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

Dax911

Caliper Novice
Dec 25, 2019
26
6
Hey guys I was wondering if someone got any idea about the rtx 3070 turbo from asus (blower ) in the sentry, do you know if it will fit in the case ? I also saw the 3060 12gb from evga which will be released in a few days and I can't really decide now which gpu to take .
 

Lextheimpaler

Chassis Packer
Feb 2, 2021
19
3
Hey guys I was wondering if someone got any idea about the rtx 3070 turbo from asus (blower ) in the sentry, do you know if it will fit in the case ? I also saw the 3060 12gb from evga which will be released in a few days and I can't really decide now which gpu to take .
My Asus 3090 turbo fits.
 
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zustroy

Trash Compacter
Jun 19, 2018
54
33
Haven't yet used my Sentry 2.0 case.

Did anything change in the meantime regarding the USB type C front panel?
Is there any model that might fit this case?
 
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SkorpioNElite

Chassis Packer
Feb 13, 2021
16
12
The Noise Level would be more interesting. Had a Gigabyte Blower 2080Ti and without dramatically reducing the Powertarget it was a turbine.
 

ZeQreda

Efficiency Noob
May 9, 2019
6
8
I recently got an MSI RTX 3070 Ventus 3X and to my surprise it fits inside the sentry. Of course, because there is like 1 mm between the fans and the ventilation area, noticeable air turbulence noises are the only issue if you leave everything at stock.

After manually undervolting the card in afterburner and customizing the fan curve I am at the point where if I have my headphones on (always while I play games) the fan noise is not noticeable anymore.

I don't recommend doing this though, better get a thinner card with enough distance from the ventilation area.

 

amalek.92

Cable Smoosher
Aug 14, 2020
11
4
What's the best performing CPU cooler for Sentry? I currently use a Noctua NH-L9a. Temps get a bit high on my Ryzen 3 3300x.
 

SaperPL

Master of Cramming
DR ZĄBER
Oct 17, 2017
472
882
What's the best performing CPU cooler for Sentry? I currently use a Noctua NH-L9a. Temps get a bit high on my Ryzen 3 3300x.
Zen 2 has higher temperatures than previously. It will have temperatures like 50 degrees in light desktop workloads and 75~85 degrees while gaming with uncapped framerate if your GPU can handle it/won't be a bottleneck. Zen 2 turbo works the same as we've seen for some time now with GPUs where it will boost while it has headroom if there is a load. And the thermal limit is 95c and the socket power limit is 88W for "65W TDP" Zen2 CPUs.

NH-L9a is actually an optimal cooler for Sentry 2.0 as it's not facing perforation closely. Black Ridge is just an inverted NH-L9a until you have low profile ram which allows you to slide in a 120 mm slim fan.

If you have too high temperatures on idle on 3300X, then I'd check whether you have ryzen power profile, bios updates, some monitoring software that wakes up the CPU constantly and maybe if your CPU is seated correctly which may happen with this kind of socket.

There is this go-through for checking what's the actual idle temperature to see if you have actual thermal problems where you shut down everything to have just bare windows without any apps on top, you'd have to find that. I went through that and I had a drop from 52 degrees to 36 in idle on my 3700X simply because there's always something waking up the cores in windows. Alternatively you can check out the temps when you disable turbo in bios by switching off "core performance boost" but that's just so you can see that it's not the cooler but how those new CPUs behave.

Anyway we need to get used to those temps. The problem is when this becomes the issue because it gets loud and the fan curves tweaked for previous generations CPUs temps (or with huge coolers) is the real problem here.
 

amalek.92

Cable Smoosher
Aug 14, 2020
11
4
Zen 2 has higher temperatures than previously. It will have temperatures like 50 degrees in light desktop workloads and 75~85 degrees while gaming with uncapped framerate if your GPU can handle it/won't be a bottleneck. Zen 2 turbo works the same as we've seen for some time now with GPUs where it will boost while it has headroom if there is a load. And the thermal limit is 95c and the socket power limit is 88W for "65W TDP" Zen2 CPUs.

NH-L9a is actually an optimal cooler for Sentry 2.0 as it's not facing perforation closely. Black Ridge is just an inverted NH-L9a until you have low profile ram which allows you to slide in a 120 mm slim fan.

If you have too high temperatures on idle on 3300X, then I'd check whether you have ryzen power profile, bios updates, some monitoring software that wakes up the CPU constantly and maybe if your CPU is seated correctly which may happen with this kind of socket.

There is this go-through for checking what's the actual idle temperature to see if you have actual thermal problems where you shut down everything to have just bare windows without any apps on top, you'd have to find that. I went through that and I had a drop from 52 degrees to 36 in idle on my 3700X simply because there's always something waking up the cores in windows. Alternatively you can check out the temps when you disable turbo in bios by switching off "core performance boost" but that's just so you can see that it's not the cooler but how those new CPUs behave.

Anyway we need to get used to those temps. The problem is when this becomes the issue because it gets loud and the fan curves tweaked for previous generations CPUs temps (or with huge coolers) is the real problem here.
Thank you very much for a detailed answer. As a matter of fact, I actually get roughly the same figures you describe during heavy load, so I'm probably worrying for no reason. Would be good to reduce temps further, but there's no magic trick inside such a small case, so I do need to get used to them. At least It never gets too loud.
 

