S4 MINI Classic (S4M-C)
- Thread starter Josh | NFC
- Start date
Yeah been using the XMAS edition PSU with the 12 pin (thanks to @ngriesdo) for the last few days and temps look OK on the 12 pin. The brick gets up to 78C on the surface so I am monitoring that. I think I would order mine with a 40mm fan mount.
Amazing unit though...I'm definitely not a fan of putting a 1080ti in a MINI (though that is insanely popular right now with full build customers) but Gary's unit is almost ideal for it. I think with some tweaks it would be a perfect solution for some users.
Right now here is where I am standing and my recommendations:
---------1080ti-------
FIRST CHOICE:
HDPLEX 400 + Eurocom 780
PROS:
- Safe, certified, highly tested, rock solid stable.
- This setup runs very cool with even an i9 and has plenty of overhead for safe overclocking
- Least amount of coil whine
- Very expensive
- Difficult to mod connectors for Eurocom
- Noisy before replacing Eurcom's fans
- Bulky wires (better with Skywire cables) and install, takes up lots of room in MINI
- 2nd most bulky hookup
G-UNQIUE 450 Kit (Arkangel + Modded Brick)
PROS:
- EASY to install!
- No fan noise
- Tons of room inside case!
- Could be perfectly neat if output cables reversed (Please, Gary?)
- Reasonably priced
- Not certified, use at own risk and be thankful to Gary for being an awesome modder!
- Power brick runs STUPID hot
- Minor coil whine (in brick and plug in unit)
- Very hard to get one made (long waiting list)
- 1st most bulky hookup
HDPLEX 400 + Genuine Dell DA330PA111
- Dell 330 is readily available and works well.
- Buy the 60ish dollar grey market DA330 bricks at own risk for 1080. These can work OK for 1070 systems.
- Sames cons as above, but can be a good choice based on the pros
- Make sure to tell Gary you are ordering for a MINI!
Dynamo Mini + Dell DA330PA111
- Super neat install; even better than the G-unique due to modularity and sensible cable orientation
- You can use the 60ish dollar grey market DA330 fairly stably. I still recommend the genuine article.
FIRST CHOICE:
Dynamo Mini + Dell DA330PA111
- This is my first choice because it is prime for an upgrade down the road
Pico 160XT KIT (with 192w Adaptec Brick)
- Second choice only because it is not easy to upgrade/hookup for bigger GPUs
- Inexpensive! (under 70 bucks for the kit!)
- Pico 160XT can easily power a 1070 system, but requires dainty soldering.
---------------------But what about the Dynamo Duo?-------------------
The Dynamo Duo (Dynamo Mini + Dynamo 360 + AC/DC Power Brick) offers some really interesting possibilities. This combo should not be written off for advanced and creative builders. It is not on my list for a few reasons:
- Complex solution for advanced builders (many configurations and possibilities)
- I need to do much more testing. I never recommend power solutions until I have thoroughly tested and purchased many copies.
- Currently is the most bulky NFC MINI power solution.
Hope this helps some of my new customers
If you click the link on my last post I put a picture up of the 12 pin that Guryhwa showed me. You can see on my melted jack that the PCB is identical to the 12-pin, it has 4 unused holes so that either an 8 or 12 pin could be mounted.
Senpai noticed me! Lol I’m glad I could provide some help to you @Josh | NFC. It’s been a pleasure as always. I do have one question though do you have any whine with that brick or PSU combo? I noticed you put some in the notes for the 1080ti. I’m not using the 1080ti but ordered that one for overhead and if I ever did I could. I know I have asked you this like three times now in email! Haha that’s also interesting that the brick is getting that warm. I’ll have to watch that when I get mine.
I would very much like to hear some more detailed information about that coil whine too. Is it only audible at high loads or constant? Is it a modulated noise or a constant one? buzzing or whining? How noticeable is it from say 50cm away?
I realize most of those questions can only be answered subjectively, Nevertheless I would very much appreciate the effort, as coil whine can be a real deal-breaker for me.
Coil whine tolerance is definitely subjective. Yes, the Gunique 450w combo has coil whine, and it is more noticeable than the HDPLEX 400 + Eurocom. The whine comes from the brick and the unit and the card when under load. It isn't that bad though.
I will say that if you want the 1080ti, whine is going to be an issue no matter what you do under heavy load. Then again, you probably won't hear it over the fans, which need to run loud to keep the beast cool.
Your problems go away when you stick to the 1080. That card can be made to run very quietly, and with minimal coil whine. I don't like to describe coil whine sounds because it varies between parts and it is really subjective.
Peace
Has anyone that did the HDPlex power connector mod that Loc125 did to get the Gigabyte 1070 mini to fit in the case experience any issues so far? I wasn't sure if it has affected the performance of the HDPlex in anyway. I would rather not mod my case, but if doing the mod that Josh did is the best option I will go that route.
You mean cut a notch in the HDPLEX DC Jack? I don't even remember how many I've done. It's perfectly safe.
Peace
Yeah that mod. I watched the video you did again, and the mod on the chassis was not noticeable really. Which mod would you recommend people do?
