Concept Necere's concept/ideation thread

[Phuncz]

Would it allow proper clearance for both PSU and fan if you'd use a 120mm x 25mm fan on the front and an SFX-L PSU ?
I'd also consider something like a baffle or shroud for the PSU and front fan area for hiding cables and seperate PSU airflow as the window showing the cables in that area would benefit from it.

 

[Necere]

I'd say if you could eek out an extra 5mm for a Cryorig H7, that would make this an excellent choice. Of course that may push it out of sffpc range though.

Nah - it would only increase the volume half a liter, to 17L. Not sure it's worth it just for the H7 though; w360 took a look at it and wasn't too impressed with the quality.

Would it allow proper clearance for both PSU and fan if you'd use a 120mm x 25mm fan on the front and an SFX-L PSU ?

Yes, and even a 140x25mm. Note how the PSU is offset behind the fan. An SFX-L PSU would just overlap the fan a bit.

I'd also consider something like a baffle or shroud for the PSU and front fan area for hiding cables and seperate PSU airflow as the window showing the cables in that area would benefit from it.

I did think about that. I'm just not sure it would accomplish much as far as hiding cables since there's relatively little space between the PSU and GPU, especially with SFX-L. Also a shroud leaves you with a blank plate to look at, which might be better than a cable mess, but not better than some nice sleeved cables. I might be able to turn it into a mount to show off an SSD though.

 

[Brude27]

This is an unexpected twist to the original design, and I'm not even mad! MATX needs love, too... and I think this could be a potentially very nice option. Not to mention it wouldn't directly compete with your M1, and would more or less be a bigger brother to it. I dig it!

 

[SashaLag]

looks awesome! Not here for a mATX case... but stil, looks awesome!

as playing with "boxes" (PSU, GPU, MoBo...) is hard in small constrained space... Design a case with an HDPlex in mind (sell that in bundle maybe) would ease the job? Could this allow for a better displacement and airflow management?

 

[QuantumBraced]

I think the original design was good too, there are lots of dual slot 20-series options. It was already a design that required specific components (SFX, 120mm AIO, card that isn't too long). I guess at some point there were too many requirements... But I still like it, I think everyone picks parts specific to such tiny builds.

But I like this new design too, I have a few minor issues with the Cerberus that this solves.

However, a few thoughts:

You say no watercooling support, but what about the two 120mm fans on top? You can't fit a 120mm or a 240mm AIO in any way up there? Could you fit a 140mm in the front if you used a shorter card?

Would the top exhaust fans interfere with airflow from CPU cooler? They're so close to it, it seems like they may be fighting a little trying to push air out while the CPU fan is trying to push it thru the heatsink.

So basically if you use a 2-slot card, you cannot do SLI? The last slot is completely unusable? I think that's a pretty big sacrifice. In SFF, people go mATX for the extra slots, and a big percentage of that is SLI. NVLink is a massive improvement over traditional SLI, I'm thinking we may see a resurgence of dual-card setups. I guess the case would need to become much larger to accommodate another card comfortably, but I see a lot of people looking at this case and saying -- what's the point, I'll just go ITX. The NCase M1 with the window is pretty similar to this case, except you have bottom intake.

 

[Windfall]

~21L vertical ITX/mATX EK Phoenix-supporting concept:

Specs:

• Dimensions: 395 x 180 x 295mm, 21L
• Motherboard: mini-ITX, microATX
• CPU cooler: up to ~145mm
• GPU: 3-slot+, up to 305mm long
• PSU: SFX, SFX-L
• Drives: up to 2x 3.5", 2-3x 2.5"
• Fans: 2x 140 or 120mm front; 2x slim 120mm rear

The central idea of this concept is as a low-footprint vertical case that's designed specifically to support the EK MLC Phoenix expandable AIO, yet can work equally well as an air-cooled only case. As an air-only build, it can additionally support microATX motherboards, with a four-slot limitation (so not optimal for multi-GPU builds).

@Necere You plagiarized the Kimera MachOne!

*checks dates*

Kimera, about that MachOne.......

 

[Thehack]

I think the original design was good too, there are lots of dual slot 20-series options. It was already a design that required specific components (SFX, 120mm AIO, card that isn't too long). I guess at some point there were too many requirements... But I still like it, I think everyone picks parts specific to such tiny builds.

But I like this new design too, I have a few minor issues with the Cerberus that this solves.

However, a few thoughts:

You say no watercooling support, but what about the two 120mm fans on top? You can't fit a 120mm or a 240mm AIO in any way up there? Could you fit a 140mm in the front if you used a shorter card?

Would the top exhaust fans interfere with airflow from CPU cooler? They're so close to it, it seems like they may be fighting a little trying to push air out while the CPU fan is trying to push it thru the heatsink.

