Trying to work out a case layout...

[Thehack]

Ah, so all the PSU connectors for ATX-spec ones are Molex designed? (Both the input and outputs?)
I'll try searching through their website, haven't been on it before but shouldn't be too tricky.

ATX uses the molex mini fit jr. Some connectors are specific to the ATX standard and some connectors are just standard molex ones. The 6/8 circuit ATX ones are different than molex standard ones.

And you can't use the term input and output when talking about connectors. It is male and female. Input and output is relative to the component you're talking about.

 

[LjSpike]

ATX uses the molex mini fit jr. Some connectors are specific to the ATX standard and some connectors are just standard molex ones. The 6/8 circuit ATX ones are different than molex standard ones.

And you can't use the term input and output when talking about connectors. It is male and female. Input and output is relative to the component you're talking about.

Input = Power goes into the PSU
Output = Power goes out of the PSU (to the motherboard, and other components)
People are unlikely to miss say, all female connectors, but are more likely to miss the input connectors. I can say input and output when talking about connectors, it just has a different meaning to female and male, relating to their position in the circuit rather than their shape.

That said, thank you for the information, it'll prove quite useful in sorting out the design.

 

[LjSpike]

Alas! I do think I have all the specs put in that I need. May double check screw positions on drives, along with checking out different types of screws, but I've got stuff nailed down pretty nicely.

Edit: A back panel for I/O of Mobo, GPU etc to go through. That's what I need to check up, could custom-make, but could alternatively buy stock one?

 

[LjSpike]

Just a little concept of what the outside may look like. On the right side of the case I can't put fans as it'll be against a wall there, roughly 100mm gap at the back of case between wall and case. I'm thinking of 2x 140mm fans for intakes at the front (quite tempted by ThermalTake Riing Fans as there is an RGB 3-Pack of them for a reasonable ~£30 price). I'll almost certainly fit an exhaust on the back, I have to decide on if I want more than just 3 fans total. It'll be running a Kaby Lake (somewhere between G4560 and the non-overclockable i3's to save money), a RX480 (either 4GB or 8GB, probably ASUS ones as they seem best value currently). I'll be pulling the 2 SSD's out my current PC, and adding in a nice 3TB toshiba HDD. Unsure if I'd get a CPU cooler, or use stock...

I don't think I'll need more cooling than 3 fans in total (after all, my potato of a pc currently works off 1 single exhaust fan), but if someone happens to know contrary, then do tell.

 

[LjSpike]

Toying with layouts for stuff on front. Slim-slot load 5.25" optical drive I'm quite tempted by. 4 USB's might be a bit much though

I might move the USB's to the other side too, and then put the headphone jack where the USB's currently are.

I'm curious how many headphone/microphone inputs a motherboard can take, it'd be quite nice to have a headphone connector, microphone connector, and combined connector. Would save me ever having to use splitters of any type ever again. I might work on the shape of the grill a bit more, Ii'm beginning to think a bit more rounded might be better... Not sure yet. I also need to position the power button, a little LED power indicator might be quite nice too.

If I do go for a non slim-slot-load optical drive, I'd quite like to be able to mount on a grill or to the front of it like the Bitfenix Neos case does, I'm curious how that case manages to mount it though, and the compatibility of such a system...
**EDIT: Added image for Bitfenix Neos**

It's a far nicer finish then just seeing a boring old CD/DVD drive, my current case even goes to the effort of a little spring-loaded door which opens and closes in sync with the dvd drive, which is obviously another option...

 

[LjSpike]

That's the beginnings to another design, a slightly more tame one. I quite liked the idea of having a relatively clean set of visible faces, but I can't go for one of those totally passive silent completely boxed in cases. I'm quite tempted by this solution though, I should be able to still feed through an optical drive, and some USB's or such I can sneak into the front, but rather than a visible grill on the front, the "inner front" (the bit behind that groove) can contain the intake for air, having a large area it can cover without affecting the visuals of the case. If I so choose too, I can always add in a bit of dramatic lighting from there too, either a few coloured LED's or some EL wire.

EDIT: Got round to the stage of having a position set down for where USB's and CD will go through. Cut a big hole for now in the design but I'll fill it in later. Got to work out the positions for the internal components. I want to be careful with positioning here so I can get some nice cooling without jet turbines. A little question would be how much SSD's and HDD's can be at risk of heating up, most cases have them right at the front so the intake fans blow directly onto them, so are they components that generate lots of heat?

