Production SENTRY 2.0: Evolution of console-sized gaming PC case

kai535

Chassis Packer
Jul 14, 2020
19
5
Anybody know if there is ANYONE who makes a shorter USB 3.0 cable?
As stiff and long as the front panel USB is, it's kind of a cabling nightmare, but I've had no luck finding anything when I looked, but it's hard to sort through all the the junk results. The one cable I found that wasn't 50cm was 60.
I switched to a 2.0. Cable for this, found something half length and 1 cable
 

lolek

Case Bender
New User
Aug 20, 2020
2
0
Hello, I'm one of the lucky ones, who got a Sentry 2 for sale in July. Many thanks to Zaber, it looks great.
Now I'm wondering which 65 Twp CPU could be the best in terms of thermal behavior. The 7 3700x seems to be too hot. But what about 5 3600? Is there a thermal advantage?

In worst case, I could imagine, to take the old 7 2700 (Pinnacle Range Zen +), which is recommended by Zaber.

I'm planning air cooling THERMALRIGHT AXP90 full copper with fan NF-A9x14 HS-PWM chromax.black.
I'm not a gamer, I just work in CAD and do some architectural renderings.
 

thelaughingman

SFF Guru
Jul 14, 2018
1,413
1,566
@lolek the AXP-90 Full Cu should be more than enough to handle any 65W TDP CPU at stock. You should gain some temps by going down to the 3600 as it is less packed with cores but I think you gain more productivity out of 8 cores over 6.
 

MelbourneFL

Chassis Packer
Feb 12, 2020
14
10
Hello, I'm one of the lucky ones, who got a Sentry 2 for sale in July. Many thanks to Zaber, it looks great.
Now I'm wondering which 65 Twp CPU could be the best in terms of thermal behavior. The 7 3700x seems to be too hot. But what about 5 3600? Is there a thermal advantage?

In worst case, I could imagine, to take the old 7 2700 (Pinnacle Range Zen +), which is recommended by Zaber.

I'm planning air cooling THERMALRIGHT AXP90 full copper with fan NF-A9x14 HS-PWM chromax.black.
I'm not a gamer, I just work in CAD and do some architectural renderings.

If you are not a gamer why not take a small graphics card or even just the integrated in some CPUs and use an AIO water cooler. I think this should allow you to user CPUs with higher TDP, right?

Alexander
 

lolek

Case Bender
New User
Aug 20, 2020
2
0
@ Thelaughingman,
The 3600 seems a bit easier to handle, I have the same guess.
But the warning of Zaber about thermal behavior of Zen2 lets me still be a bit worried.
Some under voltage will helps, I hope.

@ MelbourneFL
The new APU 7 4700G seems powerful enough for fast rendering. Along with AIO, water cooler it could be an interesting quiet setup. Unfortunately, they only sell this APU in OEM systems for the moment. I'll keep an eye on it and read some more reviews.
 

tnuhnivad

Chassis Packer
Sep 17, 2018
13
9
Can I get someones thoughts on liquid cooling a Sentry 2.0?

So, I currently have a dual 240mm radiator build in a fractal design define nano s.

To make that build work specifically it requires slim 240mm radiators under 30.5mm in height and combo'd with several Scythe Slipstream slim 120mm Fans. The GPU is a MSI Aero OC 11GB with an EK waterblock which turns it into a very slim single slot card. The Scythe slim 120mm fans are actually no longer available to purchase and you can really only find them second hand or if your lucky sold by some more obscure online retailers. However the Scythe Slipstream slim 120mm fans are a little shorter - and quite louder - than the common slim 120mm fans on the market coming in at 12.5mm give or take.

I don't have a sentry, but I was curious if combo'd with the right parts if you could get a 240mm radiator and fans in the GPU section. Such as XSPC's TX240 Ultrathin Radiator at 20.5mm, the Scythe Slipstream slim 120mm fans, a single slot GPU/water block, and a CPU block/pump combo.

