Completed S401: Salvo Studios <8L mITX Steel Unibody Chassis w/ GPU & CPU fans in same direction

[Piewalker]

Alright, I've been working when I can on the S402 and unfortunately I don't have enough time to start the new thread, but I wanted to get some more feedback on the vent situation as I've changed it yet again. I'm thinking about getting a 3D printer and printing panels that would allow me to change the vent pattern to whatever I want assuming I have enough time to make a few generic ones. Custom ones could be made as well but I'd have to charge for those. Below is the latest rendering I have of the S402 as it sits. I'm still debating what USB front panel connectors I will use though as the S400/S401 units are no longer available through my sources. I bought the last 4 from them a few weeks ago. This means USB type C will probably not be available on the S402.

One of the cool things about 3D printed panels is that I can do some cool things like angle the holes as I have above. These diamond holes actually have a 45-degree cut to them back towards the case. Of course, I could also use the laser cutter to cut the panels straight down for a more smooth surface. My biggest complaint with 3D printed items is the uneven surface it creates. If I leave the surface flat, I can also sand it down and paint it if need be.

I know I've been out of pocket but I've been working on three builds that I'm going to be selling on Ebay soon:

S401 Build
i9-9900k delidded with conductonaut liquid metal applied
Big Shiruken 2 Rev B Cooler
Gigabyte H370 Wifi ITX Motherboard
16GB Corsair 3200Mhz DD4 Memory (2 x 8GB)
EVGA 1080ti SC2
500GB HP EX900 m.2 drive
1TB 660p Intel m.2 drive
Corsair SF600 Gold PSU

S700 Prototype 1 Build
Threadripper 1950X
ASRock X399 Taichi Motherboard
64GB G.Skill RGB 3866 RAM (8 x 8GB)
Custom loop CPU cooler using XSPC Raystorm Neo TR4 block and 360mm radiator with 3 x 120mm ID Cooling RGB fans and Bykski DDC pump/reservoir combo
Vega Frontier Edition GPU (air cooled)
500GB m.2
2 x 1TB m.2
Corsair SF750 PSU
Modified to support prototype flex bracket for PCIe devices/radiator/HDD/SSD

Epyc Build - have yet to pick a chassis but might sell with the last prototype of S700
2 x 32-core Epyc 1.4Ghz base Engineering Sample CPUs
64GB 2400 DDR4 ECC Registered RAM (16 x 4GB)
Supermicro H11DSi Dual Epyc Motherboard
Radeon WX9100 16GB Professional GPU
500GB m.2
2 x 1TB m.2
Corsair SF750 PSU

When I list these builds I'll be sure to post here.

Flex slots and plenty of vents. I LOVE the diamond vents. It all looks TERRIFIC. I presume you'll be offering it in white and black. That's super. And hopefully you'll keep the ability to adorn these beasts with acrylic custom covers -- will you? It's just a perfect way to immediately customize any build. Great work, Greasy Rotisserie Chicken!

 

[grsychckn]

Not that my opinion matters much, as I am highly unlikely to purchase (not because I don’t like the case, just, other reasons), but I think USB C is the way forward (or USB 3.1 Gen2?). I’m coming across more and more USB C, regardless of actual speed, to the extent dongles are becoming an issue- I don’t like dongles and adaptors.

That said you are not building a utility case run of thousands so your customers will have different expectations- but I think USB C has become a want to have rather than a nice to have and it should be on the front. It is also a less ugly socket than USB2/3 in my eyes.

Now it is bearable, but I think you might be just on the curve if you ignore USB C. Just my two pence (sterling). Then again I guess you run short production runs so you can adapt with each generation, unlike HP who will be planning 3 years’ ahead.

I do sense you may have a general dislike of USB, in which case I do share that dislike, but it is what it is. Whoever designed it should have come up with something more physically robust and attractive but at least USB C is discrete compared to the past. At the same time I’ve read that USB C is spec’d for 13 uses a day over two years for its lifecycle, which is a joke for a connector that is supposed to be used as a universal.

Anyway, I’m drifting off topic.

Not that my opinion matters much, as I am highly unlikely to purchase (not because I don’t like the case, just, other reasons), but I think USB C is the way forward (or USB 3.1 Gen2?). I’m coming across more and more USB C, regardless of actual speed, to the extent dongles are becoming an issue- I don’t like dongles and adaptors.

That said you are not building a utility case run of thousands so your customers will have different expectations- but I think USB C has become a want to have rather than a nice to have and it should be on the front. It is also a less ugly socket than USB2/3 in my eyes.