 

[LjSpike]

Just done some rough positioning of parts, but I should have plenty of room to scale down.

I've got to work out the exact orientation of parts. (Noticed one thing, I made a little mistake in grabbing the wrong drives, grabbed 2x 3.5" and 1x 5.25" when I meant to grab 2 2.5" and 1 3.5" drive...) I feel like I've made a measurement error somewhere, as the motherboard feels a bit too small for a micro-ATX when in the case...I'm thinking mounting 1 SSD next to the motherboard behind the GPU, and I might be able to do a clever little set of L-shaped pieces of metal to hold the other SSD in a similar position, Then I can sort out the exact position of the one 3.5" drive, and the exact orientation of the PSU. Hopefully I could cut about 60mm, perhaps 70mm off the depth. Then I'd see about cutting down the height and/or width.

It's a real shame there aren't <400W TFX PSU's floating about in the market of trustworthy brands... I've only been able to find up to 350W, and that's a single SeaSonic model. I'll look into SFX size options too. Ideally I'd have a 500W model then I'd have plenty of power to spare. My other criteria for it are that It'd have to be a semi-modular or fully-modular one though, with at least 80+ Bronze certification and below £60 to buy and ship...

EDIT: Got a potential setup with 3.5" and 2.5" drives this time thrown together quickly

That'll be all for today. I'd love to push down the size a bit more, but I don't think I could realistically do that with the current components. It does offer plenty of CPU cooler room and 3.5" drive space if that is my final setup. I'll then fit the Slim-Slot-Load Optical Drive above everything else...
Conveniently I do have a fair bit of space with which fans could be mounted.

 

[SeñorDonut]

Looking good! I find 2 USB ports on my case to not be enough, and I'm going with at least 4 on my next. For mounting the mesh on the optical drive, you can probably just use super glue. If you want a small PSU, there's plenty of good SFX offerings (I have a Corsair SF600), I've seen some decent Flex ATX units, or you could even get a G-unique unit.

 

[LjSpike]

Looking good! I find 2 USB ports on my case to not be enough, and I'm going with at least 4 on my next. For mounting the mesh on the optical drive, you can probably just use super glue. If you want a small PSU, there's plenty of good SFX offerings (I have a Corsair SF600), I've seen some decent Flex ATX units, or you could even get a G-unique unit.

Ah, I'll look into that Corsair, what dimensions do Flex ATX usually conform to?

I've decided I might go for a slim-slot-load drive rather then one ejecting a bit to place the disk onto, but I'll beat in mind superglue if I do go for a normal one.

 

[stree]

Not keen on the graphics card either, notorious for drawing more than officially stated...........and overloading PCIE.......If you change this for something more efficient, then a chance of getting rid of the full size PSU as well. (glad you are going for a slim line slot loader!)
The PSU and GPU will both add unnecessary heat, that has to be got rid off, so more cooling, = more power etc etc.
See if a G-Unique could help you out here................Along with a more efficient GPU..........All makes for a smaller, cooler running enclosure....

 

[LjSpike]

Not keen on the graphics card either, notorious for drawing more than officially stated...........and overloading PCIE.......If you change this for something more efficient, then a chance of getting rid of the full size PSU as well. (glad you are going for a slim line slot loader!)
The PSU and GPU will both add unnecessary heat, that has to be got rid off, so more cooling, = more power etc etc.
See if a G-Unique could help you out here................Along with a more efficient GPU..........All makes for a smaller, cooler running enclosure....

GPU ain't gonna really change. It's comparable in performance to a GTX 1060 (it sits between the 3GB and 6GB versions in a vast array of benchmarks) but is notably cheaper. I am looking at some PSU alternatives, It'd be nice to get in at gold rating. It also seems the PCIE overloading issue with the RX480 isn't occurring anymore (essentially all articles mentioning it are from June/July 2016), the issue seemed to be only regarding the 6-Pin variants of RX480's too, whereas the Asus ones are 8-Pin which can be seen from the following bit of an image I extracted from an Amazon page selling them (sold directly from Amazon)

I'd made sure to double check if my GPU was going to be 6 or 8 pin so I knew what requirement I had to place on the PSU.

8-Pin versions use the connector in a less experimental way, so is electrically sound. A driver update also stopped any RX480's drawing to much power.