If you're familiar with this popular Node 202 liquid cooled build, in abstract this is what I'm thinking.
 

kai535

Chassis Packer
Jul 14, 2020
19
5
Can I get someones thoughts on liquid cooling a Sentry 2.0?

So, I currently have a dual 240mm radiator build in a fractal design define nano s.

To make that build work specifically it requires slim 240mm radiators under 30.5mm in height and combo'd with several Scythe Slipstream slim 120mm Fans. The GPU is a MSI Aero OC 11GB with an EK waterblock which turns it into a very slim single slot card. The Scythe slim 120mm fans are actually no longer available to purchase and you can really only find them second hand or if your lucky sold by some more obscure online retailers. However the Scythe Slipstream slim 120mm fans are a little shorter - and quite louder - than the common slim 120mm fans on the market coming in at 12.5mm give or take.

I don't have a sentry, but I was curious if combo'd with the right parts if you could get a 240mm radiator and fans in the GPU section. Such as XSPC's TX240 Ultrathin Radiator at 20.5mm, the Scythe Slipstream slim 120mm fans, a single slot GPU/water block, and a CPU block/pump combo.

If you're familiar with this popular Node 202 liquid cooled build, in abstract this is what I'm thinking.
Even if the radiator fan and gpu all stack up, your not going to find room for a pump in this case as the spot behind the psu is shorter and thats where the power button comes in at
 

tnuhnivad

Chassis Packer
Sep 17, 2018
13
9
Even if the radiator fan and gpu all stack up, your not going to find room for a pump in this case as the spot behind the psu is shorter and thats where the power button comes in at

Right, yea I was thinking a CPU Block/Pump combo there are a few that have hit the market recently.
 

SaperPL

Master of Cramming
DR ZĄBER
Oct 17, 2017
477
899
Is anyone eagerly examining all leaked 3rd party RTX 3080 and 3090 pics and guessing if they could fit into sentry like me?

We are recommending 150W TDP GPU, maybe a 180W TDP one for Sentry 2.0. Going after 320~350W one is simply overkill, unless there's some magic behind two separate chips in those cards or something like that.
 

Khio

Caliper Novice
Dec 16, 2019
25
39
Is anyone eagerly examining all leaked 3rd party RTX 3080 and 3090 pics and guessing if they could fit into sentry like me?

We are not even sure RTX 3090 will fit most of the full tower case, neither if current standard ATX PSU will support them lol

Will have to wait and see for RTX 3080 but my guess is that this NVIDIA gen will be massive and power hungry so probably not fit at all for SFFPC

I won't definitely go with an open air design GPU like Nvidia reference design leaked, because they push the hot air below the card, into the case. If one of those card manage to fit in the Sentry and work on SFX PSU, let's hope there is a blower version just to push out all the heat or the case will melt :3
 
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SaperPL

Master of Cramming
DR ZĄBER
Oct 17, 2017
477
899
I won't definitely go with an open air design GPU like Nvidia reference design leaked, because they push the hot air below the card, into the case.

Actually nvidia debunked that and both fans pull the air from the bottom of the card. One will blow the air into the CPU area in standard ATX layout and the second one will blow out the hot air at the back.
 

LeandroB

Average Stuffer
Jun 2, 2017
66
60
Actually nvidia debunked that and both fans pull the air from the bottom of the card. One will blow the air into the CPU area in standard ATX layout and the second one will blow out the hot air at the back.

Maybe you answered that alredy, but by the look of it (although i have not take notice of the size),it seens possible to work well with the Sentry 2.0, doesn't?
 

aaaadrian

Caliper Novice
Aug 18, 2020
21
51
Dimension wise RTX 3080 FE definitely could fit into sentry, not too sure about heat dissipation though since there's no vent at the back of graphics card in sentry. EVGA released their new cards today and looks like RTX 3080 XC3 could be a good fit for sentry. I ordered a Silverstone SX700-PT so PSU shouldn't be an issue.
 

