Damn, sorry to hear that. Hope he makes a future product revision to reduce that risk
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Stalled [Pictures of Prototype] Densium APU, 3L, HDPLEX 250, 47mm cooler, Hardwood frontpanel
- Thread starter Densium.net
- Start date
As another update: I've just recieved another GaN 250W for a new build I'm working on and confirm that the PCB either has a backplate or screw-stop are in place as you can now visibly see silver aluminium at the bottom of each of the mounting holes.
Make sure to scroll the image above. I should have seperated the links to make it clear but I'm an idiot and didn't do that. You can easily see the difference in the two images now.
Hoping to grab a 8700G tomorrow if they go on sale, looking forward to posting some images of the build. The Densium APU case is pretty awesome.
Speaking of the HDPlex GaN, I was in a hurry the other day when I was going to install my brand new and long awaited minisforum AR900i motherboard when, as the man that I am didn't read the manual and therefor connected the red socket on the HDPlex to the CPU socket on the motherboard effectively frying not only the motherboard but also the HDPlex 
So take this as a cautious warning when you install the HDPlex.
So take this as a cautious warning when you install the HDPlex.
January was a disaster of a month, so I only just now got around to posting pictures. Sorry for the delay.
Threw together an imgur album with some additional comments here: https://imgur.com/gallery/Ko0xxqd
(Not sure if there's anything special I have to do to embed like the above posters - first time using imgur, if you can believe that.)
@Puffy23 Yikes! Thanks for mentioning - I've included that detail in the album comments. Glad to see newer units seem to have a prevention in place, sorry that happened to you.
I've confirmed my system POSTed ok and everything. The build's only got an i3 and I haven't put any "real" loads on it, but it was pretty nifty to turn it on and be unable to hear anything. That passive PSU is already paying off.
Threw together an imgur album with some additional comments here: https://imgur.com/gallery/Ko0xxqd
(Not sure if there's anything special I have to do to embed like the above posters - first time using imgur, if you can believe that.)
@Puffy23 Yikes! Thanks for mentioning - I've included that detail in the album comments. Glad to see newer units seem to have a prevention in place, sorry that happened to you.
I've confirmed my system POSTed ok and everything. The build's only got an i3 and I haven't put any "real" loads on it, but it was pretty nifty to turn it on and be unable to hear anything. That passive PSU is already paying off.
I'd seen some strange things going on with HDPLex 250W GAN mountings.. I looked at this previously and worked out that there appeared to be a dual positional 3 hold alignment.
With a little time free approaching, decided to pull in a HDPlex to physically see myself what was going on with all the odd fittings seen.
It turns out it does indeed fit and has a dual position option. One side blocks the bottom power switch but that does leave the bottom of the other side free if people wish to play about mounting their own 2.5" drives , in fact there's probably enough width space to squeeze in a 3.5".
Anyway here it is, by no means feel bad if you didn't figure this out the first time round.
With a little time free approaching, decided to pull in a HDPlex to physically see myself what was going on with all the odd fittings seen.
It turns out it does indeed fit and has a dual position option. One side blocks the bottom power switch but that does leave the bottom of the other side free if people wish to play about mounting their own 2.5" drives , in fact there's probably enough width space to squeeze in a 3.5".
Anyway here it is, by no means feel bad if you didn't figure this out the first time round.
Hello, that was me!
I meant to post details on the build on this forum at the time but had trouble getting signing up here at the time.
This has been my daily driver software development machine since May 2023 and the TL;DR: this is that this is a sweet, sweet build.
It's for software development, I needed multiple displays but no particular need for a discrete GPU (or so I thought - see iGPU woes later).
My choice of AMD over Intel is easy: Intel's strategy for asymmetric performance & efficiency cores messes with VMWare Workstation, plus current Intel thermals and lack of efficiency under heavy workloads just aren't competitive to AMD in SFF.
The only AM5 ITX mobo with triple display capability that I could find was the ASUS X670E-I. You must run the 7950X in 105W eco-mode if you want to avoid thermal throttling, or indeed the HDPLEX PSU shutting down the machine! Even at 105W eco-mode, the CPU consistently chews up 145W under AIDA-64.
[As it happens, the 7950X CPU and X670E-I mobo were hand-me-downs from my Meshlicious gaming rig build, which was "upgraded" to a 7950X3D and B650E-I to tame the RTX 4090 inside].
Regarding those iGPU woes: unfortunately, the AMD display driver for the iGPU randomly timed out and resetting itself, usually with OS UI graphical or video intensive tasks, in particular Youtube videos and VMWare Horizon (a VDI client). I could alleviate the Youtube video timeouts to some degree by turning off hardware acceleration on Chrome, but that had other negative side effects. No amount of driver updates or other tweaking had any effect. Happening about once each day, it was just about bearable, but there had to be a better way.
More recently I tried a handful of low profile single slot discrete GPU solutions including the 30W Nvidia T400 4GB and 50W T1000 8GB. Both of these have worked flawlessly (as long as you have 105W eco-mode turned on).
It's quiet under normal operation, but it gets noisy when I start shredding the code. Just the way I like it, that's the sign to go make a coffee.
To squeeze the fan & cooler in, I had to replace the mobo standoffs with a few washers. The fan intake is flush with the case, and aside from the fan's aperture, I have masked all the ventilation holes on that facia, thus minimising recirculation of hot air. In situ, I have the case on its side, with 4 x 1cm rubber feet on the side with the PSU. Thus, hot air comes in from one side, and egresses from the other 5 sides.
