Project BTN: Can it be done? (oh yes!)

[trik777]

Project BTN (Beat the NUC)

By now everyone is aware of Intel's NUC Skull Canyon gaming PC and its ultra slim package of goodness. However, there is one big issue with this very cool piece of tech and that's the price. You see the little Skully box claims to be a gaming PC and while you certainly can game on it is it worth it? The answer is an unfortunate NO... with a price range varying between $1200-1600+ for a full PC load out (mouse keyboard monitor and all the juicy internals) its just not economical to use the Skull Canyon as a dedicated gaming PC. Now this is not to say that its a bad PC on the contrary the Skully offers a lot for its price when it comes to being used as a productivity machine and that I believe is where it really shines as an outstanding mobile workshop.

With all that being said lets get to the heart of Project BTN and the motivations behind it. Project BTN aims to build a very small PC that can perform close to or at the level of the Skull Canyon but at a fraction of the cost making the original claim of a tiny mobile gaming PC a reality.

Why do this? Simple, I love the idea behind the Skull Canyon and I believe the premise of tiny gaming can have a distinct impact in PC gamings future. While we have some awesome little compact gaming machines built by awesome people on this site, what I want to do is take it one step smaller and lighter and cheaper with a goal of a tiny travel PC.

I am still in the theory crafting stage and welcome any input.
So below is what I have come up with and why I chose these items.

First off what to power this baby with and this took me a long time to come to a decision. The answer to my problems is the AMD A10 7860k with a TDP of 65w and a Radeon R7 IGPU all at $100 it fits the bill on all points. I looked at intel hard but they fell through because of a price point that would not allow this build to meet its objective of being a cheaper Skull Canyon. The only CPU they had that might have worked was the Broadwell i5 and i7 with the Iris pro 6200 but with a price of $300-400 it was just to much.

Next up a case to fit it all into and it has to be small! For that the Mini Box M350 fits the bill. Sense I am not using a DGPU this case is perfect paired with a Pico PSU and can maintain 2.5L volume. The only issue now will be cooling and giving some thermal overhead for an OC to make up some ground on the Skull Box.

When it comes to a motherboard a MITX board with a FM2+ will work just fine nothing really special needs to be packaged in. Unfortunately there is only one MITX board with a thunderbolt port and its only for intel so you win this time Skull Box.

Being a A10 series APU I can only use DDR3 and as anyone who knows a thing or two about AMD APU's its that ram can make or break the entire build. So no cheaping out here. I will need the best when it comes to latency and clock speed so 8gb of 2400mhz will be in order (maybe even more price depending).

Cant go wrong with a Samsung EVO SSD!

I can furnish Monitor mouse and keyboard so those are not needed.

The only real thing to go over is solving any possible heating issues. The case itself is more so intended for a fanless HTPC build so I might need to make some alterations in order to reach good temps. I have even considered doing an external closed loop cpu water cooler setup but that would add to the size. Other options would be a low profile cpu cooler which will fit but might no provide what I need in terms of thermal overhead for overclocking. There is room not much but enough to perhaps change the case to an intake exhaust setup by blocking off some of the vents and adding intake fan/fans.

As far as pricing goes It looks to be around $500-600 for the full build which is a lot cheaper than the aforementioned Skull Canyon.

Performance wise will mostly come up to how cool I can keep the cpu but I have no doubts that the APU or at least the built in IGPU can theoretically reach the levels of the Iris pro 580 found in the Skull Canyon.

When I am talking about gaming I think a little bit of explanation is needed. The levels I am trying to reach are not on par with modern day AAA titles more or less I am trying to get near a 2000 mark on Firestrike. In actual gaming that translates to being able to play most all last gen titles as well as current gen all be it at very low setting. Think games like Overwatch and World of Tanks or CSGO.

That's it for now, more to come soon as I finalize a parts list and price. Please feel free to give me suggestions.

 

[trik777]

I am considering making the jump from the AMD a10 7860k to the A10 7870k the difference being a higher TDP of 95W. On the plus side however, you get a better power management between the IGPU and CPU. For overclocking this looks like it could be beneficial as the CPU is better able to control its clock speeds and GPU speeds under loads. For instance the CPU uses more power than the IGPU so if you are say running a CPU heavy program the IGPU will underclock and the CPU can reach max speeds but at a higher usage (4+Ghz looks to be around 115-130W under full load). On the flip side the IGPU uses much less power so when playing a GPU heavy game like GRID Autosports the CPU can downclock to say around 3ghz and the IGPU can run at full or around 1100+mhz depending on overclock with a power consumption of around 90w.

Of course this all falls apart when looking at modern AAA titles due to thermal throttling as say a game like the Witcher 3 would want both max CPU and IGPU and the APU would attempt to balance out the two but would inevitably hit its thermal limits forcing it to throttle severely.

Edit: Another note that I am still working out is cooling. With the Mini Box M350 Case pictured below you can see that all the panels save for the bottom are perforated with vent holes. This setup is meant for a passive cooling system using no fans with a lower TDP cpu say an intel Atom.

When it comes to using performance hardware passive cooling will not work. The issue now is that having all those air holes all over the case will work against me when it comes to routing best possible airflow. If I was to simply add fans I would not get a favorable result due to all the extra vent holes which would cause the airflow to slow down or even stagnate making either a Positive or Negative pressure design almost impossible without very powerful and loud fans. Right now I am thinking I will apply thermal tape to cover some of the venting holes in order to reach a best desired flow path. I am considering pulling air in through the front of the case and pushing it out of the top right over the CPU using its own cooler as an exhaust fan. However, if i decide to mount this pc to the back of a monitor that would need to be changed to either air in one side and out the other or air in front and out the back depending on mounting orientation.