The use of a Kaby Lake CPU means I don't need to go quite so ridiculous with CPU cooling so I can cut down on noise (I'm also not going to be using an AIO Water loop, but rather just air cooling, so no pump noise). This combined with the fact that I do have a fair chunk of width, means if necessarily I can go a bit more heavy duty with fans, potentially I could even choose to simply plonk a Noctua Industrial fan, and those are about as powerful as you can get. From the looks of how dimensions are going, I should be able to comfortably fit in two 140mm fans in the front, and depending on final depth measurement I could always instead go for one larger diameter fan. My little panel on the front may also silence some of the noise, as it seems the sort of tactic a lot of silent cases go for.

To summarise, I should be able to put some big fans in, and switching out any of those components (aside from PSU) isn't really an option due to performance and budget constraints.

I do wonder if one might be able to mod a PSU by simply attaching some fins to the outside of the PSU casing (where there is no grill) to act as a heat spreader?

 

[stree]

Well balanced argument.............If PSU is negotiable, I would suggest a Seasonic unit, modular semi fanless or fanless. Higher the efficiency the better the outcome. I would not attempt to "mod" a PSU......

 

[LjSpike]

Well balanced argument.............If PSU is negotiable, I would suggest a Seasonic unit, modular semi fanless or fanless. Higher the efficiency the better the outcome. I would not attempt to "mod" a PSU......

PSU is negotiable along the following constraints:
Minimum of 400W, preferably 450W (or higher...)
At least 80+ Bronze
As small as possible (no larger than the more common ATX unit sizes, it'd be nice to get a good SFX one)
Must be semi modular (or modular, but I'm happy with semi).
Gotta be able to get it in the UK below £80, preferably in the £50 mark.

 

[SeñorDonut]

What dimensions do Flex ATX usually conform to?

 

[LjSpike]

Fan on one of the big sides then?
That could be very useful then if theres no drawbacks associated with FlexATX units. Mounting that on it's side so it has negligible height would work rather nicely indeed.

 

[SeñorDonut]

Fan on one of the big sides then?
That could be very useful then if theres no drawbacks associated with FlexATX units. Mounting that on it's side so it has negligible height would work rather nicely indeed.

No the fan usually blows towards the side that faces the rear of the case, where the AC in port is.

 

[stree]

I have one of these. ( not used now)
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seas...0w-80-plus-bronze-power-supply-ca-051-ss.html

 

[LjSpike]

I have one of these. ( not used now)
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seas...0w-80-plus-bronze-power-supply-ca-051-ss.html

I'm not really sure what benefits that'd yield over me going for the CX450M. It's got an extra 70 watts, sure, I guess you can call that a benefit. It's still only bronze efficiency though, and realistically I don't see much of a need for full modular support over just semi. I'm going to need some wires like the 24 pin and a pci-e so it doesn't matter if I can remove those wires as I would use them so wouldn't remove them...

Realistically actually, going for semi-modular in itself over non-modular is more just for looks, cable management has been proven in most case designs to not actually make any difference really. It only really becomes a problem in unusual cases where air can't really get in or out of the case easily...

 

[stree]

Same as benefits of a Mercedes over a Ford...and I thought you stipulated Bronze, or above?.As for a fully wired PSU being as airflow efficient as a PSU with modular options..............I think we are seeing different things here. Best leave you to get on with it......

 

[LjSpike]

Same as benefits of a Mercedes over a Ford...and I thought you stipulated Bronze, or above?.As for a fully wired PSU being as airflow efficient as a PSU with modular options..............I think we are seeing different things here. Best leave you to get on with it......

I did specify bronze or above, that says bronze as a minimum requirement, it doesn't make the benefits of the others unnecessary.
It's nice to have extra Watts, you always need some spare, 450W's does give that, however splashing out considerable amounts for that is unnecessary.

To point out one thing though, cable management has been proven to have no effect on cooling of normal cases, as shown by this video:
He not only proves that PSU cables won't have an effect, he stores a kettle, t-shirts and all the spare cables he had with that PC into the case to get no effect on cooling. Down-scaling size on at least one dimension is considerably beneficial too to allow compaction of the case.

Ranking of factors on cooling:
1) Efficiency (per watt)
1b) Fan performance, Internal Heat sink Size etc.
2) Position/setup in case
3) Room temperature