These were the benchmarks I took without the discrete GPU...
Single/Multi (105W eco mode, PBO -15 curve all core).
CPUZ 2.04 : 786.3/15255.1
Geekbench 5 2164 / 23244
Passmark 4396 / 64313
Cinebench R15 316 / 5854
Cinebench R23 2045 / 35003
If I did this again, I'd look at the Minisforum BD790i with the 7945HX 16C 32T CPU, or, now I know the 7000 iGPU driver is flaky AF, use a 7950X on a B650E-I ITX mobo plus a T400, T600 or T1000 discrete GPU, as I wouldn't need the display capabilities of the mobo.
In conclusion this has proved to be a great machine to use for my daily driver, I'm super satisfied.
Sorry, this is the current spec, I couldn't immediately figure out how to edit posts:
- Densium APU 4.05L case (mobo standoffs reduced by a couple of mm so cooling solution would fit)
- Ryzen 9 7950X (run in 105W eco mode)
- Nvidia T1000 8GB
- Asus X670E-I mobo (originally chosen as it's the only AM5 ITX mobo to support three iGPU displays I think: now no need with a dGPU installed)
- 64GB (2x32GB) Corsair DDR5 Vengeance Black, PC5-51200 (6400), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 32 running at 6000MHz, removed heat spreader to fit under cooler.
- IDCooling IS-55 with Phanteks T30 120mm fan (Advanced mode)
- HDPLEX 250W GAN passive PSU
AMD RX6400 Discounted from £112.60 to £99.00 (approx 128.60USD) when ordered with Densium APU. Free worldwide shipping included.
Note, Only UK orders only will be subject to the incVAT prices (+20% on the above prices when applicable)
Note, Only UK orders only will be subject to the incVAT prices (+20% on the above prices when applicable)
Still have much thanks for Overtek for bringing the cases to people.
Finally got around to building in the case.
The innards.
Installing the metal bar after plugging in the GPU is quite the interesting mangling process. If one installs a GPU, those metal round things for the motherboard will not work, and I used a nut to secure it instead.
Still a pretty looking case, admittedly.
Finally got around to building in the case.
The innards.
Installing the metal bar after plugging in the GPU is quite the interesting mangling process. If one installs a GPU, those metal round things for the motherboard will not work, and I used a nut to secure it instead.
Still a pretty looking case, admittedly.
I just replaced the 7950x in my Densium 4L (see post #267 above) with a 9950x. I re-used the Thermal Grizzly Kryosheet: if you take care this is easy, and significantly simplifies CPU replacement.
In my comparative tests, both 7950x and 9950x are running in 105W eco mode and both with a PBO -15 all core curve.
Temps are about 7 degrees C lower in AIDA64 stress test.
SIngle core is about 10 or 11% faster, and the clock is about 100MHz higher.
All core about 3 to 5% faster, but I could possibly squeeze a bit more out as clocks are 400MHz lower than on 7950x, and temps 7 deg C lower
7950x 105w single / multi
CPUZ 786.3 / 15255.1
CB r23 2045 / 35003
9950x 105w single / multi
CPUZ 872.0 / 15740.0
CB r23 2254 / 36640
I had to switch the CPU fan to use CPU package rather than CPU in the BIOS as it wasn't spinning up enough.
Latest AMD chipset drivers were reinstalled, but this wasn't a clean Windows install: this is by dev machine, it'd take days to get everything installed and be up and working again. I also followed the new steps provided by AMD regarding Game bar and a couple of other steps. Power mode is Best Performance.
TL;DR: probably not quite the win we were hoping for, bearing in mind AMD's marketing hype.
In my comparative tests, both 7950x and 9950x are running in 105W eco mode and both with a PBO -15 all core curve.
Temps are about 7 degrees C lower in AIDA64 stress test.
SIngle core is about 10 or 11% faster, and the clock is about 100MHz higher.
All core about 3 to 5% faster, but I could possibly squeeze a bit more out as clocks are 400MHz lower than on 7950x, and temps 7 deg C lower
7950x 105w single / multi
CPUZ 786.3 / 15255.1
CB r23 2045 / 35003
9950x 105w single / multi
CPUZ 872.0 / 15740.0
CB r23 2254 / 36640
I had to switch the CPU fan to use CPU package rather than CPU in the BIOS as it wasn't spinning up enough.
Latest AMD chipset drivers were reinstalled, but this wasn't a clean Windows install: this is by dev machine, it'd take days to get everything installed and be up and working again. I also followed the new steps provided by AMD regarding Game bar and a couple of other steps. Power mode is Best Performance.
TL;DR: probably not quite the win we were hoping for, bearing in mind AMD's marketing hype.
One bit benefit to going to 9950x is that the memory training every time you boot or restart seems to be a thing of the past, at least on this combo. I used to turn it on in the morning, and go make a coffee. No need anymore.
Wish my video was a bit earlier but I had a lot on my mind during the last few months,
so I am even more happy to share my Densium APU Setup with a Low Pfrofile Single Slot
Capture Card showcased with the 250W GaN by HDPLEX and the new Enhance ENP-8345L
450W Flex PSU by @Overtek it makes a great match:
Hope you like the content! <3
so I am even more happy to share my Densium APU Setup with a Low Pfrofile Single Slot
Capture Card showcased with the 250W GaN by HDPLEX and the new Enhance ENP-8345L
450W Flex PSU by @Overtek it makes a great match:
Hope you like the content! <3
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