S4 MINI Classic (S4M-C)

Ceros_X

King of Cable Management
Mar 8, 2016
748
660
Great spot for it! That's where I put them in the S3 MINI--over the tab locks.

Looks good too. My manufacturer is buying a laser etcher so I am debating wether to start that...be pretty expensive, or make plates or keep with the cards. I think the serial stickers look nice but I got alot of polarizing feedback.

Nice work!

I think the cards are a nice personal touch, but it seems sometimes they get mixed up (to hilarious "I'm case 96!" results). I don't know if switching to an automated solution would be easier for you. I know you take a lot of pride in personally checking everything and signing them however.

For the serial stickers, I'd describe it as a 'Case Badge' vs a sticker, stickers sound cheap. If you do go that route I'd include the badge and then let them affix it if they like, thereby leaving it up to them to put on or not. A lot of people take pride in owning one of your cases, but I know minimalism is a big thing for many people also.
 
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CubanLegend

Steely-Eyed NVFlash Man
Dec 23, 2016
833
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So that Ryzen 1700 is a 65W CPU apparently. It seemingly outperforms the 6800k in Cinebench, so Mini-ITX Ryzen as a feasible Mini-ITX platform is looking good so far. BUT: We still need to know how it performs against a 7700k is all the usual games, and see if Ryzen Mini-ITX mobos are going to have comparable features to z270 boards, and if they will have comparable coolers... AND THEN the coolers have to be able to fit inside an S4 mini... so as far as potential, it's there BUT ITS STILL A LONG WAY OFF. XD
 

Calvin

Chassis Packer
Feb 5, 2017
15
8
Sadly no mini itx motherboards at launch tho, looks like I'll be getting the asus 270i then lol can't hold off my build any longer.
 

CubanLegend

Steely-Eyed NVFlash Man
Dec 23, 2016
833
1,011
smallformfactor.net
I don't get you. The Ryzen 1700 outperforming an 6800K, why should it be slower in games? Do you mean in terms of clockspeed?
Although the 6800k and the 7700K differ from each other in synthetic benchmarks (7700k excels in singlecore performance where the 6800k excels in multicore performance) in gaming they are not that far off. 6800k will also be faster in video rengering or editing, where in emulation that requires raw singlecore performance, the 7700k will excel over the 6800k.

We all know how the intel landscape has been, for single core/gaming the 4C8T K series has been the best, but for productivity and multicore performance the K/ExtremeX 6C/12T & 8C/16T & 10C/20T parts have been the best.

Whether ryzen can excel in BOTH single and multicore performance is yet to be seen, so far we've only seen cinebench benchmarks, some productivity workloads, and only battlefield 1 for gaming numbers, we still need to see a full performance review to be sure about Ryzen asserting it's dominance over BOTH the consumer 4c8t and business-class extremeX 6c/8c/10c parts.
 
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zovc

King of Cable Management
Jan 5, 2017
852
603
Yeah, synthetic benchmarks are not very good representations of gaming performance. Most games today are pretty significantly GPU bottlenecked rather than CPU bottlenecked. It's possible, going into 1440p or "4K" that your CPU can't keep up with your GPU, but if that's the case you probably made an error in selecting components rather than you're seeing the ceiling of modern CPU performance vs games.
 

K888D

SFF Guru
Lazer3D
Feb 23, 2016
1,483
2,970
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As much as I hope they will I am very doubtful that the single threaded performance of Ryzen will outperform Intel, if they did then AMD would have released or shown off some benchmarks already, they have released many benchmark comparisons which shows they are very competitive in multicore favoured tasks but none for single threaded applications.

It's not such a bad thing though, games are becoming more geared towards using many mediocre threads rather than fewer faster threads, BF1 being one of these games.
 

Zero

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Jan 27, 2017
120
262
Even AMD isn't daring to say that they can beat the Intel chips on a single-threaded basis, they said something to the effect that they're a little less thread performance and a chunk less instructions-per-clock.

On the other hand, the 7700k can't really be overclocked in the S4; there's currently no heatsink/fan combo good enough to overclock it to ~5ghz without thermally throttling. It is a 91w TDP at stock, and would exceed that as soon as you overvolt it.

The 65w TDP of Ryzen could theoretically give overall better gaming performance in this case, but few games benefit from 4-8 cores as they do from high single-thread performance. I'd still urge to wait for the review embargo to be lifted on Ryzen before planning your build around it; I own an RX 480 GPU and they straight up lied about the TDP performance on that, as we've seen it can exceed it's TDP without overclocking, and at launch was exceeding the PCIE spec until they did an emergency firmware patch to fix that.

All-in-all AMD can be an excellent value, but performance-to-watt, which is the true limiting factor in cases like this, is still lagging behind Intel/NVidia even with the new process node. I'm rooting to see some real competition, and I'd go all-AMD if I were building another rig in a larger case like the Thermaltake Core V1, but in a case like this where every watt is a challenge to the power supply and cooling systems, Kaby Lake / GTX 10-series is the way to maximize the performance-per-watt.
 

Zero

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Jan 27, 2017
120
262
Different topic, has anyone tried to actually have a reference-sized GPU (like a GTX 1070/1080 blower-type) just sticking out of the S4? I wanna see if it looks ridiculous or if it actually makes any sense.

The next experiment I'm working on is to see if I can get a second arm for my Ergotron monitor arm, and attach the S4 to that. Josh did a video where he mounted the S4 to a VESA monitor stand (the rifle-styled picatinny rail stand) and the vent holes lined up correctly where he could just bolt the shell to the VESA mount.

Looks like the Asrock z270 ITX is also back on sale. Was a no brainier for me because I need that thunderbolt port.

Of course it went back in stock 2 days after I caved and got the Asrock non-gaming version. Ah well, mine has more USB ports, top facing M.2, and no blingy heatsinks to get in the way of my fan modding.
 
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CC Ricers

Shrink Ray Wielder
Bronze Supporter
Nov 1, 2015
2,233
2,556
Performance/watt is what Ryzen seems to be going after a lot (second to performance per value). Even though they've stated that they surpassed their goal for IPC increase, this only reduces the gap in single threaded performance vs. Intel. A lower TDP helps toward more overclocking headroom so a turbo'd OC'd Ryzen could completely close it.
 

cakePlease

Trash Compacter
Jan 27, 2017
43
20
Hey guys, in the process of building my S4. Very excited! One questions though...is it normal that the end of the video card (the end away from the IO ports) tilts upwards?



You can see here that the end tilts up, as the PCI riser looks crooked. Not sure what the issue is, or if it's my video card?

@Josh | NFC , any ideas?
 

Tact1calBeard

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Feb 18, 2017
122
25
Although the 6800k and the 7700K differ from each other in synthetic benchmarks (7700k excels in singlecore performance where the 6800k excels in multicore performance) in gaming they are not that far off. 6800k will also be faster in video rengering or editing, where in emulation that requires raw singlecore performance, the 7700k will excel over the 6800k.

We all know how the intel landscape has been, for single core/gaming the 4C8T K series has been the best, but for productivity and multicore performance the K/ExtremeX 6C/12T & 8C/16T & 10C/20T parts have been the best.

Whether ryzen can excel in BOTH single and multicore performance is yet to be seen, so far we've only seen cinebench benchmarks, some productivity workloads, and only battlefield 1 for gaming numbers, we still need to see a full performance review to be sure about Ryzen asserting it's dominance over BOTH the consumer 4c8t and business-class extremeX 6c/8c/10c parts.

Yeah, I had a small brain.exe error ;)
 
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