I bought a DA330 from a semi-shady looking Chinese website (https://www.chargers-online.co.uk) for £45. It looks exactly like the genuine Dell charger, except it arrived with some scuffs and scratches. I figured since all the Dell bricks are manufactured in China, these would be the same quality. Should I be worried? I plan to use it with a HDPLEX 160W to power a 1060/i7-7700 combo.
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You shouldn't be worried. It will work fine. The question is how extreme can it perform. For a 1060 setup, as I mentioned in my notes, your brick would have to be a really bad one to get resets.
I think that we call these bricks "counterfeits" and they well might be, but what I really think they are is seconds or bricks that didn't pass the top end filtering. Even Dell sells multiple models (quietly) with different laptops. But if you buy the really pricey one off their website, you generally can push them all the way to their max wattage and be solid.
Well on the S4M-C it is pretty easy to mod the chassis. It is harder on the new S4M because there are rectangles instead of squares in the back, which is unfortunate for modders but needed to be made to support other design changes.
But if you have a vice and a rotary cutter it is a really simple mod to cut the connector, and I think it is cleaner.
I bought 2 Dell 330w bricks on Amazon for about half the price of those on the Dell website. They consistently failed with my I7 7700 + GTX 1080 combo. They should have been able to power this fine, as that combo was pulling <300W from the wall. They did work with a GTX 1070, but I've since returned them and ordered a 330W brick directly from Dell.
I don't know if they were cheap copies (they really look identical), or just poor quality control, but it seems the cheaper versions are hit or miss...
What's the consensus on vertical orientation for the S4 mini? I would assume the vents and aluminum bezel should be on top for heat dissipation, but I searched everywhere and didn't find an answer to this.
Sorry in advance for my poor search skills! :/
Sorry in advance for my poor search skills! :/
Thanks for the input guys. I went ahead and bought a brick directly from Dell while they're on sale for $124.99(+tax), just to be safe. I don't like the idea of using anything that doesn't pass QA checks with flying colors. I'll either resell the cheapo or keep it as a spare.
I wanted to do a quick shout-out to Silicon Lottery, I bought an 8700k on eBay and mailed it directly to them to delid for me, they turned it around real fast and re-sealed it to look like factory. The temps were astonishing, 70c at 100% CPU on all 12 threads with my modded Dynatron 1U vapor chamber cooler.
After two days, the chip fried. It might have been an issue with the chip, or my prototype HDPlex 400w (I was helping HDPlex check for coil whine before they launched the production version, and he was nice enough to let me keep it for the help). On the Silicon Lottery site they say they cover chips bought directly from them with a warranty, but if you mail one to them you're own your own. They gave me an RMA anyways and sent my a new 8700k without any hassle. They seem really cool to have gone above and beyond when they could have rightfully told me "tough luck". They definitely earned me as a customer for life, or at least until Intel stops using cream cheese as thermal paste. Now that 8700k's aren't so rare, I'd recommend just buying one directly from them for the official warranty, and that way it is binned too.
I'm really surprised you're saying the Gury 450w PSU has whine... mine has always been completely silent with my 1080ti, and I'm sensitive to whine. But it might be because I'm using it with with the Meanwell 12v PSU. The meanwell and the gury PSU have no whine at all even at my 400w workloads. The 1080ti itself has whine if you run a benchmark with no frame limiting, but I have yet to see a 1080ti that doesn't do that.
You did say the Gury brick runs extremely hot (my passive Meanwell runs barely warm because it is crazy-efficient... but also very expensive), so maybe the Gury brick being that hot is running a little out of spec and something like voltage ripple is introducing whine into the other components? The Gury Pico PSU is just passing along 12v to the CPU pins with minor capacitor smoothing; the inductors don't have any real work to do if the brick is supplying a true 12.0v, I think the only inductors are just for stepping down to 5v for the SATA (which I don't use, I'm m.2 only). I think it is even wired so that the brick is powering the GPU directly with 12v, it never actually routes through the pico PSU if you look at how it is wired.
Sorry if I sound like I'm shilling for the guy, aside from the misstep with that 8-pin input (which he has fixed), pound for pound and dollar for dollar it is the best PSU I've ever used, and is like a work of art with regards to design, minimalism, and top-shelf components. The guy is a genius and if he could get some OEM bricks made instead of modding the Dell one, and a US rep to help with his language barrier, he could take the world by storm
After two days, the chip fried. It might have been an issue with the chip, or my prototype HDPlex 400w (I was helping HDPlex check for coil whine before they launched the production version, and he was nice enough to let me keep it for the help). On the Silicon Lottery site they say they cover chips bought directly from them with a warranty, but if you mail one to them you're own your own. They gave me an RMA anyways and sent my a new 8700k without any hassle. They seem really cool to have gone above and beyond when they could have rightfully told me "tough luck". They definitely earned me as a customer for life, or at least until Intel stops using cream cheese as thermal paste. Now that 8700k's aren't so rare, I'd recommend just buying one directly from them for the official warranty, and that way it is binned too.
