There was very little information on the forums about the HG Computers OSMI case. Being a SFF enthusiast i thought i'd bite the bullet and check it out.
Generally speaking the first impressions of the case are that its well done. There were a lot of little chops, cuts, dremel's, that needed to be done to fit all this stuff in and a lot of it could have been optimised for production. I found there was excess metal in places where it needn't be and it made installing the GPU impossible without small reductions.
Some of the challenges in working with this case were:
- Power button had to be replaced with one from the Orthrus. The original was too big and was clashing with the radiator.
- The motherboard had to be specific: ASUS Z370-I, due to little I/O at the top of the board, once again to help the radiator fit up there. E.g. Asrock z370 itx board wouldn't work because it has wifi antenna at the top.
- Had to use a slim 30mm ST30 radiator from Alphacool. Because the width of the case is only 18 cm and the width of the opening to fit things in the case is only about 16 cm, finding radiators that could easily go in and out of the case was a challenge. Even the slim 26mm EK had problems fitting.
- Things had to be put inside the case in the correct order: IO backplate, motherboard with CPU block/pump combo from bequiet installed, power cable, led strip, sata cables, GPU, radiator with fan (15mm only) preinstalled, power supply right at the very end.
- 25mm fan would literally touch the Silverstone SFX power supply so had to settle for 15 mm.
- Had to use custom length power cables for everything.
- Had to drill a hole in the back of the case to allow easier access to the M.2 slot under the mainboard
- Used the CPU block/pump combo from a BeQuiet 280mm AIO and some Koolance QDC fittings to make filling and draining this setup a lot easier.
- The case has one tiny flaw and that is, its so small and the ATX connector on the motherboard is so close to the front of the case that you can't actually plug in the power connector. You need to dremel out a bit for the ATX24 pin notch.
But apart from that it was a good challenge and fun to build in. And the systems hums along nicely. I'll try to post some temps later on but right now i've got it running at 5GHz.
Specs are as follows:
- Intel 8700k @ 5GHz
- 32GB GSkill 3200MHz memory
- MSI GTX 1070 ITX
- Samsung 960 Evo 1TB M.2
- Samsung 960 Evo 512GB M.2
- Samsung 850 Evo 480GB SATA
- Panasonic BluRay/DVD-Writer
- Silverstone SX650-G
- Alphacool NexXxos ST30 120mm rad
- Silverstone 120mm slim fan (will change to CoolerMaster XtraFlo 120mm slim when it comes in the post)
- Bunch of EK fittings and EK duraclear tubes
- BeQuiet 280mm AIO (used only the pump/cpu block combo from it)
- CableMod light blue cables all cut down to size
- EK blue coolant
P.S. I shamelessly stuck an EK badge over the top of HG, just because the EK one had a nicer finish to it, and i did use EK fittings and tubes in the build
Generally speaking the first impressions of the case are that its well done. There were a lot of little chops, cuts, dremel's, that needed to be done to fit all this stuff in and a lot of it could have been optimised for production. I found there was excess metal in places where it needn't be and it made installing the GPU impossible without small reductions.
Some of the challenges in working with this case were:
- Power button had to be replaced with one from the Orthrus. The original was too big and was clashing with the radiator.
- The motherboard had to be specific: ASUS Z370-I, due to little I/O at the top of the board, once again to help the radiator fit up there. E.g. Asrock z370 itx board wouldn't work because it has wifi antenna at the top.
- Had to use a slim 30mm ST30 radiator from Alphacool. Because the width of the case is only 18 cm and the width of the opening to fit things in the case is only about 16 cm, finding radiators that could easily go in and out of the case was a challenge. Even the slim 26mm EK had problems fitting.
- Things had to be put inside the case in the correct order: IO backplate, motherboard with CPU block/pump combo from bequiet installed, power cable, led strip, sata cables, GPU, radiator with fan (15mm only) preinstalled, power supply right at the very end.
- 25mm fan would literally touch the Silverstone SFX power supply so had to settle for 15 mm.
- Had to use custom length power cables for everything.
- Had to drill a hole in the back of the case to allow easier access to the M.2 slot under the mainboard
- Used the CPU block/pump combo from a BeQuiet 280mm AIO and some Koolance QDC fittings to make filling and draining this setup a lot easier.
- The case has one tiny flaw and that is, its so small and the ATX connector on the motherboard is so close to the front of the case that you can't actually plug in the power connector. You need to dremel out a bit for the ATX24 pin notch.
But apart from that it was a good challenge and fun to build in. And the systems hums along nicely. I'll try to post some temps later on but right now i've got it running at 5GHz.
Specs are as follows:
- Intel 8700k @ 5GHz
- 32GB GSkill 3200MHz memory
- MSI GTX 1070 ITX
- Samsung 960 Evo 1TB M.2
- Samsung 960 Evo 512GB M.2
- Samsung 850 Evo 480GB SATA
- Panasonic BluRay/DVD-Writer
- Silverstone SX650-G
- Alphacool NexXxos ST30 120mm rad
- Silverstone 120mm slim fan (will change to CoolerMaster XtraFlo 120mm slim when it comes in the post)
- Bunch of EK fittings and EK duraclear tubes
- BeQuiet 280mm AIO (used only the pump/cpu block combo from it)
- CableMod light blue cables all cut down to size
- EK blue coolant
P.S. I shamelessly stuck an EK badge over the top of HG, just because the EK one had a nicer finish to it, and i did use EK fittings and tubes in the build
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