Now it is bearable, but I think you might be just on the curve if you ignore USB C. Just my two pence (sterling). Then again I guess you run short production runs so you can adapt with each generation, unlike HP who will be planning 3 years’ ahead.

I do sense you may have a general dislike of USB, in which case I do share that dislike, but it is what it is. Whoever designed it should have come up with something more physically robust and attractive but at least USB C is discrete compared to the past. At the same time I’ve read that USB C is spec’d for 13 uses a day over two years for its lifecycle, which is a joke for a connector that is supposed to be used as a universal.

Anyway, I’m drifting off topic.

I agree with everything you've said. There are quite a few customers of mine that really prefer the USB Type C connector on the front. The problem is primarily the lack of choices available to me. If the price of the front panel connectors is not prohibitive then I'll do my best to include a Type C front panel connector.

 

[grsychckn]

Flex slots and plenty of vents. I LOVE the diamond vents. It all looks TERRIFIC. I presume you'll be offering it in white and black. That's super. And hopefully you'll keep the ability to adorn these beasts with acrylic custom covers -- will you? It's just a perfect way to immediately customize any build. Great work, Greasy Rotisserie Chicken!

I don't know about the color. I actually thought a dark textured gray might be a nice change. I'll have to see how many I decide to make (which comes down to how many I can afford to make). I made a new vent pattern with slots and I am going to do the same thing with circles. Once I finish those designs I'll post here.

As an aside, I normally have no time and this weekend has been no exception. We had a microburst storm come through on Saturday night and 3 trees fell. One of which damaged our house in the same area we had a tree hit last year. This time we are going to avoid making an insurance claim as we don't want more than 3 claims on our homeowner's plan within a 5 year span. For reasons I won't get into, I believe if we make another claim our rates will go through the roof if we don't get dropped altogether. Regardless, we had decided to take down most of the trees near our house but this is going to cost around $20k. To be upfront, this is going to hurt my ability to produce cases and it's definitely going to steal time away from this hobby of mine. Additionally, I am going to need a few more days to prepare the i9-9900k build as it is nearly complete and running well but I don't have time to take pictures, filter, and post them.

Thankfully everyone is fine and God protected us. I'm going to try and get the pictures of the i9 system tonight or tomorrow. I then have to make a new newsletter entry with some updates on the S402 as well as pictures of the i9 and Threadripper system.

 

[Poblopuablo]

Prayers and hope that things will change and go better for you and your family. Best of luck with what's going on now and in the near future.

God bless.

 

[grsychckn]

Prayers and hope that things will change and go better for you and your family. Best of luck with what's going on now and in the near future.

God bless.

Thank you. Update on the S402 vent patterns. I wanted to place the alternatives next to each other in one post to get some feedback. The hex pattern is not shown here but it is still an option. Ignore the square holes on the top face.

Circles

Rounded Slots

Rounded Squares

Feedback?

 

[staircase]

I like circle, but i like it this way more, and bigger openings:

Less air flow tho...

I also like the openings to align to the other face. it will probably interfere with the other component or structure. these are my 2 wishes

my other wish is to have no button in the front, I like it bald and plain. I am pretty sure this wish is not gonna come true

 

[Linero]

@grsychckn I hope everything will be okay with you, mate. Wishing you the best!

Feedback time! Now that is a lovely looking case. The first one with the circle design is looking great (obviously while imagining the top matching too). I would not change a thing from there, personally. Unless you can reduce the total surface area of the perforation to increase the side panel rigidity, while keeping the same thermal results. Which I doubt is possible. Either way, 10/10 and here is wishing for a white variant like in the picture!

 

[ExplodingWaffle101]

this isnt really mine to post, but i saw it on reddit and its SO COOL!

 

[grsychckn]

@grsychckn I hope everything will be okay with you, mate. Wishing you the best!

Feedback time! Now that is a lovely looking case. The first one with the circle design is looking great (obviously while imagining the top matching too). I would not change a thing from there, personally. Unless you can reduce the total surface area of the perforation to increase the side panel rigidity, while keeping the same thermal results. Which I doubt is possible. Either way, 10/10 and here is wishing for a white variant like in the picture!

Seems like the circular holes are a big hit. I'll need to confirm that the spacing will work on those as my fabricator told me the minimum distance between holes is usually material thickness. This is so the sheet doesn't warp as the holes are punched. I'm going to wait a little bit longer for feedback, but early signs point to the circular option.

I'm not sure about making white this time around as multiple colors increases costs. That said, I think I would be interested in producing them all in white, black, or even a light or dark gray. Provide some feedback if you would prefer one of those colors or if you would detest one. Right now, I'm probably only going to produce 40 S402 units and with that low a quantity I'll need to make them all the same color without a significant price increase.

