Apologies if people think this isn't small enough, but I promise its for a reason 
So for the last 4+ years I've been running a 4690K Devil's Canyon CPU on a Z97 mATX motherboard with various video cards (970, 1080, 1080 SLI, then Titan V) and finally decided it was time for me to upgrade. Here's a pic of my previous system when it was running 1080s in SLI:
The case was a Silverstone Sugo SG10B - an awesome case for its time. This was before CLCs were super common and so as an airflow-focused small (23L?) case, it was pretty great. It has a giant 180mm fan on top as an intake and so it did a great job of pushing air in. As far as mATX cases go that aren't the Cerberus, it's pretty great, as long as you don't want to watercool. Which is how I ended up on my current project...
Long story short, noise became a big focus for my current rig since it needed to be moved into the bedroom. I had used watercooling before on one of the two 1080s because on an mATX board, the upper card is basically starved for airflow. I bought an ID-Cooling Frostflow 120VGA, which at $55 on NewEgg was a steal. This worked great for SLI, but the system was very hot and loud even with the AIO on the GPU.
I work at a Solution Provider doing Deep Learning stuff, and so I ended up getting a Titan V to experiment with stuff at home. That let me retire my SLI cards and move back to a single card, which again opened up the possibility of going mITX. Unfortunately, used Z97 ITX boards are hard to find and usually $300+, so it seemed silly to spend that on a 5-year-old platform. I waited for Ryzen 3000, but after the benchmarks came out and basically said if Gaming is your focus (which it mostly is), then the 9700K (or 9900K) is still the best option in their price points. Because the AsRock X570 board was $240 and the Gigabyte X570 was $220, the price difference in CPUs was completely eliminated by the extra motherboard cost, so I ended up getting the AsRock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX-TB3 and a 9700K in a combo on NewEgg. Add in some 3200MHz CL14 GSkill RAM and that was all I needed to upgrade. I had storage (HP EX920 1TB, plus an HDD or two), I had my GPU, all that's left was... the case.
I love Sliger's new SM cases. I really really really wanted to buy one. But I wanted either a custom loop, or a 240/280mm AIO on the CPU and the 120mm AIO on the GPU. The SM580 looked like it'd be able to do that, but after waiting it seemed like custom loops were just a little too hard as a starting point for a custom loop (I've never done any watercooling outside of that GPU CLC), and the lower 120mm radiator spot wouldn't be able to fit an AIO because of the tubes. So I decided to go for a stop gap measure: Buy the Fractal Design Define Nano S (27L, sorry SFF purists!) and put all my stuff in there along with a 240mm AIO for the CPU. The case is only $70, and I could reuse my existing 700W ATX power supply, so my investment is minimal. The 240mm AIO I could reuse in another case or sell it if I go with a custom loop, or I can wait for another smaller case that has what I need. Maybe the Sliger SV590 will let me do 240mm+120mm in a 15L case and I'll be golden.
So apologies for the wasted space and the 27L volume. If I decide to stick with this case, when my living situation changes and I have space again I may upgrade this case to a full custom loop with D5 pump in the bottom with a separate reservoir, or I may take the parts I have and transplant them into a smaller case. Either way, I'll keep things up to date. Let's get on with pictures!
One thing I'll note - installing the AIO on the Titan V was very difficult. So in my research I found that the mounting holes for the Titan V (thanks Gamers Nexus!) are the same as the RTX cards - 70mm square. So I bought the RTX mounting kit for my Frostflow 120VGA for $8. Everything was going great, until I needed to use the included spring screws on the back of the card to hold the cooler in. Unfortunately, the screws weren't long enough to reach the cooler, because the GV100 chip and surrounding area is so thick. I guess RTX cards are thinner/closer to the board, and so the included screws probably would have been fine for one of those. Fortunately, the screws that came with the Titan V holding the front of the card on actually matched the threads of the ID-Cooling mount kit, so I was able to use the NVIDIA-included screws to attach the coldplate. It's janky, but it's working great!
