Concept Necere's concept/ideation thread

[QuantumBraced]

Just in case you missed it, I'll reiterate that this design could support an ATX board (though not PSU). If you mean a full seven-slot capable case then yeah, that'd be solidly outside the realm of SFF, and of course ATX cases are hyper-saturated. It would be hard to stand out from the crowd.

The other problem with larger cases is shipping, as it does get much more expensive the larger you go. To the point that you could be paying more for shipping than the actual cost of the case. Flat-packing is a way to mitigate the cost, but it introduces its own challenges and limits what you can do design-wise.


I appreciate the compliment, though I think there are plenty of other talented designers in our little community. If I'm any good at this, it's probably on account of just having been at it for so long. Believe me, my early forays into case design were pretty terrible. But yes, I agree that it's a bit of a waste not to put my skills to practical use and make something tangible that people can use and enjoy.

Cool, well I think this is a nice compromise, supporting ATX, but not more than 4 slots. Now I'm thinking it would be nice if you had an "ATX plate" that added another 3 slots and you had an alternative PSU mount at the front, bottom or top at the expense of one of the 140mm fans; or maybe just forward to where the 3.5" drives are. Don't know if that would be worth adding the complexity, of course in reality 95% of ATX boards just have a single graphics card in them.

 

[madbrayniak]

I've had an idea for a long time but haven't had a chance to learn a modeling program so I want to share and see what you think.

Horizontal motherboard layout.

PSU mount in same location as Ncase M1 but possibly rotated 90*

Under motherboard would be 240 rad mount..maybe 280

Above the CPU would be lower clearance and room for a slim 120

Kinda think of this like a ITX HexGear R40-ish design.

Pump would need to be CPU block or between GPU backplate and PSU.

 

[madbrayniak]

P.s. the thin ITX design on page 1, is that ever going to be making into real life?

 

[Necere]

P.s. the thin ITX design on page 1, is that ever going to be making into real life?

Very unlikely. Too many specific component requirements with limited availability make it a poor choice for a production case.

 

[madbrayniak]

Darn. Maybe one day

Well, let me.know what you think of my water-cooled idea. I like water-cooling because of the challenges but at the same time, I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to keep up with it...

 

[Necere]

Darn. Maybe one day

Well, let me.know what you think of my water-cooled idea. I like water-cooling because of the challenges but at the same time, I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to keep up with it...

I'd suggest mocking it up in CAD or at least sketching it out on paper and making a new thread if you want feedback on your idea.

 

[madbrayniak]

Cool. Not trying to hijack your thread. Just trying to have an open discussion. You do great work.

 

[legit]

Really enjoy the concepts and feedback gathered here. I started from the beginning and began to skim toward the latter half. Just some general comments:

The horizontal vents you demonstrated early on remind me somewhat of the ones on a Dell T30. I think they look all right, and would be easy to wipe down.

Seems one alternative for getting another PCI-E slot (not for GPU) is trading an M2 slot in the scenario for the Vive.
I'm of the camp that wouldn't mind a taller case and don't like cube shaped cases either. My first SFF was an AMD-based Shuttle XPC back in 2003. Loved that thing back then (especially as a college student who frequently moved around), and two mid tower builds (C2 E6600 w/ massive fans, i7-2600k custom loop) later, I'm back in SFF land, aiming to recreate good temps and low noise on new ITX hw.

 

[QuantumBraced]

Don't know if I should mention this here, but I recently stumbled on the ultrabudget Rosewill FBM-X2 case. It's MicroATX and only 25L. Very straightforward design, somewhat reminiscent of Necere's basic mATX concept. Costs only $30 and is honestly not of terrible quality. Not the smallest, but still SFF in my book, it's nice to see in that price range.

 

[Necere]

Throwback Thursday anyone? You've probably seen w360's Sidearmd T1 project, but you may not know that the name and layout are inspired by some of my older designs. These are some old renders (date on the file says June of 2011) I found of one such concept bearing the Sidearm name and using a back-to-back layout (very similar to the A4):

This particular concept uses a flex PSU and is about 6L.

 

[Windfall]

Throwback Thursday anyone? You've probably seen w360's Sidearmd T1 project, but you may not know that the name and layout are inspired by some of my older designs. These are some old renders (date on the file says June of 2011) I found of one such concept bearing the Sidearm name and using a back-to-back layout (very similar to the A4):

Very nice! Is that a GTX 460?

 

[Necere]

Very nice! Is that a GTX 460?

Seems to be a 580, actually.

 

[CC Ricers]

Throwback Thursday anyone? You've probably seen w360's Sidearmd T1 project, but you may not know that the name and layout are inspired by some of my older designs. These are some old renders (date on the file says June of 2011) I found of one such concept bearing the Sidearm name and using a back-to-back layout (very similar to the A4):

This particular concept uses a flex PSU and is about 6L.

Wow, that looks really slick! Mind if I borrow some ideas from it? I've made a custom case with a very similar layout (flex ATX with reference card), and would like to see how this would turn out, in plastic, though, instead of metal.

 

[Necere]

Wow, that looks really slick! Mind if I borrow some ideas from it? I've made a custom case with a very similar layout (flex ATX with reference card), and would like to see how this would turn out, in plastic, though, instead of metal.

Sure, help yourself. Nothing too special about it, really - the A4 layout is pretty ubiquitous at this point. The styling - now that I see it again - reminds me a lot of both yours and Lazer3D's cases.

 

[Sam]

Have you ever considered making 8-9 liter, M1 mini?

 

[Windfall]

Seems to be a 580, actually.

Ah, yes. I could heat my place with one of those!

 

[Necere]

Have you ever considered making 8-9 liter, M1 mini?

No, not really. How do you envision that? Maybe mount the PSU across the front as standard, so the case can be made shallower - say 280mm, so we can keep reference GPU support at least. Then drop the third slot, bringing the height down to 220mm. That gives you 220x160x280mm, or 9.9L. I guess you could go all the way down to 250mm or so on the depth by limiting it to short GPUs, putting you at 8.8L. I think the proportions start to look not so great, though. I think my preference for sub-10L is to use risers to enable a slimmer design.

 

[Sam]

Exactly as you described, keep reference GPU support, little bit tighter dimensions; 220x145x270.
With riser involved, can't use small tower air coolers.

 

[Necere]

Exactly as you described, keep reference GPU support, little bit tighter dimensions; 220x145x270.
With riser involved, can't use small tower air coolers.

IMO 145mm is really too narrow, even for reference cards. 150mm maybe, but honestly it would not be very prudent to develop a case that effectively only supported reference cards and a small number of AIB cards these days, considering how common taller cards have become.

True, you couldn't use tower coolers in a slim case, but top-down coolers can still offer respectable performance. Also AIOs allow for some interesting possibilities by relocating the bulk of the cooler to some place where it won't drive up the width.

 

[Sam]

From my observation, I think the demand is there.
I see these cases on Taobao, there seems to be a new case with similar dimensions, every few month.
One of the highest voted sffpc subreddit posts I seen in recent times was on one of these cases, 1.3K upvotes;