 

[grsychckn]

this isnt really mine to post, but i saw it on reddit and its SO COOL!

Awesome! He shared his build with me over e-mail and I was waiting on him to make a post/video before I shared it. Looks really sweet!

 

[grsychckn]

Newsletter just sent out with a link to the i9-9900k Ebay auction and some more information on S402, S700/S600, and the C7 AM4 90-degree adapters. If you signed up for the e-mail and didn't receive it, please let me know.

 

[annasoh323]

I don't know about the color. I actually thought a dark textured gray might be a nice change. I'll have to see how many I decide to make (which comes down to how many I can afford to make). I made a new vent pattern with slots and I am going to do the same thing with circles. Once I finish those designs I'll post here.

As an aside, I normally have no time and this weekend has been no exception. We had a microburst storm come through on Saturday night and 3 trees fell. One of which damaged our house in the same area we had a tree hit last year. This time we are going to avoid making an insurance claim as we don't want more than 3 claims on our homeowner's plan within a 5 year span. For reasons I won't get into, I believe if we make another claim our rates will go through the roof if we don't get dropped altogether. Regardless, we had decided to take down most of the trees near our house but this is going to cost around $20k. To be upfront, this is going to hurt my ability to produce cases and it's definitely going to steal time away from this hobby of mine. Additionally, I am going to need a few more days to prepare the i9-9900k build as it is nearly complete and running well but I don't have time to take pictures, filter, and post them.

Thankfully everyone is fine and God protected us. I'm going to try and get the pictures of the i9 system tonight or tomorrow. I then have to make a new newsletter entry with some updates on the S402 as well as pictures of the i9 and Threadripper system.

Sorry to hear about the tough break. I'm grateful that you've always been transparent with us and hope you can get some good news to offset the bad.

Thank you. Update on the S402 vent patterns. I wanted to place the alternatives next to each other in one post to get some feedback. The hex pattern is not shown here but it is still an option. Ignore the square holes on the top face.

Circles

Rounded Slots

Rounded Squares

Feedback?

Personally, I've a good feeling about the rounded squares. It has a certain industrial chic about it. I still like the hex pattern as well. The rounded slots in their current configuration have a somewhat strange vibe for me with the current offset and perhaps the placement of the vertical lines. At least in the render, it gives off a sort of psychedelic effect in that my eyes don't quite know where to land. Perhaps if the spacing of the offset was a bit different, it would seem better to my eye. I know the round holes are popular but, personally, they're the pattern I'm most agnostic about. But, if you can do it in a way that maximizes airflow, then no reason not to go for it!

this isnt really mine to post, but i saw it on reddit and its SO COOL!

I saw it on the newsletter before I saw it here but my dumbfounded reaction is no less visceral. I thought @Piewalker's full-custom loop was the most insanity I could handle and then this Threadripper build comes along. I was surprised to see such a build come out of a channel with ~110 subs but such is the TechTube scene. Makes me wonder what else I'm missing.
Seeing an mATX board fit in there makes me wonder if there's some way to shove the ASUS Impact mDTX x570 board in there sans extender card. It may be too crucial to its operation to go without and with no real way of extending that down... ah, so close...

Newsletter just sent out with a link to the i9-9900k Ebay auction and some more information on S402, S700/S600, and the C7 AM4 90-degree adapters. If you signed up for the e-mail and didn't receive it, please let me know.

I think the link here may not be working as expected? It seems to link back the thread, not the auction. I clicked on it, wandered off for a bit, then came back and wondered why I had two forum tabs open. I thought I was losing it for a minute there

 

[grsychckn]

I think the link here may not be working as expected? It seems to link back the thread, not the auction. I clicked on it, wandered off for a bit, then came back and wondered why I had two forum tabs open. I thought I was losing it for a minute there

No, you were right and the link was wrong. Thanks for letting me know. My clipboard must have had the wrong thing in it. The link is fixed now.

 

[MrClippy]

Thank you. Update on the S402 vent patterns. I wanted to place the alternatives next to each other in one post to get some feedback. The hex pattern is not shown here but it is still an option. Ignore the square holes on the top face.

Circles

Rounded Slots

Rounded Squares

Feedback?

I'm personally a big fan of the rounded squares. But that's just me

 

[annasoh323]

Say, with the first looks at the various x570 boards, it seems many are going with integrated I/O shields and huge heat sinks right at the I/O area. I recall there was another board that had that sort of construction (Asus Z370?) that had problems with fitment. Is there any expectation that the S401 may have issues with the new crop of X570 boards (and are there workarounds? Also going to ignore the Asus Impact VIII for now with the massive m.2 daughterboard).