I'm really surprised you're saying the Gury 450w PSU has whine... mine has always been completely silent with my 1080ti, and I'm sensitive to whine. But it might be because I'm using it with with the Meanwell 12v PSU. The meanwell and the gury PSU have no whine at all even at my 400w workloads. The 1080ti itself has whine if you run a benchmark with no frame limiting, but I have yet to see a 1080ti that doesn't do that.
You did say the Gury brick runs extremely hot (my passive Meanwell runs barely warm because it is crazy-efficient... but also very expensive), so maybe the Gury brick being that hot is running a little out of spec and something like voltage ripple is introducing whine into the other components? The Gury Pico PSU is just passing along 12v to the CPU pins with minor capacitor smoothing; the inductors don't have any real work to do if the brick is supplying a true 12.0v, I think the only inductors are just for stepping down to 5v for the SATA (which I don't use, I'm m.2 only). I think it is even wired so that the brick is powering the GPU directly with 12v, it never actually routes through the pico PSU if you look at how it is wired.
Sorry if I sound like I'm shilling for the guy, aside from the misstep with that 8-pin input (which he has fixed), pound for pound and dollar for dollar it is the best PSU I've ever used, and is like a work of art with regards to design, minimalism, and top-shelf components. The guy is a genius and if he could get some OEM bricks made instead of modding the Dell one, and a US rep to help with his language barrier, he could take the world by storm
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I wanted to do a quick shout-out to Silicon Lottery, I bought an 8700k on eBay and mailed it directly to them to delid for me, they turned it around real fast and re-sealed it to look like factory. The temps were astonishing, 70c at 100% CPU on all 12 threads with my modded Dynatron 1U vapor chamber cooler.
After two days, the chip fried. It might have been an issue with the chip, or my prototype HDPlex 400w (I was helping HDPlex check for coil whine before they launched the production version, and he was nice enough to let me keep it for the help). On the Silicon Lottery site they say they cover chips bought directly from them with a warranty, but if you mail one to them you're own your own. They gave me an RMA anyways and sent my a new 8700k without any hassle. They seem really cool to have gone above and beyond when they could have rightfully told me "tough luck". They definitely earned me as a customer for life, or at least until Intel stops using cream cheese as thermal paste. Now that 8700k's aren't so rare, I'd recommend just buying one directly from them for the official warranty, and that way it is binned too.
I'm really surprised you're saying the Gury 450w PSU has whine... mine has always been completely silent with my 1080ti, and I'm sensitive to whine. But it might be because I'm using it with with the Meanwell 12v PSU. The meanwell and the gury PSU have no whine at all even at my 400w workloads. The 1080ti itself has whine if you run a benchmark with no frame limiting, but I have yet to see a 1080ti that doesn't do that.
You did say the Gury brick runs extremely hot (my passive Meanwell runs barely warm because it is crazy-efficient... but also very expensive), so maybe the Gury brick being that hot is running a little out of spec and something like voltage ripple is introducing whine into the other components? The Gury Pico PSU is just passing along 12v to the CPU pins with minor capacitor smoothing; the inductors don't have any real work to do if the brick is supplying a true 12.0v, I think the only inductors are just for stepping down to 5v for the SATA (which I don't use, I'm m.2 only). I think it is even wired so that the brick is powering the GPU directly with 12v, it never actually routes through the pico PSU if you look at how it is wired.
Sorry if I sound like I'm shilling for the guy, aside from the misstep with that 8-pin input (which he has fixed), pound for pound and dollar for dollar it is the best PSU I've ever used, and is like a work of art with regards to design, minimalism, and top-shelf components. The guy is a genius and if he could get some OEM bricks made instead of modding the Dell one, and a US rep to help with his language barrier, he could take the world by storm
You and I actually feel the same way about Gary and his products. I own and have tested a couple of them now and he is really close to having the most perfect solution for MINI.
Keep in mind I'm EVERYONE's customer support...Larry, Gary, KMPKT, Mini-Box, Meanwell, Dell...customers come to me first when there is a problem with their MINIs.
I spend thirty hours a week answering emails, and I get alot of insight into what is working and what isn't and what people are having problems with.
Lastly, keep in mind that it took me a YEAR to recommend HDPLEX products. Not because I didn't like them, but I needed to be sure they were solid before I steered people into making a purchase. I need more time with G-Unique but my first impressions are awesome.
Side note...I 100% agree with you on Silicon Lottery. Sounds like a screaming deal and I love supporting guys like that. So THANK YOU for your feedback there.
I'm skipping the 8700k gen, and I probably wont build another S4 Mini build until the NEXT gen nvidia xx80 Ti Mini is out from ZOTAC (i'm broke, fam) ... but that shining review from @Zero has me sold on buying a binned chip directly from Silicon Lottery in the future. If their chips are binned for higher clocks at decent voltages, then they can probably be equally run at stock or slightly overclocked clocks at WAY lower voltages... making them perfect purchases for those S4 mini customers looking to fit a no-nonsense desktop-grade K CPU into their S4 Mini and have it run cool.
Plus if youre gonna buy a K chip, go all out and make sure you can OC it by getting if from Silicon Lottery!
Plus if youre gonna buy a K chip, go all out and make sure you can OC it by getting if from Silicon Lottery!
Keep a time sheet an invoice me if you like. For serious.