So basically if you use a 2-slot card, you cannot do SLI? The last slot is completely unusable? I think that's a pretty big sacrifice. In SFF, people go mATX for the extra slots, and a big percentage of that is SLI. NVLink is a massive improvement over traditional SLI, I'm thinking we may see a resurgence of dual-card setups. I guess the case would need to become much larger to accommodate another card comfortably, but I see a lot of people looking at this case and saying -- what's the point, I'll just go ITX. The NCase M1 with the window is pretty similar to this case, except you have bottom intake.

I do not think we will see a resurgence of SLI set up.

1. From the 1080 ti and lower, scaling of price to performance is fairly linear.

2. DX12/Vulkan offers explicit multi-GPU, which offers 90-97% scaling yet not a single mainstream game takes advantage of this. So if dev actually have to work for offering performance for .01% of gamers, they won't (which is reasonable).

A big case is easier to cool. If it is going to be bigger, might as well support mATX right?

 

[Necere]

looks awesome! Not here for a mATX case... but stil, looks awesome!

as playing with "boxes" (PSU, GPU, MoBo...) is hard in small constrained space... Design a case with an HDPlex in mind (sell that in bundle maybe) would ease the job? Could this allow for a better displacement and airflow management?

Going to a specialized PSU can save a lot of space, but it's also pretty limiting and you could easily run out of headroom power-wise with what you could use in this case. Also I much prefer to stick with standardized parts wherever possible, to give people maximum choice in their build.

 

[Necere]

I think the original design was good too, there are lots of dual slot 20-series options. It was already a design that required specific components (SFX, 120mm AIO, card that isn't too long). I guess at some point there were too many requirements... But I still like it, I think everyone picks parts specific to such tiny builds.

You'd hope, but it can be difficult to understand GPU size restrictions, and manufacturers have different ways of measuring things that can make it a challenge to select the right parts. Also some people just don't read or do the research required. It shouldn't be up to me to save people from themselves... but it kinda is. At least, I can save a lot of headaches down the road by taking into account the market and the needs/desires of the average consumer. GPU size is one of the biggest sticking points that comes up in a lot of the M1 builds I see, so IMO it's probably worth it take the market shift to larger cards into account with a new design.

You say no watercooling support, but what about the two 120mm fans on top? You can't fit a 120mm or a 240mm AIO in any way up there? Could you fit a 140mm in the front if you used a shorter card?

No and no. A 120/240 rad (or full thickness fans) won't fit at the top for the same reason a 120mm fan won't fit at the back: the case isn't wide enough for the fan/rad to clear the motherboard. Also there isn't enough length front-to-back between the rear of the case and the PSU for a 240 rad, which tend to be about 275mm long.

As for a front 140mm rad, again, these are around 175mm long, and there isn't enough of either height or width for one to fit in any orientation at the front. At best, a 120mm rad might fit there.

Would the top exhaust fans interfere with airflow from CPU cooler? They're so close to it, it seems like they may be fighting a little trying to push air out while the CPU fan is trying to push it thru the heatsink.

It's really no different from any case that has top or rear fans. I don't think it will be an issue.

So basically if you use a 2-slot card, you cannot do SLI? The last slot is completely unusable? I think that's a pretty big sacrifice. In SFF, people go mATX for the extra slots, and a big percentage of that is SLI. NVLink is a massive improvement over traditional SLI, I'm thinking we may see a resurgence of dual-card setups. I guess the case would need to become much larger to accommodate another card comfortably, but I see a lot of people looking at this case and saying -- what's the point, I'll just go ITX. The NCase M1 with the window is pretty similar to this case, except you have bottom intake.

All four slots are usable, it's just the last one that shares space with the 2.5" drives (or the last 1.5 slots if using a 3.5" HDD). So depending on how long a card you put in that slot, you will give up some/all of the bottom drive mounting.

In any case, SLI doesn't make a lot of sense these days. Support in games isn't great, and in some cases it's no better than a single card. Given that with only four slots available you'd pretty much have to use dual blower cards to keep the cards from cooking themselves, and with nvidia moving away from blowers on their reference designs, I just don't see it being viable. This design is optimized for single GPU, with the possibility of using 1 or 2 small expansion cards (the Vive wireless adapter apparently requires one).

 

[Necere]

@Necere You plagiarized the Kimera MachOne!

*checks dates*

Kimera, about that MachOne.......

The concept was originally mine, yes, but w360 asked me if he could develop it into a case to sell on SFFLab. I didn't plan to go ahead with it myself, so I said sure. He did want to make it an NCASE-branded product, but without my direct involvement I wasn't on board with that. Joshua (Playfulphoenix) is w360's partner on SFFLab, and he's the sole surviving owner of Chimera Industries (James/Aibophobia - original designer of the Cerberus - being MIA for some time now), so they elected to use the Chimera brand instead.