So for future reference, if you want to use an RTX cooler on a Titan V, make sure that its retention mechanism involves screws on the back side of the card, going into threaded holes on the coldplate mount system! And then hope the threads match...
I also used an adapter cable to connect the Radiator fan to the GPU itself, so my GPU's fan control actually does control the radiator fan, which is a high static pressure fan that you can indeed hear at load but is much quieter than the default blower fan.
The other thing I pointed out in the picture notes but I'll elaborate on here is that in the Define Nano S, you can open the moduvent in the top and add an additional 240mm radiator and fans. They do, however, specify that your RAM needs to be Low Profile for this to work, because otherwise a rad+fan combo would hit your memory components. My GSKill Ripjaws V RAM has a tapered heat spreader - it's not very tall at the edges but comes to a peak in the middle of the DIMM. The good news, again for reference if anyone else is interested, is that a 30mm radiator plus 25mm fans would fit in the top using the Ripjaws RAM. The slope is shallow enough that it doesn't interfere with the RAM even at that full width. Which is great, because as I was planning out a full custom loop in this case I thought I'd have to resort to slim fans or a slim XSPC TX240 radiator. Neither of these is necessary!
Lastly, using some very simple overclocking (Intel Performance Maximizer, MSI Afterburner OC Scan, and the standard XMP profile), I hit these performance numbers:
For reference, my prior rig hit just UNDER NINE THOUSAAAND. (sorry)
So overall, very happy with how the build turned out. Under a CPU stress test, I can indeed hear the AIO spin up (I have the Celsius S24 set to "PWM" mode, not Auto) and it's audible, but during most normal loads it's extremely quiet, probably quieter than anything else in the house making random noise. And temperatures are great - 77 degrees under Prime95 small FFT on the CPU, and the GPU never hits 70 degrees under Furmark, although I do have a custom fan curve.
Now, using my old motherboard, CPU, and RAM, it's on to my next project, rebuilding my home server:
Build log forthcoming...
So for the last 4+ years I've been running a 4690K Devil's Canyon CPU on a Z97 mATX motherboard with various video cards (970, 1080, 1080 SLI, then Titan V) and finally decided it was time for me to upgrade. Here's a pic of my previous system when it was running 1080s in SLI:
The case was a Silverstone Sugo SG10B - an awesome case for its time. This was before CLCs were super common and so as an airflow-focused small (23L?) case, it was pretty great. It has a giant 180mm fan on top as an intake and so it did a great job of pushing air in. As far as mATX cases go that aren't the Cerberus, it's pretty great, as long as you don't want to watercool. Which is how I ended up on my current project...
Long story short, noise became a big focus for my current rig since it needed to be moved into the bedroom. I had used watercooling before on one of the two 1080s because on an mATX board, the upper card is basically starved for airflow. I bought an ID-Cooling Frostflow 120VGA, which at $55 on NewEgg was a steal. This worked great for SLI, but the system was very hot and loud even with the AIO on the GPU.
I work at a Solution Provider doing Deep Learning stuff, and so I ended up getting a Titan V to experiment with stuff at home. That let me retire my SLI cards and move back to a single card, which again opened up the possibility of going mITX. Unfortunately, used Z97 ITX boards are hard to find and usually $300+, so it seemed silly to spend that on a 5-year-old platform. I waited for Ryzen 3000, but after the benchmarks came out and basically said if Gaming is your focus (which it mostly is), then the 9700K (or 9900K) is still the best option in their price points. Because the AsRock X570 board was $240 and the Gigabyte X570 was $220, the price difference in CPUs was completely eliminated by the extra motherboard cost, so I ended up getting the AsRock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX-TB3 and a 9700K in a combo on NewEgg. Add in some 3200MHz CL14 GSkill RAM and that was all I needed to upgrade. I had storage (HP EX920 1TB, plus an HDD or two), I had my GPU, all that's left was... the case.
