S4 MINI Classic (S4M-C)

[CubanLegend]

I know a couple of you guys have done a 1070 mini in your S4. Any particular card you recommend over the other for my husbands build? He currently has an ASUS 1070 Strix 8 GB OC.

oooh thats going to be a tough one, I think. Here's why, that ASUS 1070 STRIX OC is a BEAST and can GPUBoost itself past 2Ghz EASY, almost all the time and it stays VERY COOL. (I know because I had one before on my Full-Tower ATX build and I sold it like 4 months ago on eBay for like 390 shipped to help with my S4 mini, it was a BEAST) He's going to have to be okay with it not being as cool running or as good of an overclocker, so he might see a few percent FPS drop (5% at the most).

I'm not familiar with the 1070's but you might want to go with the GALAX 1070 mini? I heard it has a stock PCB so you dont have to mod the DC/DC connector going out of the S4 Mini.

 

[spintje]

What about you guys that have 1060 mini's in the S4? Which cards can be recommended? I am torn between the 1060 and 1070 because i will only be doing 1080p gaming, have the MSI Gaming X 1070 currently and do not want to mod the card or DC/DC connector if i can avoid it.

 

[CubanLegend]

@spintje I understand a 1060 is great for 1080p gaming if you have a top end CPU, but if youre building in an S4 mini i assume you dont plan to upgrade any time soon... so if thats the truth, then you might want to overestimate your GPU needs and go for a 1070 so as to allow 1080p gaming for longer after newer games come out. Basically future proofing your GPU purchase a bit. Just a thought.

 

[spintje]

@CubanLegend Yeah, you are somewhat right. I have a really hard time settling for less than what i have now, which is a badass 1070, but on the other hand i really don't want to mod in order to fit in the 1070, so i am kinda stucik in no mans land i feel. However the MSI Aero 1060 ITX looks badass and getting rave reviews, does anyone know if that will fit in the S4 without mods?

 

[CubanLegend]

@CubanLegend Yeah, you are somewhat right. I have a really hard time settling for less than what i have now, which is a badass 1070, but on the other hand i really don't want to mod in order to fit in the 1070, so i am kinda stucik in no mans land i feel. However the MSI Aero 1060 ITX looks badass and getting rave reviews, does anyone know if that will fit in the S4 without mods?

do a search for GALAX in this thread, i believe the GALAX 1070 will fit without mods.

 

[zovc]

That was ultimately my reasoning behind going for the 1070, that and because I was 'upgrading' from a 980, which is really close to a 1060.

 

[zovc]

Yeah, @CubanLegend is right. Here's a picture of a Galax 1070 Mini in the S4 Mini.

 

[spintje]

@zovc damn, i didn't think that was possible. Y'all are making me rethink my priorities now Do you know if the Galax is available in Europe? I have been unable to find any retailer in my neck of the woods that carry them.

 

[spintje]

@zovc What about modding the DC/DC connector from the HDPLEX is that necessary with the Galax?

 

[McTeags]

What about you guys that have 1060 mini's in the S4? Which cards can be recommended? I am torn between the 1060 and 1070 because i will only be doing 1080p gaming, have the MSI Gaming X 1070 currently and do not want to mod the card or DC/DC connector if i can avoid it.

If you're 1080p gaming, in my opinion you only really need a GTX 1060. I've owned a EVGA GTX 1060 SC and it's single fan, should fit the S4 Mini and is fairly quite. Would recommend it.

Edit: EVGA GTX 1060 Single Fan is $235 on Amazon. Pretty good price.

 

[zovc]

@zovc damn, i didn't think that was possible. Y'all are making me rethink my priorities now Do you know if the Galax is available in Europe? I have been unable to find any retailer in my neck of the woods that carry them.

I haven't actually installed the card properly in the S4 mini, but you can see that the DC jack cutout is not covered by the 1070 at all, I can't imagine there being any mods necessary. (I actually don't even have my HDPLEX 300W DC-ATX yet...)

