Concept Necere's concept/ideation thread

[SomeBeardo]

Speaking of compromises and cable management in terms of SFF, I think that's one of the top things that has to be downsized. Cable management is harder in SFF cases, and that's just the nature of SFF. Smaller volume means less room for long cables and usually means there is no dedicated compartment for cables like there is in the mainstream cases. Cable management is also partly an art form and a skill, especially when it comes to cutting length off of the cables and/or cable sleeving.

I don't think it is in the spirit of SFF to make the case larger in order to manage cables easier, but that is just my opinion. Cheers

That's fair and from my "novice" SFF background I still find it a challenge to make cable management look OK.
In any case, what I specifically was thinking wouldn't likely be beneficial anyway. If you were using an ATX board in the mATX case, there wouldn't really be a way to use the cutouts.

 

[Necere]

We speak a lot about compromise in SFF, but I sometimes feel like not exploring cases that are slightly larger is a compromise too far. It's fine to reel it back in sometimes, but if 1 cm in any direction made it better, isn't it worth it?

I basically agree; I kind of loathe the idea of coming just short of being able to fit substantively better hardware for the sake of coming in right under the line of some arbitrary liter count that qualifies as "SFF." However, at least in the more hardcore SFF community, that puts me in the minority (or so it seems), and I guess I have to play ball to avoid incurring the wrath of the SFF police. Ah well... it makes for an extra challenge, I suppose.

Could the case go to 21.5 liters still be small and give a little extra cable routing and a good tower cooler?
Maybe 145 doesn't open it up to enough "good" cooler option, but does it give enough room to snake a couple wires more cleanly?

CPU cooler height and behind-the-motherboard cable management directly compete; both increase width, so if you want more of both, it's going to be add that much more.

To give you an idea, currently the width is 170mm, which allows for a 140mm tall CPU cooler, and no significant space for running cables behind the motherboard. If I wanted to increase the CPU cooler to 160mm (common full tower height), the case would have to grow to 190mm wide, which bumps the volume to 22L. And this is still without any behind-the-motherboard cable management, though it would create some additional space at the bottom of the case, around the PSU/drive area.

What about getting rid of the 3.5 drives and focusing on SSD mounts (compromise, get an a NAS) to open space up?

Ditching 3.5" drives would certainly free up a bunch of space for cables at the bottom, but I wouldn't drop support completely as there's no real benefit to that. I'd leave it to the user to decide how they want to use the space.

 

[Phuncz]

I basically agree; I kind of loathe the idea of coming just short of being able to fit substantively better hardware for the sake of coming in right under the line of some arbitrary liter count that qualifies as "SFF." However, at least in the more hardcore SFF community, that puts me in the minority (or so it seems), and I guess I have to play ball to avoid incurring the wrath of the SFF police. Ah well... it makes for an extra challenge, I suppose.

It's a rabbit hole I imagine plenty of SFF case designers fall into and it's very difficult to balance the line of what is a good tradeoff in increased volume vs increased hardware support and what isn't. Especially with the lack of future predicting tech to help

I think the challenges with hardware restrictions shouldn't automatically be solved by resizing the case, but consider putting things together differently. I'm sure that most truely brilliant SFF case designs come from not increasing the bounding boxes until satisfaction is achieved but by fitting it in ways you didn't imagine possible that allow a more efficient result.

 

[Necere]

It's a rabbit hole I imagine plenty of SFF case designers fall into and it's very difficult to balance the line of what is a good tradeoff in increased volume vs increased hardware support and what isn't. Especially with the lack of future predicting tech to help

I think the challenges with hardware restrictions shouldn't automatically be solved by resizing the case, but consider putting things together differently. I'm sure that most truely brilliant SFF case designs come from not increasing the bounding boxes until satisfaction is achieved but by fitting it in ways you didn't imagine possible that allow a more efficient result.

Believe me, I've explored many, many different layout ideas. What I show publicly are just a fraction of what I've done. Ultimately though I always seem to come back around to a handful of layouts that work the best.

If I relaxed my requirements - in particular good system airflow and dust management - a lot more layouts would be viable. But look around at just about any other SFF case: are any of them serious about dust management? Most are either highly ventilated open-air designs, or negative pressure designs, neither of which is good for dust control. So apart from it being a personal requirement, it's also a very underserved feature in the SFF space.