SaperPL

Master of Cramming
DR ZĄBER
Oct 17, 2017
477
899
Maybe you answered that alredy, but by the look of it (although i have not take notice of the size),it seens possible to work well with the Sentry 2.0, doesn't?

Not really. The space between the back of the PCB and the inlet in Sentry's cover is defined by how much space can be used by GPU cooler retention screws and nvidia tends to use all that space with a backplate. So we'd end up with something like ~1 mm of space between the fan and the cover inlet, so it'd be essentially choking really hard.

I'd rather go with standard triple-fan open-air cooler because it seems like this new fan layout on reference cards won't utilise perforation on Sentry properly. Also consider additional cables just because nvidia plug.
 

AlphaDave

Minimal Tinkerer
New User
Sep 2, 2020
3
1
Not really. The space between the back of the PCB and the inlet in Sentry's cover is defined by how much space can be used by GPU cooler retention screws and nvidia tends to use all that space with a backplate. So we'd end up with something like ~1 mm of space between the fan and the cover inlet, so it'd be essentially choking really hard.

I'd rather go with standard triple-fan open-air cooler because it seems like this new fan layout on reference cards won't utilise perforation on Sentry properly. Also consider additional cables just because nvidia plug.
I'm a Sentry 1.1 owner & want to upgrade to either the 3070 or 3080. Do you think it would be feasible to hardware mod the Sentry case to allow for rear exhaust by cutting out (part of?) the air pocket bit & drilling out holes? Or is that a complete waste of effort & it would be better to just get a normal open air cooler as stated above?

I already cut off the pci slot cover bit on the case to allow my 1070 Founders to exhaust a bit easier and that lowered my temps by nearly 5°.
 

quetzacoatlx

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Aug 11, 2017
103
62
Not really. The space between the back of the PCB and the inlet in Sentry's cover is defined by how much space can be used by GPU cooler retention screws and nvidia tends to use all that space with a backplate. So we'd end up with something like ~1 mm of space between the fan and the cover inlet, so it'd be essentially choking really hard.

I'd rather go with standard triple-fan open-air cooler because it seems like this new fan layout on reference cards won't utilise perforation on Sentry properly. Also consider additional cables just because nvidia plug.
Also the FE cards use a 12-pin plug. A 2*8 to 12 pin connector is needed which could bring potential problems in SFF cases.
 

SaperPL

Master of Cramming
DR ZĄBER
Oct 17, 2017
477
899
I'm a Sentry 1.1 owner & want to upgrade to either the 3070 or 3080. Do you think it would be feasible to hardware mod the Sentry case to allow for rear exhaust by cutting out (part of?) the air pocket bit & drilling out holes? Or is that a complete waste of effort & it would be better to just get a normal open air cooler as stated above?

Obviously if you let the card have unobstructed flow through, it should work okay, but are you confident that you are going to do a good job with modding the case?

We are not selling case elements separately and thus once you've damaged the case by modding, you'll have stay with it as it is. There's no second takes on that.

Non reference open air design with triple fans seems like a safe choice as the case was designed, tested and reviewed with such cards in mind.
 

AlphaDave

Minimal Tinkerer
New User
Sep 2, 2020
3
1
Obviously if you let the card have unobstructed flow through, it should work okay, but are you confident that you are going to do a good job with modding the case?

We are not selling case elements separately and thus once you've damaged the case by modding, you'll have stay with it as it is. There's no second takes on that.

Non reference open air design with triple fans seems like a safe choice as the case was designed, tested and reviewed with such cards in mind.
I work for a steel fabrication company so will hopefully be ok, obviously a risk however you look It but I do at least have people who know what they’re doing to assist! Worst case if it looks a bit off, magnetic dust filters to the rescue!

I just have this probably terrible idea in my head of weather-stripping the fans to either side of the case and having nice fresh air pulled straight through the second GPU fan & shunted out the other side. I’ll probably end up chickening out but a man can dream.