SKTC Q1 - 8700 + RTX2070

[Scrawl]

Hi all,

New to forum and wanted to share my progress on my first ITX build. Pretty exciting for me as I've been gaming on Sandy bridge integrated graphics for the past couple of years after the GPUs in my laptop gradually died.

Criteria while selecting parts:

• Smallish footprint on the desk.
• No overclocking (that's a rabbit hole I don't have the time to fall into any more)
  
• Silent, except when gaming, rendering or encoding.
• Black as midnight

If time permits, there's a few customizations I have in mind, though not sure if I'll get to them at this stage.

Parts:

• SKTC Q1 Enclosure (190x240x275)
• MSI B360I Gaming Pro AC motherboard
• 2x8GB Kingston HyperX DDR4 2666 CL16 RAM
• Intel I7 8700
• Arctic F12 PWM/PST fans
• Inno3D RTX2070 Twin X2
• Corsair SF450
• CPU Cooler to be decided
• SSD, storage to be decided

When I first started planning this project, the SKTC Q1 wasn't my first choice. I was aiming for a 4L case like a Loli/K49/M41 but in the end got scared off because I wasn't sure if the I7 and RTX2070 would cope with limited ventilation. Would have loved an Ncase M1 but I already splurged on the GPU. Plus it's cheap. For USD36, it's a surprisingly well made enclosure.

The obligatory test everything outside of the Case first. The motherboard only has two fan headers. One of the fans is an Arctic F12 PST. This has an additional female connector to allow daisy chaining additional fans.

I couldn't find much info about this GPU online, so took a gamble when buying. It's a cheaper RTX2070 with a simple 4 pipe cooler. No additional cooling on the memory. The main attraction was the 196mm length, though I'm not sure how much this will impact overall temperatures yet. The fans do stop when the the GPU is idle.

A quick test fit. About this time I started watching Youtube videos on making custom PSU cables. Thinking about giving it a go. Some white silicon cables would suit the theme.

Everything installed and ready for some initial noise/temperature testing. More to come.

 

[CC Ricers]

You bought the short Inno3D RTX 2070, neat! Where'd you get it from? Can't wait to see the build completely done when you get a new CPU cooler.

 

[tinyitx]

The top pic seems to show a black case while the bottom one shows a silver one?
I also would like to see a better CPU cooler. Granted that the stock Intel cooler might cool a non-overclokced i7 8700 non-k well. But the fan noise might not be desirable.
And, as both the GPU and CPU exhaust inside the case and I would really be interested to see the thermals.

 

[Scrawl]

You bought the short Inno3D RTX 2070, neat! Where'd you get it from?

A shop on Taobao. They only became available in the last week or so.

The top pic seems to show a black case while the bottom one shows a silver one?
I also would like to see a better CPU cooler. Granted that the stock Intel cooler might cool a non-overclokced i7 8700 non-k well. But the fan noise might not be desirable.

It's a black case. The photo was taken in bad lighting.

I was all set on the Cryorig H7 to match the black/white theme, until I discovered it mounts from the back. Would be impossible to connect the cables with the cooler installed first. So now researching some front mounting coolers. Or drilling some holes in the back of the case.

Re stress testing: Everyone still using Prime95 for CPU, Heaven/Valley for GPU these days?

Oddly enough, the GPU came with a leaflet stating using "power virus" apps (Furmark I guess) will void the warranty. I thought modern day GPUs had all sorts of protection to prevent against damage.

 

[rfarmer]

Question for you @Scrawl, I have a MI-6 which has 193mm for GPU clearance. Several MI-6 users are curious if the Inno3d would actually fit in the case but it is difficult to find pictures that show the card from different angles. Is the PCB the same length as the fan shroud or is the shroud actually any longer?

 

[Scrawl]

I hope this photo helps. ~196mm long (not including the PCIE bracket).

 

[rfarmer]

Thanks.

 

[Scrawl]

I spent the evening running some benchmarks, looping Unigine Valley and and playing a bit of Witcher 3.

• All BIOS settings are at defaults, except for some fan curve adjustments to only turn on the fans once the CPU hits 55 degrees.
• All tests run at 1080P
• Ambient temperature was 25-26 degrees.

