Prototype REVOCCASES RCC-SMALL3 | 2.65L brickless ITX case & optional 1.56L Thunderbolt eGPU

[REVOCCASES]

The SMALL3 is a design I've done mainly for myself. The idea behind this concept is having a slim & small portable workstation with lots of SSD storage and when you get home, just plug in the eGPU for some AAA gaming.

features:

• APU/iGPU case dimensions: 263 x 180 x 56 mm (2.65L)
• eGPU case dimensions: 143 x 180 x 60 mm (1.54L)
• both - the main PC and the eGPU - can be powered via the internal FLEX PSU, alternatively the eGPU can also be powered by an external 12V brick when used e.g. with a TB compatible Notebook

internal layout:

I've attached the drawings to this post - feel free to use for your own personal projects or drop me a message if you'd like to get a SMALL3 build-to-order

 

[REVOCCASES]

today I started to put the build together which turned out to be more challenging than expected, but first things first...

the plan was to put two of my SATA backup SSDs below the PSU as follows...

I took the drives out of their plastic housings, insulated them and fixed them at the bottom of the case...

next, I prepared the power cable for the eGPU to get it powered via the internal FLEX PSU

putting in the motherboard and connecting the USB-C front header... as you can see I also got an USB3.0 adapter that lets me keep a Mouse/Keyboard dongle plugged in... on the left side you can see a PCIe 16x to NVME adapter card...

wiring it up and trying to cramp those cables in there...

I've never spend so much time with "cable management" in all my life...

time to boot it up and - - - nothing ... after spending two hours troubleshooting and taking apart the whole build I finally found the culprit:

the custom SATA power cable I got from TaoBao was faulty and fried my SSDs luckily there was no important data on them and nothing else got fried but still frustrating...

to be continued...

 

[SFFMunkee]

Ah bummer man, it’s so frustrating when these things happen! Looking forward to the rest of this build though!

 

[REVOCCASES]

after the unpleasant setback yesterday I completed the build - just with 5TB SSDs instead of 6TB as planned...

but first let's finish the eGPU:

to solve the "always on" problem when used with a brick, I added my GxR-DIY Load Switch Module...

... which will be triggered ON automatically once the TB3 cable is plugged in

to get TB3 compatibility I used a 40Gbps NVME SSD adapter plus M.2 to PCIe x4 board

test fitting and functional check with a GT730...

next, I finished the main build... the mouse/keyboard dongle was a tiny bit too tall, so I had to remove the plastic housing...

I also made a fan duct - not sure yet if it helps - thermal & performance testing follows later...

time to get my DIY Palit 3060Ti in the eGPU case (which was a PITA) and closing the covers...

now I just hope it works and performs as good as it looks - gonna do a fresh OS install and some testing during the weekend

thermal and benchmark results coming next week ...

 

[robbee]

Looks awesome! The paint job looks amazing too, love that matte finish.

 

[morj]

Photos look great! The design is lovely as well. But what I like the most is the idea of feeding the 12V power externally.

 

[morj]

BTW, what mesh is this and how is it mounted?

 

[REVOCCASES]

BTW, what mesh is this and how is it mounted?

black coated stainless steel mosquito door mesh - a PITA to cut but very rigid and good airflow

after I was done with this I came up with a better / easier idea for the next build: black silicone glue and a thin frame to hold it in place

 

[Killinger]

Oh man, this is so close to being the perfect pc for me. I’ve always dreamed of a project similar to this, where instead of using Thunderbolt 3, you could mount a low profile nvme m.2 pcie 4.0 4x extension cable that would go directly to the egpu. That could double thunderbolts bandwidth and remove the latency penalty, which would allow for this system to use both AMD and Intel chips. I’ve done a ton of research and testing on the project but have yet to find a good enough looking cable that wouldn't completely destroy the asthetics of a solution like this. The one or two I have found have all been pcie 3.0.

 

[REVOCCASES]

Oh man, this is so close to being the perfect pc for me. I’ve always dreamed of a project similar to this, where instead of using Thunderbolt 3, you could mount a low profile nvme m.2 pcie 4.0 4x extension cable that would go directly to the egpu. That could double thunderbolts bandwidth and remove the latency penalty, which would allow for this system to use both AMD and Intel chips. I’ve done a ton of research and testing on the project but have yet to find a good enough looking cable that wouldn't completely destroy the asthetics of a solution like this. The one or two I have found have all been pcie 3.0.

I also played around with the idea to use some kind of riser cable to connect the eGPU but same like you couldn't find anything suitable. If I want to, I can route a 16x riser through the slot/gap I made between case and cover - maybe I'll still design a stand with GPU mount later...