 

[QuantumBraced]

Thanks for the replies, Necere. Yeah, it's amazing people who are in-the-know enough to find and want to get the M1 can't actually Google the specs. I mean the vast majority of cards fit in it, but people are dumb. With the 20-series there are definitely more 2.5-2.75 slot cards, so it's better to play it safe.

I see, will a front 120mm AIO with a 25mm rad and a 15mm fan fit with a reference-sized card? Air cooling-wise, will the U9S still be the tallest tower-style cooler supported? The C14S is nice, but obstructs view of everything for people who want to show off their board.

So you're saying, if you clean the SSDs off the floor, a second 2-slot card will fit. But there are no vents on the bottom, right? The card will be touching the floor practically, you think that setup would work at all? Maybe you'll need strictly blower-style cards for that.

On SLI, I hear you, but NVLink on the 20-series has 50x the bandwidth of SLI and allows for cross-referencing the cards' VRAM. It has the potential to make scaling much better and more universal, especially with future implementations. It's going to take some time, but I'm saying dual setups might come back in the future in super high-end systems.

 

[QuantumBraced]

Hm... could you shift things around a bit and fit another 140mm in the front? Maybe move the top fans all the way to the back wall, then move the PSU back a bit too, make the case a bit taller, then you can fit a second 140mm in the front to provide more air and have positive pressure. It would also feed the PSU with fresh air, potentially making it quieter.

 

[Necere]

I see, will a front 120mm AIO with a 25mm rad and a 15mm fan fit with a reference-sized card? Air cooling-wise, will the U9S still be the tallest tower-style cooler supported? The C14S is nice, but obstructs view of everything for people who want to show off their board.

Cooler limit is around 140mm, so something like the Thermalright True Spirit 120 Direct could fit. Might not perform better than the U9S though, considering the narrow fin stack.

There's actually more than enough room, depth-wise, for a front 120mm rad. Just about enough for a 30mm rad with fans in push-pull in front of a reference GPU, even:

I'd probably have to bump up the depth by 5mm or so to make this a sure fit, but it's basically there already. Just a bit tight for the PSU cables.

So you're saying, if you clean the SSDs off the floor, a second 2-slot card will fit. But there are no vents on the bottom, right? The card will be touching the floor practically, you think that setup would work at all? Maybe you'll need strictly blower-style cards for that.

Blower cards are mandatory for SLI setups with zero-slot spacing, IMO. There's just no way open cooler cards will work effectively with so little room for airflow. Blowers have a higher static pressure than axial fans, so can deal with some restriction, and a blower card in the bottom slot right above the floor of the case will probably still be better off than the top card in an SLI setup.

On SLI, I hear you, but NVLink on the 20-series has 50x the bandwidth of SLI and allows for cross-referencing the cards' VRAM. It has the potential to make scaling much better and more universal, especially with future implementations. It's going to take some time, but I'm saying dual setups might come back in the future in super high-end systems.

Well, we'll see how it plays out. But I think going forward, with nvidia moving to axial fans for their reference cards, you'll need a minimum 6 slots of space to ensure enough airflow for an SLI setup. At that point, may as well go for the 7th slot and full ATX motherboard support. MicroATX no longer makes any sense for SLI, IMO (if it ever really did).

Hm... could you shift things around a bit and fit another 140mm in the front? Maybe move the top fans all the way to the back wall, then move the PSU back a bit too, make the case a bit taller, then you can fit a second 140mm in the front to provide more air and have positive pressure. It would also feed the PSU with fresh air, potentially making it quieter.

No, not really. For one thing, the case is only 270mm tall (though I will probably have to bump that a bit too), so 2x 140mm fans are already taller than the case. It would need to go to 290mm, at least, to fit two. The front I/O is also in the way and would need to be relocated (and there really aren't any great places for it).

It's probably of dubious benefit to have a fan essentially right up against the PSU intake, anyway. Two fans both blowing in series like that is what gets you turbulence, which creates noise and reduces performance. The PSU would also block much of the fan's airflow into the case, negating a lot of its contribution to case airflow.

 

[QuantumBraced]

Thanks again for the detailed reply. All of that makes sense. Yeah, the I/O is a bit awkward, I'd definitely prefer it on the bottom for a case this size, but then you'd have to move the fan up and it would be somewhat obstructed by the PSU. I have to say, there's just a bit of awkwardness in the front of this case with the PSU/cables, the fan, and the I/O. Everything gets in the way of everything else a little. Maybe that's just my OCD. The SSDs also block the bottom slots here, so if you have another PCIe card and SSDs, you gotta plug it right under the GPU.