Spoiler: GPU-Z Screenshot

Spoiler: 3D Mark timespy - 8349

Spoiler: Unigine Valley Benchmark - 4822

Observations:

• When idle, the GPU temp is ~42°C with all fans off. CPU with stock cooler is ~38-40°C.
• After one hour of Unigine Valley, GPU Core is ~1785mhz, fans run ~67% (2358 RPM). GPU Temp ~70-71°C.
• After twenty minutes of Witcher 3, the GPU held at a very steady 1845mhz at 68°C. Fans ran slightly slower at 65% (2267 RPM)
• CPU temps in both Valley and Witcher 3 was ~65-67°C
• At 2358 RPM, I was expecting the Inno3D GPU fans to be much more annoying. To be clear, they are far from silent, but it's more of a "whoosh" than a "whine".
• Coil whine is definitely noticeable when the GPU is on load, but absolutely silent when idle / video playback / browsing.
• The PC on the whole is quite loud on load. The most obnoxious fan is the stock Intel CPU, followed by the three Arctic F12s.

 

[Scrawl]

Last night saw the transfer of my current laptop's 500GB Samsung 850 Evo SATA SSD to the new PC, along with a fresh install of Windows. My initial plan was to pick up an M.2 drive but I'm a little wary of airflow and the front M.2 slot being positioned directly above the southbridge heatsink. Need to investigate further.

On the CPU cooler front, I'm leaning towards the Cryorig H7. It appears to offer good bang for buck, plus compliments the black and white theme of the other parts.

However, there are a couple of issues which I'm aware of:

The CPU socket on the MSI B360i Gaming Pro AC doesn't align with the motherboard tray cutout. This blocks access to the lower mounting holes and since the H7 mounts from the back, installation and cable routing is going to be painful.

Furthermore, the motherboard standoffs are 5mm tall, so there isn't a whole lot of space back there. I'll need to confirm if the Cryorig backplate and nut will fit.

Finally, there are several small PCB components (marked in red, plus a few in the top left which I missed) situated around the socket which will interfere with the H7 backplate (marked in yellow).

Most of them are small and low, so I'm hoping removing some material from the backplate will suffice.

 

[Scrawl]

I ended up deciding against the Cryorig H7 for a few reasons:

• Installing/removing the cooler from the rear of the motherboard felt inconvenient
• I would have to drill holes in the motherboard tray in order to access the backplate screws
• The backplate would have to be potentially modified due to interference with some of the motherboard components.

I ended up buying the Thermalright TA120:

I believe it's a new model as it isn't listed on Thermalright's website yet.

• 120 x 42 x 158mm
• 5x 6mm heat pipes
• Soldered nickel plated copper base.
• 49x 0.4mm fins with 2mm gap.
• Weight: 430g (570g with fan)
• 6 year warranty

The fan is marked as a TY-121 with the following features:

• Weight: 140g
• Speed: 600-1800RPM
• Noise: 19-25DBA
• Airflow: 25.76 - 77.28CFM
• Air Pressure: 0.30 - 2.72mm H2O
• Ampere: 0.25A
• Sleeved cable

Great mirror finish on the base:

The particular attraction for me was the mounting mechanism. The back plate has a small footprint and is raised off the motherboard. It also came bundled with a tube of Thermalright TF4 grease. Hopefully it will prove easy to install in a confined space.

Next step is to do some testing with the stock Intel heatsink prior to installing the new one.

 

[Scrawl]

Installation of the Thermalright TA-120 was a breeze with no scary moments.

First goes on the rear mounting bracket. It sits a few mm above the motherboard, so no intereference with any of the small resistors located near the socket. It's a heavy chunk of steel, no chance of flex.

Then we need to flip over the motherboard over and attach four steel spacers. Notice the plastic washer built into the spacer.

Next a top bracket is secured with four lugs which simply screw on by hand. By now the motherboard has gained some serious heft.

A quick test fit outside the case. There is some foam padding between the fan and heatsink. The fan also has four additional rubber corners which are not seen in this photo. Fixing the heatsink to the bracket is accomplished through two screws.

And finally installed inside the case with 2mm to spare.

When idle, the PC is no quieter than when compared to the stock cooler. Long encodes in Handbrake and Blender seem to max out at 65°C (65°C ambient). It's not quiet once the fans spin up, but a different kind of noise when compared to the stock cooler, more 'whooshy' than 'whiny'.

Plan to analyze in more detail in XTU next.

 

[Scrawl]

I started noticing some power limit throttling during video encodes and 3D rendering:

The MSI B360 Gaming Pro AC has a PL1 Limit (Turbo Boost Power Max) of 95W. Applying a -0.135V core voltage offset via a powershell script keeps the system well under the threshold and as a bonus, 8°C cooler.