If anyone has worked with this case before please let me know your thoughts.

 

[trik777]

Another possible change that I am looking into is the Antec ISK110 case. Its a little bit bigger maybe around 3L giving me a bit more room for cooling. The case comes with a built in 90W psu which would not work for my build but could give me the room once removed to maybe add a couple 40mm fans for extra cooling.

Edit: Also I have thought about waiting for AMD's Raven Ridge APU's Due out this summer but my only qualm would be the price. While the new Raven Ridge is likely to fall into the $200-300 range adding that with a new AM4 ITX motherboard would most likely throw this builds price way beyond its intended starting budget. In the future with falling prices I do believe such a build will be possible but for now it is out of the question.

 

[jtd871]

Don't worry so much about all the holes and optimizing the air path. If your HSF is large enough diameter and is oriented to blow air down on the MB, the hot air will be forced out of the holes not being used for intake. If you maintain a minimum fan speed, the air volume in the case will turn over several times per minute (as the case is small) giving you adequate cooling. This is the basic design philosophy of the DAN A4.

 

[alexep7]

If you're not willing to wait for Raven Ridge, wait for AM4 ITX boards and (maybe, if it ever comes out) the A12-9800 APU and you'll be much better served. Someone from AMD said on the recent AMA they had on reddit that Bristol Ridge APUs are going to be available soon for sale independently, even though I personally think you should take that with a grain of salt.

You can already get the A12-9800 APU in OEM computers or through CSL-Computer in Germany bundled with a mATX board, and they told me they would likely bundle it with ITX boards when they are available.

Also, regarding your concerns about Raven Ridge, I think by the time these APUs are released (my bet is around September), we'll have plenty of choice in mITX boards, which means motherboard prices won't be as high as you think. And APUs are, after all, the budget processors from AMD, so I really doubt we'll see any Raven Ridge APU priced at 300$ - pretty sure something around the 150$ range will be very good for what you want.

I plan on doing the same, by the way. Call me what you want, but I'm one of those people who can't see the difference between 30fps and 140fps so Raven Ridge is perfect for me

 

[trik777]

If I could get my hands on that A12 it would be great because when Raven Ridge comes out I could just swap out. I do not however, see that happening anytime soon. Why would they release that chip so close to the launch of the Raven Ridge? Not only that but an A10 7870k could easly overclock to the lvl of the A12 (ddr4 be damned). Of course, the A12 being 65w tdp would smoke the 7870k with an overclock on itself but still the numbers would not be as far apart as say A10 to Raven Ridge with its Vega core.

In the mean time i think a 7870k can achieve that 30fps you are talking about with the right mods and at a great price to boot.

 

[Soul_Est]

If you're not willing to wait for Raven Ridge, wait for AM4 ITX boards and (maybe, if it ever comes out) the A12-9800 APU and you'll be much better served. Someone from AMD said on the recent AMA they had on reddit that Bristol Ridge APUs are going to be available soon for sale independently, even though I personally think you should take that with a grain of salt.

You can already get the A12-9800 APU in OEM computers or through CSL-Computer in Germany bundled with a mATX board, and they told me they would likely bundle it with ITX boards when they are available.

Also, regarding your concerns about Raven Ridge, I think by the time these APUs are released (my bet is around September), we'll have plenty of choice in mITX boards, which means motherboard prices won't be as high as you think. And APUs are, after all, the budget processors from AMD, so I really doubt we'll see any Raven Ridge APU priced at 300$ - pretty sure something around the 150$ range will be very good for what you want.

I plan on doing the same, by the way. Call me what you want, but I'm one of those people who can't see the difference between 30fps and 140fps so Raven Ridge is perfect for me

I believe the biggest reasons for the previous generation of APUs still being budget processors were that:

1. They were all manufactured on the 28nm process
2. Could only include 512 Stream processors maximum on the iGPU side
3. Could only include 4 cores maximum on the CPU side
4. The FM2+ sockets could only handle so much I/O in their size constraints
5. Performed below the equivalent CPU paired with an equivalent dedicated GPU

I do hope that AMD does build high-end APUs that sell for $300 as they will shrink the performance gap on dedicated Polaris 11 GPUs. An APU based around a 65W CPU and a 75W to 120W GPU will be very compelling.

 

[trik777]

I believe the biggest reasons for the previous generation of APUs still being budget processors were that:

1. They were all manufactured on the 28nm process
2. Could only include 512 Stream processors maximum on the iGPU side
3. Could only include 4 cores maximum on the CPU side
4. The FM2+ sockets could only handle so much I/O in their size constraints
5. Performed below the equivalent CPU paired with an equivalent dedicated GPU

I do hope that AMD does build high-end APUs that sell for $300 as they will shrink the performance gap on dedicated Polaris 11 GPUs. An APU based around a 65W CPU and a 75W to 120W GPU will be very compelling.

Raven Ridge is reported to be a little better than PS4 graphics wich is great but I dont think it is as much as your talking about. Currently the A10 series is around Xbox 360 graphics. I do still think Raven Ridge will be around $200 at least at first until refreshes hit the market. The A10 7890k AMD's current flagship APU for example is still at $180 and has been out for quite some time. Couple that with the price of a MITX in AM4 plus needing DDR4 and the early adopter price could be high.

All that being said the future of tiny PC gaming looks very bright indeed.