You know, I didn't try to hit a specific liter count while I was designing the M1. My design philosophy has been, in essence, "make it the size it needs to be to do what it needs to do." That still seems right to me.

 

[dangwang]

If I wanted to increase the CPU cooler to 160mm (common full tower height), the case would have to grow to 190mm wide, which bumps the volume to 22L.

I would love that, actually. People who are too obsessed with volume wouldn't even bother with MATX or ATX in the first place. It would probably spark more interests outside of the SFF crowd as well.

 

[AcquaCow]

I just want an ATX case with 240mm rad space on the top and bottom, with dual 120mm fans in the front blowing over the PCI-e slots/etc. That unfortunately puts it over 20L, but it would be super silent and still have good airflow for my bucket of PCI-e flash storage cards.

I'd settle for a single 240 or 280, but only if it can fit a double-thick radiator and normal profile fans.

 

[Necere]

I just want an ATX case with 240mm rad space on the top and bottom, with dual 120mm fans in the front blowing over the PCI-e slots/etc. That unfortunately puts it over 20L, but it would be super silent and still have good airflow for my bucket of PCI-e flash storage cards.

So something like this?

Where do you imagine the PSU would go, over the CPU?
This would be around 28L at 170mm wide.

 

[AcquaCow]

Yeah, would have to be a SFF PSU over the CPU most likely.

But at least this way I could have a silent CPU and GPU (on separate AIOs), and still get good airflow across the pci-e slots for my FPGA-driven flash drives. I need ~300 LFM to properly cool them, but they do alright with a tad less. I also have a dual port 10gig-e card in there to get data in/out.

I could compromise and put one of the 240mm rads up front and have that be for the GPU. I wouldn't be stressing the GPU when the pci-e cards are getting stressed, so cooler air would be blowing through the rad to pci-e at that time. The CPU rad would be the hot one in that case.

I think that config could be done in a 14x15in case. I hate it when dimensions get longer than 16-17in because then cases don't fit on standard shelving/etc.

 

[MoarCoffeePlzzz]

That inverted motherboard tray render is down right mouth watering.. PLEASE release a new ITX case soonish Excited about the little Computex teaser we got. X

 

[Boil]

???

 

[Metroversal]

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

Pretty sure he is referring to @PlayfulPhoenix - the Mach One is a collab between Chimera and Ncase (w360)

 

[Necere]

???

Yes, it's based on this concept of mine. W360 liked it and asked if he could use it. I had no plans to do anything with it, so I said sure. I did help him through the development process by looking at his CAD and identifying issues/offering suggestions, but the final design and ultimately the decisions about which features to implement are his. Do note his version is somewhat smaller than my concept, in order to better fit his goal of travel portability. The most notable difference as a result of the size reduction is the loss of the rear fans from my concept.

Even the "Mach" name was something I came up with, though it was meant for a completely different concept (one I haven't shown publicly, but looked something like a scaled-down version of my old "half-mac" concept, and had the same G5 Mac Pro-style aluminum hoop feet). It was originally meant as a bit of a pun: reads like "Mac," but sounds more like "mock" - a mock Mac. I thought to call it the Mach Pro or Mach Mini for added effect. Anyway, w360 apparently liked the name enough to ask if he could use that, as well, though it did lose its referential cheekiness in the translation to the Mach One design.

 

[Wahaha360]

Yes, it's based on this concept of mine. W360 liked it and asked if he could use it. I had no plans to do anything with it, so I said sure. I did help him through the development process by looking at his CAD and identifying issues/offering suggestions, but the final design and ultimately the decisions about which features to implement are his. Do note his version is somewhat smaller than my concept, in order to better fit his goal of travel portability. The most notable difference as a result of the size reduction is the loss of the rear fans from my concept.

Even the "Mach" name was something I came up with, though it was meant for a completely different concept (one I haven't shown publicly, but looked something like a scaled-down version of my old "half-mac" concept, and had the same G5 Mac Pro-style aluminum hoop feet). It was originally meant as a bit of a pun: reads like "Mac," but sounds more like "mock" - a mock Mac. I thought to call it the Mach Pro or Mach Mini for added effect. Anyway, w360 apparently liked the name enough to ask if he could use that, as well, though it did lose its referential cheekiness in the translation to the Mach One design.

