Production S700: Salvo Studios <23L ATX Steel Watercooled Unibody Chassis
- Thread starter grsychckn
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Sorry, I've been insanely busy and maybe a little sick while we attempt to get our house ready to list for sale. I didn't want to post anything too soon but because people are waiting for updates I thought I'd go ahead an post a render of the new S600 design I'm working on. This is a VERY early concept design and I've already begun thinking about relocating things (like the PSU) to increase compatibility with pump combos.
Yeah, have to agree about the PSU placement; not the biggest fan from a space utilization standpoint. I think that either drawing some inspiration from the Cerberus and orienting it over the CPU slot or replacing the top front fan and tucking it up against the front of the chassis makes the most sense. Otherwise I thick it looks great for an early work in progress.
I love it - looks like a well designed version of Thermaltake Core G3 which I modded to take a 360mm radiator and I loved it.
I would also be interested in seeing the PSU placed over the motherboard, as that would allow you to either mount top rads/fans or bay style Pump/Res combos into the back of the case. I think maintaining the 360mm rad for the whole front is ideal and looking at the renders - if you mounted the PSU over the motherboard you would have a 240mm in the top, 360mm in the front and a pump/res mounted on the central front fan - would be a pretty nutty loop I reckon.
I would also be interested in seeing the PSU placed over the motherboard, as that would allow you to either mount top rads/fans or bay style Pump/Res combos into the back of the case. I think maintaining the 360mm rad for the whole front is ideal and looking at the renders - if you mounted the PSU over the motherboard you would have a 240mm in the top, 360mm in the front and a pump/res mounted on the central front fan - would be a pretty nutty loop I reckon.
I love what you'd done with the S700, the space management was amazing. But, this new design has a lot of problems with it in my opinion. There seems to be no rear panel to hide wires and with this being a custom build, I'm going to assume it's going to be somewhat expensive. With that said, I think it will be hard to beat out other cases with similar designs at their price points...
For example, this looks strikingly similar to the Thermaltake Core G3 ($79.99) with the only difference being the mounting side(s) and lack of HDD mounts.
Example
I do enjoy your designs though. I noticed you took my advice on the hole punchouts on the fan grills
For example, this looks strikingly similar to the Thermaltake Core G3 ($79.99) with the only difference being the mounting side(s) and lack of HDD mounts.
Example
I do enjoy your designs though. I noticed you took my advice on the hole punchouts on the fan grills
Do bear in mind the Core G3 has badly positioned fan mounts and is built out of steel with the same rigidity as wet paper.
I'd take this design any day although I would re-position the PSU.
I've been (and will continue to be) very busy getting the house ready to sell. I read the messages as they are posted and agree that the PSU location needs to change. I *should* have some time starting next week to play around with this design and I will try to get the PSU capable of being mounted over the CPU. I want to try not to make the chassis wider, but let's see just how much play I have before jumping to conclusions.
I also get the point about price vs. features (mass-produced vs botique) and one of my goals is actually to avoid designing something too similar to the Cerberus X because then why make one at all? I think the vertical PCIe orientation of this design actually is what sets it apart from the Cerberus (albeit actually makes it more similar to the G3 as pointed out). It allows me to support much wider PCIe devices than the Cerberus X and up to 3-slot PCIe devices as well (or 2+1 with multiple PCIe riser cables). I think I have something worth making based on that alone, but I don't want that to be the only feather in the hat of this design.
I'm designing first and foremost for myself and my needs which at this point is the desire to get a dual-Epyc system installed into something less than 20L for a thread-ripping beast. BTW, I've had major problems with my S700 prototype #2 build, but last night I finally got Windows installed on the 64-core/128-thread system and am now debugging a problem with the mainboard. When I solve that memory problem, I'll get started building it in the prototype and getting the open loop built so I can post some pictures. That will probably take several weeks though as I may have to RMA my existing Supermicro board because I suspect one of the DIMM slots is bad on the board itself.