I love Sliger's new SM cases. I really really really wanted to buy one. But I wanted either a custom loop, or a 240/280mm AIO on the CPU and the 120mm AIO on the GPU. The SM580 looked like it'd be able to do that, but after waiting it seemed like custom loops were just a little too hard as a starting point for a custom loop (I've never done any watercooling outside of that GPU CLC), and the lower 120mm radiator spot wouldn't be able to fit an AIO because of the tubes. So I decided to go for a stop gap measure: Buy the Fractal Design Define Nano S (27L, sorry SFF purists!) and put all my stuff in there along with a 240mm AIO for the CPU. The case is only $70, and I could reuse my existing 700W ATX power supply, so my investment is minimal. The 240mm AIO I could reuse in another case or sell it if I go with a custom loop, or I can wait for another smaller case that has what I need. Maybe the Sliger SV590 will let me do 240mm+120mm in a 15L case and I'll be golden.
So apologies for the wasted space and the 27L volume. If I decide to stick with this case, when my living situation changes and I have space again I may upgrade this case to a full custom loop with D5 pump in the bottom with a separate reservoir, or I may take the parts I have and transplant them into a smaller case. Either way, I'll keep things up to date. Let's get on with pictures!
One thing I'll note - installing the AIO on the Titan V was very difficult. So in my research I found that the mounting holes for the Titan V (thanks Gamers Nexus!) are the same as the RTX cards - 70mm square. So I bought the RTX mounting kit for my Frostflow 120VGA for $8. Everything was going great, until I needed to use the included spring screws on the back of the card to hold the cooler in. Unfortunately, the screws weren't long enough to reach the cooler, because the GV100 chip and surrounding area is so thick. I guess RTX cards are thinner/closer to the board, and so the included screws probably would have been fine for one of those. Fortunately, the screws that came with the Titan V holding the front of the card on actually matched the threads of the ID-Cooling mount kit, so I was able to use the NVIDIA-included screws to attach the coldplate. It's janky, but it's working great!
So for future reference, if you want to use an RTX cooler on a Titan V, make sure that its retention mechanism involves screws on the back side of the card, going into threaded holes on the coldplate mount system! And then hope the threads match...
I also used an adapter cable to connect the Radiator fan to the GPU itself, so my GPU's fan control actually does control the radiator fan, which is a high static pressure fan that you can indeed hear at load but is much quieter than the default blower fan.
The other thing I pointed out in the picture notes but I'll elaborate on here is that in the Define Nano S, you can open the moduvent in the top and add an additional 240mm radiator and fans. They do, however, specify that your RAM needs to be Low Profile for this to work, because otherwise a rad+fan combo would hit your memory components. My GSKill Ripjaws V RAM has a tapered heat spreader - it's not very tall at the edges but comes to a peak in the middle of the DIMM. The good news, again for reference if anyone else is interested, is that a 30mm radiator plus 25mm fans would fit in the top using the Ripjaws RAM. The slope is shallow enough that it doesn't interfere with the RAM even at that full width. Which is great, because as I was planning out a full custom loop in this case I thought I'd have to resort to slim fans or a slim XSPC TX240 radiator. Neither of these is necessary!
Lastly, using some very simple overclocking (Intel Performance Maximizer, MSI Afterburner OC Scan, and the standard XMP profile), I hit these performance numbers:
For reference, my prior rig hit just UNDER NINE THOUSAAAND. (sorry)
So overall, very happy with how the build turned out. Under a CPU stress test, I can indeed hear the AIO spin up (I have the Celsius S24 set to "PWM" mode, not Auto) and it's audible, but during most normal loads it's extremely quiet, probably quieter than anything else in the house making random noise. And temperatures are great - 77 degrees under Prime95 small FFT on the CPU, and the GPU never hits 70 degrees under Furmark, although I do have a custom fan curve.
Now, using my old motherboard, CPU, and RAM, it's on to my next project, rebuilding my home server:
Build log forthcoming...