On the other hand, having TB4 on the host has improved performance quite significantly over TB3...

 

[Killinger]

On the other hand, having TB4 on the host has improved performance quite significantly over TB3...

I've heard its significantly better which is great, however I am unfortunately addicted to competitive shooters where max fps is king, so pcie bandwidth and round trip latency is still a problem for me. I'm still going to be on the lookout for something to make this work as I love your case design and the potential of having just one, albeit somewhat chunky, cable going to the gpu enclosure would be extremely cool. The sheer amount of possibilities it could unlock for a form factor like this would be incredible.

Imagine having multiple gpu enclosure sizes. The idea of being able to match everything from a sub 180mm ITX card all the way up to a 3 slot 3090 is just such an interesting prospect.

 

[KepKe]

I also played around with the idea to use some kind of riser cable to connect the eGPU but same like you couldn't find anything suitable. If I want to, I can route a 16x riser through the slot/gap I made between case and cover - maybe I'll still design a stand with GPU mount later...

On the other hand, having TB4 on the host has improved performance quite significantly over TB3...

Wouldn't a NVMe Gen4 extension/riser cable do the trick?

 

[SFFMunkee]

Yeah that's what I was thinking from the above comments, ( @REVOCCASES @Killinger @KepKe ) something like an ADT Link M2->PCIe riser, don't know if they have Gen4 ones yet though.

Examples:
http://www.adt.link/product/R43SG.html (M.2 x4 to PCIe 3.0 ( x16 PHY | x4 Electrical ) with ATX power inputs
http://www.adt.link/product/R23SG.html (PCIe3 x4 to PCIe 3.0 ( x16 PHY | x4 Electrical ) with ATX power inputs

 

[REVOCCASES]

That's possible and ADT also recently released some "PCIE4 compatible" M2 to 16x riser cables - only question is how to make it somehow convenient and reliable to connect / dis-connect...

 

[SFFMunkee]

FYI, there are also bifurcated risers using SFF-8087 cables (but with non-standard pinout) to split a full-size PCIe x16 slot up, with cabled risers:
x16 slot to 2x8 slots https://riser.maxcloudon.com/en/bif...ted-riser-x16-to-2x8-set-with-length-08m.html
x16 slot to 4x4 slots https://riser.maxcloudon.com/en/bif...ated-riser-x16-to-4x4-set-with-length-1m.html
I've used these before to run 4 cards at full PCIe3.0 x4 connection, they're great quality. Just don't try to swap out for a standard SFF-8087 cable or you'll have a bad time.

Not much good for connecting to M.2 slot though.

@REVOCCASES - Which PCIe4 compatible risers have you seen? None on their website from what I could see.

 

[REVOCCASES]

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天貓淘寶海外作爲面向華人的跨境電商平台，覆蓋200多個國家和地區的消費者，其中核心站點包括：中國香港、中國澳門、中國台灣、新加坡、馬來西亞、澳洲、加拿大。

m.intl.taobao.com

Customer comments are mixed though, same issues like with many other PCIe4 riser cables...

 

[REVOCCASES]

soooo.... after a couple of BSODs and restarts, I may have found the optimal settings for my 11700K...

using the AXP90-X36 I did not expect any miracles but I'm pretty impressed that the cooler can handle a PL1 of 135W continuously and PL2 of 165W for 28 seconds

here are my Cinebench scores:

performance of the 3060Ti via Thunderbolt is about 10% worse compared to direct PCIe 16x link - not really an issue for me but now that we discussed the riser options maybe I'll look into that for a future update...

 

[SFFMunkee]

soooo.... after a couple of BSODs and restarts, I may have found the optimal settings for my 11700K...

using the AXP90-X36 I did not expect any miracles but I'm pretty impressed that the cooler can handle a PL1 of 135W continuously and PL2 of 165W for 28 seconds

here are my Cinebench scores:

performance of the 3060Ti via Thunderbolt is about 10% worse compared to direct PCIe 16x link - not really an issue for me but now that we discussed the riser options maybe I'll look into that for a future update...

Nice results! Impressive performance from that little AXP90

 

[REVOCCASES]

as promised, first post updated with the DXF files for laser cutting and the drawing for bending the case - recommended material: 1.5mm Aluminum 5754 - feel free to use for your own personal projects

 

[KindColt]

Im moving my rig into a sandwich style case and have the same mobo and cpu as this. I have about 55mm of clearance so im looking at the axp90 x53 cooler. What are some of your bios settings to keep this beast tame?