I have to say, for mATX I preferred your earlier designs that were just a traditional layout, 19L or so, space in the front for a 240mm AIO, SFX PSU on the bottom, space for 2 3.5" next to it, full-sized window, that's it. Otherwise, this case is a bit neither here nor there. 16L would be the smallest mATX, but at that point a few L more don't really make that big a difference as it's no longer a super-tiny case anyway and that extra volume is a smaller percentage of the overall, so the utility of it is worth it.

I preferred the previous ITX design, it was like Dan's C4-SFX except with better airflow, dust management, proper GPU orientation, and I/O on the bottom. It was like an M1 except optimized for a window. Really cute-looking too. I get it was more niche, but... it made more sense to me. As does your larger mATX design. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Necere]

Thanks again for the detailed reply. All of that makes sense. Yeah, the I/O is a bit awkward, I'd definitely prefer it on the bottom for a case this size, but then you'd have to move the fan up and it would be somewhat obstructed by the PSU. I have to say, there's just a bit of awkwardness in the front of this case with the PSU/cables, the fan, and the I/O. Everything gets in the way of everything else a little. Maybe that's just my OCD. The SSDs also block the bottom slots here, so if you have another PCIe card and SSDs, you gotta plug it right under the GPU.

I agree it's a bit awkward. I wish there was an elegant solution, but so far I haven't been able to come up with anything I've liked.

I have to say, for mATX I preferred your earlier designs that were just a traditional layout, 19L or so, space in the front for a 240mm AIO, SFX PSU on the bottom, space for 2 3.5" next to it, full-sized window, that's it. Otherwise, this case is a bit neither here nor there. 16L would be the smallest mATX, but at that point a few L more don't really make that big a difference as it's no longer a super-tiny case anyway and that extra volume is a smaller percentage of the overall, so the utility of it is worth it.

I think the smallest I was able to get that layout was still around 21-22L, not 19. Depth and width basically the same, but the height increased by 60-70mm to accommodate the PSU at the bottom. Too big to talk about on this forum
Edit: actually, I take that back. Looking back at my previous concepts, you're right; this one was right about 20L. Maybe that does make more sense.

 

[QuantumBraced]

I agree it's a bit awkward. I wish there was an elegant solution, but so far I haven't been able to come up with anything I've liked.

I think the smallest I was able to get that layout was still around 21-22L, not 19. Depth and width basically the same, but the height increased by 60-70mm to accommodate the PSU at the bottom. Too big to talk about on this forum

Ah, I must have remembered wrong. Yeah 22L is too much, maybe if it was ATX (that was your original M5 idea, which I also liked).

Well, I still like your previous ITX iteration better. Again, plenty of dual slot 20-series cards, and I think the 2.5-2.75 slots will still fit. Less room for airflow, but they are thicker, so in the end they'd probably perform the same as the dual-slots in that case. Excellent airflow and dust management, no awkwardness in the front, PSU right up to the outside, graphics card shown in all its glory, watercooled CPU, full I/O at the bottom, 10L. Me likey.

 

[Boil]

Specs:

• Dimensions: 270x170x360, 16.5L
• CPU cooler: ~140mm
• GPU: ~300mm long, ~140mm tall, triple slot
• PSU: SFX/SFX-L
• Drives: multiple 2.5"/single 3.5" (depending on GPU/cards installed)
• Fans: 140mm front (filtered), 2x120mm (slim) top

Pretty similar layout as the Cerberus, with one less slot (since it's optimized for one big GPU rather than two), and sans any real watercooling support. Fairly straightforward design overall, that should cover what most people would want (big GPU, decent cooling, window option, a few drives, 1-2 extra PCIe slots for expansion), with nothing extra. Thoughts?

I have always been more a fan of ITX SFF solutions, but at the moment I have a budget Asus mATX motherboard with an i7-4770S CPU & 16GB of quality Corsair DDR3 RAM, and a Corsair SF600 PSU, so this interests me...

I would rather see full 25mm thick fans up top, not a huge fan (pun intended) of slim fans...

 

[VegetableStu]

I was looking at the EVGA Hadron Air the past few days and just connected the dots:
that concept is a properly supported version of an mATX board in the Hadron Air O_O this I absolutely fancy

 

[Windfall]

The thing I love about it is that you look at the CAD drawings and you feel a rush of energy to get EVERY cable fitting perfectly.

 

[QuantumBraced]

Just curious, would an mATX board fit in an NCase M1 with one more slot, if you had an SFX bracket that put an SFX PSU right up against the front wall? Or would you need to make the case longer too?