I also get the point about price vs. features (mass-produced vs botique) and one of my goals is actually to avoid designing something too similar to the Cerberus X because then why make one at all? I think the vertical PCIe orientation of this design actually is what sets it apart from the Cerberus (albeit actually makes it more similar to the G3 as pointed out). It allows me to support much wider PCIe devices than the Cerberus X and up to 3-slot PCIe devices as well (or 2+1 with multiple PCIe riser cables). I think I have something worth making based on that alone, but I don't want that to be the only feather in the hat of this design.
I'm designing first and foremost for myself and my needs which at this point is the desire to get a dual-Epyc system installed into something less than 20L for a thread-ripping beast. BTW, I've had major problems with my S700 prototype #2 build, but last night I finally got Windows installed on the 64-core/128-thread system and am now debugging a problem with the mainboard. When I solve that memory problem, I'll get started building it in the prototype and getting the open loop built so I can post some pictures. That will probably take several weeks though as I may have to RMA my existing Supermicro board because I suspect one of the DIMM slots is bad on the board itself.
BTW, the specs on the S700 prototype #2 build are:
2 x 7551 Epyc ES CPUs (32-core/64-thread each)
64GB DDR4 2400 ECC (4GB x 16)
1 x 512GB Silicon Power m.2 NVMe
2 x 1TB HP EX920 m.2 NVMe
2 x 8TB 3.5" SATA HGST 7200RPM
Radeon WX9100 16GB HBM2
Custom Watercooling loop for CPUs (360mm radiator + DDC/res combo)
Corsair SF750 PSU w/ custom-length cables
When completed, I may decide to keep this one for myself but I could definitely use the proceeds for the S402 or the S600.
2 x 7551 Epyc ES CPUs (32-core/64-thread each)
64GB DDR4 2400 ECC (4GB x 16)
1 x 512GB Silicon Power m.2 NVMe
2 x 1TB HP EX920 m.2 NVMe
2 x 8TB 3.5" SATA HGST 7200RPM
Radeon WX9100 16GB HBM2
Custom Watercooling loop for CPUs (360mm radiator + DDC/res combo)
Corsair SF750 PSU w/ custom-length cables
When completed, I may decide to keep this one for myself but I could definitely use the proceeds for the S402 or the S600.
My only concern about moving the PSU is how much space there will be for tube and cable management, especially for someone inexperienced. Would a PSU shroud help the aesthetics of having it up there? Looking forward to seeing additional iterations - glad to see this project has a pulse.
Thanks for asking. There were a few reasons for this design decision:
1. A two-chamber design doubled the number of bends that needed to be made to complete 1 unit which dramatically increased the cost. Also, increased raw materials costs. It also required that the front panel be a separate piece which also increased complexity and cost.
2. The length of the PCIe riser cables exceeded that of the PCIe 3.0 spec. I know that this shouldn't be an issue as many have proven it can work but in my experience recently with my 1920X, the PCIe riser can be very sensitive when it comes to signal interference (especially if you end up routing it behind a mainboard or different PCIe device).
3. I had a very hard time making intelligent use of the available space left over just below the mainboard and in the "flex" slots once a single device was installed. To be fair, I'm going to have the same difficulty with this new design but I've found I can cram in near the same support but the volume is much lower for the same components. The S700 with an E-ATX board was around 24L and this S600 is currently under 21L and could be several liters smaller if I drop support for E-ATX.
Hope this sheds some light on the reasons why I changed the design. These aren't all the reasons, just the most prominent in my mind right now.
I'm thinking of how to incorporate a shroud of some kind to help with cable management but I need to first finalize the location of the PSU so I can then figure out what sub-assemblies I will be making.
I don't have a massive problem with the PSU placement, since you need to height to fit a 360mm radiator anyway, it could be useful to use this space for drive mounts, pump/reservoir, integrated fan controller unit (might actually be a good use for the old Aquaero 5 I've got sitting)
Aesthetic wise I think some sort of shroud/cover should improve the 'empty' look for this space
Aesthetic wise I think some sort of shroud/cover should improve the 'empty' look for this space
Bump to promote my giving away of the last S401 unit - enter the contest here.
Good luck with the house sale! Hopefully that goes smoothly and quickly for you.
Not yet - I had to RMA the Supermicro board I was using because one of the memory DIMMs was bad. They just contacted me to say it was a bent pin in the LGA socket so they are fixing it and will return ship it to me soon.
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