Treshy

Average Stuffer
May 4, 2019
87
91
Thank you very much for a detailed answer. As a matter of fact, I actually get roughly the same figures you describe during heavy load, so I'm probably worrying for no reason. Would be good to reduce temps further, but there's no magic trick inside such a small case, so I do need to get used to them. At least It never gets too loud.

if you want the best cooling performance in the sentry you need the alpenföhn black ridge. It only fits on gigabyte boards though, because of the socket placement. with normal low profile ram you can use a 92mm fan, if you get special vlp form factor memory you can even use a 120mm fan. afaik this is the only way to get a 120mm air cooler in the sentry. I added some photos of my setup, you need to remove the chipset cooler as well if you want the 120mm fan, but you will get air cooling from the 120mm fan on it still, so it doesnt matter.

 
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daddelbud

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Jan 9, 2019
97
16
I know its not a Noctua L12S, but its same design.
Noctua dont recommend that orientation:
 

Treshy

Average Stuffer
May 4, 2019
87
91
I know its not a Noctua L12S, but its same design.
Noctua dont recommend that orientation:
good to know, I havent seen that before. The alpenföhn cooler is intended for that orientation. as you can see in my pic the find are almost exactly the size of the itx board. in other orientations the io side doesnt fit.
 

Idle2824

Average Stuffer
Apr 26, 2018
67
68
if you want the best cooling performance in the sentry you need the alpenföhn black ridge. It only fits on gigabyte boards though, because of the socket placement. with normal low profile ram you can use a 92mm fan, if you get special vlp form factor memory you can even use a 120mm fan. afaik this is the only way to get a 120mm air cooler in the sentry. I added some photos of my setup, you need to remove the chipset cooler as well if you want the 120mm fan, but you will get air cooling from the 120mm fan on it still, so it doesnt matter.

Just out of interest, now that we've been running our systems for a while, have you settled on having the 120mm fan as exhaust/push? I have swapped the orientation a few times now (whenever I had a reason to take my PC apart) and I definitely get better CPU cooling performance with it in intake/pull, with the trade-off being slightly higher RAM and, to a lesser extent, chipset temperatures. That didn't seem worth it to me, but perhaps you have another reason or a different experience?

Edit: I just noticed that you have the fan on in different orientations in the two pictures, haha. Which do you use?
 
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Treshy

Average Stuffer
May 4, 2019
87
91
Just out of interest, now that we've been running our systems for a while, have you settled on having the 120mm fan as exhaust/push? I have swapped the orientation a few times now (whenever I had a reason to take my PC apart) and I definitely get better CPU cooling performance with it in intake/pull, with the trade-off being slightly higher RAM and, to a lesser extent, chipset temperatures. That didn't seem worth it to me, but perhaps you have another reason or a different experience?

Edit: I just noticed that you have the fan on in different orientations in the two pictures, haha. Which do you use?
I use it as an intake, blowing onto the ram and chipset/m.2 ssd.
I read that its better for temps and didn’t really bother comparing a lot. also blowing onto the chipset kinda emulates the pch fan and that was a pro for me… no clue if push or pull is better
 

SkorpioNElite

Chassis Packer
Feb 13, 2021
16
12
The LED in my power switch just died. What would be a working replacement? Most switches i found use 12V LED.
Do they work? Do you still have stock of those replacement parts, or can you tell the exact switch model and manufacturer?
Or maybe a data sheet?

Got an AMD setup this time and RED is the color of choice ^^. I'm currently walking in the dark with replacement parts and want
to keep it the original look with the LED.
The Font-USB Part is also more or less available. Some detailed info on the replacement parts would be appreciated.

If you sell the parts directly I would rather pick that option of course.

Edit: The questions remains, although it appears that my LED just had a disconnected cable. Apparently my cable management was at fault.
 
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LeChuck81

SFF Lingo Aficionado
May 6, 2019
129
36
So, I know (I read the whole thread) this has been discussed times and times again, and I know that, performance wise, it makes basically no difference at all but, as a quality of life point of view, where are we on PCIe 4.0 risers? Anything 4.0 compliant? Maybe even ready to use, without needing to cut, drill or anything else here and there? Given the majority of us are going Ryzen 5000, and the non-stop releasing of new BIOSes, it would be a royal pain in the arse to have to unmount the GPU and insert it directly in the PCIe slot every time we upgrade to a new BIOS just to set the PCIe slot speed to 3.0.
 

SaperPL

Master of Cramming
DR ZĄBER
Oct 17, 2017
472
882
So, I know (I read the whole thread) this has been discussed times and times again, and I know that, performance wise, it makes basically no difference at all but, as a quality of life point of view, where are we on PCIe 4.0 risers? Anything 4.0 compliant? Maybe even ready to use, without needing to cut, drill or anything else here and there? Given the majority of us are going Ryzen 5000, and the non-stop releasing of new BIOSes, it would be a royal pain in the arse to have to unmount the GPU and insert it directly in the PCIe slot every time we upgrade to a new BIOS just to set the PCIe slot speed to 3.0.

You are free to use any ribbon riser that is ~50 mm long and has straight connection/is not angled. The case is made in a way it holds the riser by the PCI-E slot body and unless there's some weird stuff added to it, it should work okay. If you pick a riser that is fairly standard with the slot being in line with PCB and ribbon, the worst you may have to do is to detach the latch if it's too big, although there should be space for most of the latch types.

You should however look for reviews of specific riser to see if it is actually recommended or whether it's some off-brand no-name company that noone tried to use. We'll be revisiting this topic once we are ready to move forward with 3.0.