 

[DSmithBYU]

grsy, a question about the delidded i9-9900k from the computer you're selling on ebay: how are the temperatures of the CPU??

I've been thinking about preordering the non-K i9-9900 from B&H and I wanna delid it too so that my Scythe Jitte+ can handle it.

 

[Piewalker]

Say, with the first looks at the various x570 boards, it seems many are going with integrated I/O shields and huge heat sinks right at the I/O area. I recall there was another board that had that sort of construction (Asus Z370?) that had problems with fitment. Is there any expectation that the S401 may have issues with the new crop of X570 boards (and are there workarounds? Also going to ignore the Asus Impact VIII for now with the massive m.2 daughterboard).

I was thinking the exact same thing @annasoh323!

By the way, that ASUS X570 DTX board poses some unwelcome problems with some SFF builds. The SFF Forum Youtube channel briefly reviewed it along with a quick look at the new X570 ROG STRIX and both motherboards have "COMPROMISES"...watch the short review here:



Notice the big audio interface/sound card beneath the M.2 slot. What the hell. We didn't ask for that! I didn't know there were problems with the sound, but apparently there were enough complaints or they saw a marketing opportunity by integrating this new sound unit that is huge.

I personally use an external audio interface, the Scarlett 2i4, and run KRK Rokit 6 active studio monitors at 192 kHz in tandem with a 12" active subwoofer. When I'm at my girlfriend's (half the week), I just use bluetooth audio -- Wonderboom, baby. Latency is noticeable but it doesn't bother me too much. It's been years since I plugged in headphones or speakers to onboard audio.

The heat sinks are also noticeably larger. Yes, it's X570 and it runs hotter, and perhaps (I'm hoping) there are improvements in VRM power delivery. I'm really tempted to craft my own monoblock for the new ITX boards. The Gigabyte X570 ITX board looks quite interesting. I've used ASROCK X470 Fatality in the past -- the new ASROCK X570 ITX still has Type C Thunderbolt 3. That's definitely a selling point. If only all the manufacturers would include them on ITX boards then @grsychckn wouldn't have to deal with the panel USB-C/A issues. Or I don't know, maybe he would still have to contend with that issue. Yeah, probably he would. : )

Re: Venting @grsychckn ... Circles suck. They look cheap, are notorious for bad airflow AND the Sentry uses them. Please don't use circles. Unless you create a CROP CIRCLE pattern. That would be BADASS. Who says you can't make a design with holes shaped like:

Don't be shy, stack different shapes together, like this SFF Forum-type Logo Crop Circle or triangles circling hexes:

 

[Piewalker]

I saw it on the newsletter before I saw it here but my dumbfounded reaction is no less visceral. I thought @Piewalker's full-custom loop was the most insanity I could handle and then this Threadripper build comes along. I was surprised to see such a build come out of a channel with ~110 subs but such is the TechTube scene. Makes me wonder what else I'm missing.

Yeah, he definitely got the idea after seeing my build with the Alphacool DC-LT and my initial thoughts on placing the Triple 60 up front. Wish he would've given me credit. I left him a comment on his video along with some advice on expanding the loop to include the GPU. Congrats to him for the bona fide first Threadripper build in an S401, which further expands the uses for this phenomenally versatile case.

 

[vanbeveren]

Rounded squares look nice, especially in white.

(Still love my 401 honeycombs though)

 

[grsychckn]

Say, with the first looks at the various x570 boards, it seems many are going with integrated I/O shields and huge heat sinks right at the I/O area. I recall there was another board that had that sort of construction (Asus Z370?) that had problems with fitment. Is there any expectation that the S401 may have issues with the new crop of X570 boards (and are there workarounds? Also going to ignore the Asus Impact VIII for now with the massive m.2 daughterboard).

Yes, I'm worried about all the built-in IO shields that are coming out as they do present a problem for the S401. There are two potential solutions I'm aware of but neither are great. First, you can remove the IO shield (Asus Z390i can be installed with the IO shield removed). BTW, this opens up much more space for things like 120mm fan adapters on the CPU cooler. Secondly, you can dremel the rear IO hole to be larger such that the rear IO does not contact the rear of the chassis. This will cause you to be committed to using only built-in IO shields moving forward as boards with separate IO plates can no longer be installed due to the larger hole. I don't like it but that's the situation. I recommend removing the rear IO cover (not the rear IO faceplate) and then addressing things like VRMs with standard heatsinks if the cover also served as a heatsink.