDDs under the case which puts the case tall enough to support 92mm fans, but after sketching it up in CAD it felt too tall and starts to stray back into cube territory which I wanted to avoid.

K888D, are you partnering with SFFLabs for this case? Would be great to see your products there as well as being able to use their shipment logistics

We are lining up some discussions for next month to see if something can be worked out. Their focus at the moment is launching the new NFC Skyreach 4 Mini. It feels like a very exciting time for the community!

 

[musikmann]

OK, got it, make sense.

With your design, is there also a certain air flow at the back side of the motherboard (for a cooling M.2 SSD's) ?

 

[K888D]

OK, got it, make sense.

With your design, is there also a certain air flow at the back side of the motherboard (for a cooling M.2 SSD's) ?

What I found with the LZ7 with the side mounted fan blowing toward the motherboard some of the air travels under the motherboard as well as over it and help to cool rear mounted M.2 drives. I expect the airflow in this case will react in the same manner with the side mounted fans blowing toward the motherboard.

 

[musikmann]

Sounds more and more as my dream case I wish it would already be Q1/Q2....

 

[K888D]

Thanks for all the votes everyone, much appreciated!

I'll keep the poll open for a while but it looks like Vertical Mini Tower, using low profile GPU, without RGB is the preferred overall configuration with 28.6% of the votes.

Some other observations from the votes:

• 53.6% prefer the vertical orientation
• 60.7% would prefer to use low profile GPU over APU
• 78.6% prefer not to use RGB lights

Its a mixed bag of results. One thing highlighted by this is that everyone is different, and if you make a decision about an aspect of the case one way or the other you will no doubt be upsetting some people. Hopefully I can have a couple versions of the case to keep everyone happy.

It has also highlighted the importance of low profile GPU's to this design, so I will make sure to include support for them.

 

[W1NN1NG]

Really this case could be great in any orientation. I'd say just set it up to where I could be placed in a vertical or horizontal orientation

 

[Phuncz]

I think the APU vote could swing if AMD's Raven Ridge APUs are good performers. But those seem to be late to the party.

 

[Nasp]

I think the APU vote could swing if AMD's Raven Ridge APUs are good performers. But those seem to be late to the party.

Right. They've been delayed a bit, but it looks like the first mobile Raven Ridge APUs are being pushed out now. Hopefully the desktop versions will be available as soon as this case is also available.

 

[K888D]

I think the APU vote could swing if AMD's Raven Ridge APUs are good performers. But those seem to be late to the party.

Yeah they're taking their time with them that's for sure.

The recent mobile APUs have launched with some decent benchmarks for their TDPs, so hopefully it will scale up well to the desktop versions.

Also with the recent Intel + AMD collaboration we could see some nice high end desktop APUs I'm that direction, but probably not for a couple of years if they do.

All that being said, if you just want a little HTPC for media consumption then the current AM4 Kaveri (I think) chips should provide a nice low cost 4k media experience with the AM4's on-board HDMI 2.0. Or even a coffee lake Pentium would provide a nice 4k media machine, but I'm not sure whether the socket 1151 has Onboard HDMI 2.0 with current motherboard line up ?

 

[rfarmer]

Yeah they're taking their time with them that's for sure.

The recent mobile APUs have launched with some decent benchmarks for their TDPs, so hopefully it will scale up well to the desktop versions.

Also with the recent Intel + AMD collaboration we could see some nice high end desktop APUs I'm that direction, but probably not for a couple of years if they do.

All that being said, if you just want a little HTPC for media consumption then the current AM4 Kaveri (I think) chips should provide a nice low cost 4k media experience with the AM4's on-board HDMI 2.0. Or even a coffee lake Pentium would provide a nice 4k media machine, but I'm not sure whether the socket 1151 has Onboard HDMI 2.0 with current motherboard line up ?

The Gigabyte Z370N and the Asrock Z370 Fatal1ty both have HDMI 2.0.

 

[XeaLouS]

It has also highlighted the importance of low profile GPU's to this design, so I will make sure to include support for them.

The main reason I think lots of people want a low profile GPU is because there are already a plethora of mainstream cases that handle the non-gpu scenario, and cheaply at that. E.g. Antec ISK110, HP DeskMini 800, etc etc.

I cant think of an sff low-profile-gpu case off the top of my head!