In my defense, Necere took "M1", the name I came up with.

So I took "Mach", the name he came up with.

In terms of the overall design, I pushed and advocated the prior design concept to Necere in the first place. So I reaped the fruits of all my lobbying.

We traded.

 

[Necere]

Yeah, it's not a problem. I was never very serious about using the name anyway, so it's just as well it gets used for something else.

But to add, I didn't "take" the name M1; as I recall, you suggested we use it.

 

[Phuncz]

Mach One = Mach 1 = M1 = ???
Mysteries comfirmed !

 

[ignsvn]

Mach One = Mach 1 = M1 = ???
Mysteries comfirmed !

Conspiracy theory thought intensifies!

 

[Choidebu]

Mach One = Mach 1 = M1 = ???
Mysteries comfirmed !

MIND.BLOWN

 

[Phuncz]

MIND.BLOWN

Mind = M
Blown = 1st letter after the A = 1
Another M1 occurance ???
This conspiracy runs so deep ! WHAT ARE YOU HIDING FROM US ?!

 

[Boil]

Mind = M
Blown = 1st letter after the A = 1
Another M1 occurance ???
This conspiracy runs so deep ! WHAT ARE YOU HIDING FROM US ?!

I think you need to put down the crack pipe, and maybe switch to some heavy duty aluminium foil for your headgear...

 

[Baal]

Hey, im new here and I know this is not a "make a wish" thread to you, but I hope to give the right guy(s) something like an concept idea so that my dream case someday will be avaliable^^

Basically its somewhat like an Corsair 250D or Bitfenix Prodigy/Phenom but made in an quality we know from the Ncase M1 and other LianLi manufactured cases. Also it should only be only as big as it needs to be while still not making compromises on performance.

The case that come closest to what I would want is the Lian li Q33 but its not long enough for high performance GPUs and on the other hand some things (ATX PSU and 3.5" HDDs) are unneccesary space consuming.

My dreamcase concept idea:
Seen from behind: The SFX(-L) PSU on the bottom left, right of it would be place for 2x 2.5" SSDs (Q33 has place for ATX PSU + 3.5" HDD)
Over them the horizontal ITX mainbaord tray. The whole internals long enough to support ~280mm 3 slot GPUs. In the front of the Case on the other side of the GPU would be enough place for an Watercooling stuff:
Behind the front there would be an somewhat-slideable 240mm mount (vertical from top to bottom) like the one on the Ncase M1 side, where you can connect an thick powerfull AiO or custom radiator. Slidable because if you use an long GPU it should be mounted more on the right side (seen from the front). If you use external radiators you could place an full sized pump and reservoir here.
The height between the mainboard tray and top of the case would be lower than Q33, just enough to fit an 92mm fan and to fit powerfull GPUs.
Near the 92mm fan grill there would be the same tubing holes like the Q33 or the same like on the Ncase M1 turned 90 degrees to use external watercooling radiators.

To get enough cooling even with air cooling, every panel would be perforated like on the the NCase M1 and in similar design: Each side gets an own panel, not like on DAN A4 or LianLi Q50 or something. The panels are all clipped on the main frame where the "somewhat slidable" 240mm Mounts are also mounted on (like the M1 with different screw hole positions).

Optional: If there is still place under the top, an somewhat-slidable 240mm radiator mount on the top, maybe designed as such, that you can choose if you want to place it under the top or behind the front.


If im guessing right, that all would have measurements of about (WxH) 240x310x310 and 23L while having no compromises on performance.

Because of the horizontal mainboard conception and because each panel can be dismounted easily working on it would probably be very easy. The thing has enough room for even extendable 240mm AiOs with an thick radiator to cool CPU and GPU. Even the powerfull Swiftech H220 X2 would probalby fit. If you want to use an external radiator, you can use an non compromise pump and reservior inside because it has enough room. (We Germans love big external radiators btw. )


I really hope you or others that have the ability to make such an case could think about that concept, maybe my dreamcase will someday be availiable in an similar form like the described/dreamed above!