Regarding availability, Galax is based out of Taiwan and they seem to brand themselves differently across regions. They are hard to get a hold of and it made me nervous, I never got shipping information on my card until I asked for it and it didn't even seem to ship until I did that, having been charged the previous week...

That said, the product definitely exists and it's definitely a 1070 that doesn't sweat Just Cause 3 at 1440p (most modern/demanding game I believe I own ATM). I don't know if they offer the card to their European market, but I believe the brand is Palit. If you can't find a way to order the card let me know and it's possible I can try ordering one for you and sending it your way, I don't know if it's worth the hassle and cost that would come with it... but I would be willing to help if it was. (Would there be any strange issues with a card intended for NA being used in Europe?)

 

[Kmpkt]

Part of me wants to contact Galax about doing limited distributorship of their SFF cards for NA or something.

 

[|||]

Galax already does direct sales.

 

[zovc]

They don't offer everything, though. They don't sell their fanless 1050 in the US.

 

[|||]

I'll expand: they have a sales channel already in place where they do not have to share profits with a middleman. It also appears like they are cutting costs where possible by removing extras like bundled games to maximize profits. I doubt they would be willing to set up a small niche sales channel on the side; the best I think you could hope for is to persuade them by some means to sell the products you want through their store.

 

[CubanLegend]

So I was GOING to do that air duct for my A9x14, havent done it yet (sorry lifes getting in the way, I'll get to it in May) and I also planned to OC my 7700k after delidding it... but I recently saw a video that kinda disuaded me from OCing the 7700k (which sits at 4.5GHz turboboost @ 1.24vcore stock) GamersNexus did a nice revisit of the old 2600k pitting it against today's modern CPUs like the 7700k stock with HT on and OFF, and also with a 5.1GHz OC. they used Blender, Gaming, and Cinebench/Firestrike...

And the difference between the stock 4.5GHz 7700k and the OCed 5.1GHz one... was only like 5 fps out of roughly 115 FPS (at 1080p), which is practically nothing... So the stock 7700k performance is really decent (in real world gaming at least) that if you delid a 7700k or a 6700k you might not even need to overclock it with the added thermal headroom you gain from a delid, and you can just keep it stock reap the rewards of a more cool running CPU inside your S4 mini!

Just wanted to share that. And yes I will be going to FIND my top stable OC frequency and vcore of my delidded 7700k inside the S4 mini, but I dont be keeping it there, I'll just do it for science. (and I'll have time in May to do this)

 

[Nimikins]

oooh thats going to be a tough one, I think. Here's why, that ASUS 1070 STRIX OC is a BEAST and can GPUBoost itself past 2Ghz EASY, almost all the time and it stays VERY COOL. (I know because I had one before on my Full-Tower ATX build and I sold it like 4 months ago on eBay for like 390 shipped to help with my S4 mini, it was a BEAST) He's going to have to be okay with it not being as cool running or as good of an overclocker, so he might see a few percent FPS drop (5% at the most).

I'm not familiar with the 1070's but you might want to go with the GALAX 1070 mini? I heard it has a stock PCB so you dont have to mod the DC/DC connector going out of the S4 Mini.

I think I like the Galax, but it for $390 I am looking at a two fan card that is 7.67x5.12 inches. (no game bundle)
The other card I looked at is the MSI AERO at 7.24 x 5.67 inches with 1 fan - seen good reviews on this card - $390
The Gigabyte card we know will fit with some modding is 6.65x5.16 inches. - I'm not sure of PCB vs Heatsink dimensions on these...

 

[|||]

The reason why the Galax 1070 Mini card is liked for the S4 Mini is that the height isn't excessively tall and does not require modifications to the power input that the other cards do. It also fits within the length, and is one of (only?) 1070's to fit without any modification.

 

[Nimikins]

FYI: The Gigabyte 1070 mini is $375 from Microcenter right now, with a $20 mail in rebate and a free game.

 

[Parge]

@zovc damn, i didn't think that was possible. Y'all are making me rethink my priorities now Do you know if the Galax is available in Europe? I have been unable to find any retailer in my neck of the woods that carry them.

Its not - but the KFA2 1070 Mini the same card.