Small form factor gaming - build log and support forum for new builders

[cvaldes]

Who the hell puts that many radiators in their case? Are they running a render farm with the cpu, RAM, and 4 graphics cards all overclocked?

Based on photos of custom builds, very few people do this.

I think many people have the habit of overstating the number of PC DIY builders who do really weird stuff.

If you ran a render farm, you'd shove the machine in a climate controlled server room and just close the door.

Some people come up with some wildly unrealistic scenarios. Sure there are a handful of nutjobs out there but you'd have to be equally bonkers to follow those people.

 

[Valantar]

Based on photos of custom builds, very few people do this.

I think many people have the habit of overstating the number of PC DIY builders who do really weird stuff.

If you ran a render farm, you'd shove the machine in a climate controlled server room and just close the door.

Some people come up with some wildly unrealistic scenarios. Sure there are a handful of nutjobs out there but you'd have to be equally bonkers to follow those people.

I mean, the hyperbole in what I said should be obvious, but finding huge dual-loop setups with at least 2x360mm for a single CPU and GPU isn't very hard.

 

[cvaldes]

A lot of that silliness is for looks presumably.

I have a 360mm radiator (ultraslim 20mm thickness) for my Ryzen 5900X and a 360mm radiator (ordinary 30mm thick) for my TUF Gaming GeForce 3080 OC on a single loop driven by the entry-level Phobya pump. The CPU maxes out at 52 °C at 955 rpm fan speed (65% of max fan revolutions). The GPU maxes out at 56 °C at 1150 rpm (77% of max fan revolutions). That's in the fine Lian Li O11D Mini case.

In a second build (NZXT H210) I have a 120mm radiator on the Ryzen 5600X and a 240mm radiator on the GeForce 2070 SUPER. That build's fans are more audible because of the smaller radiators but it's still enough for adequate cooling performance. The CPU and GPU top out at 56 °C and 52 °C respectively.

In both builds the coolant temperature maxes out at 44 °C when it exits the GPU right before it enters the GPU radiator. While idling, the coolant temperature is about 2 °C above ambient.

Apart from enabling PBO I don't overclock either Zen 3 CPU and there's little to be gained by overclocking the 3080. A lot of today's silicon is already designed to use much of the usable performance envelope during boost. I have a 5-7% overclock on the 2070 SUPER (some games show artifacts when I apply the higher profile).

 

[AusWolf]

HTPC upgrade!

As I still have my AMD motherboard with the R3 3100 and the Aerocool case lying around, I decided to make it work again, and probably say goodbye to my Ivy Bridge i7 HTPC. The only thing I needed was a GPU and some RAM. The latter is easy, a single 8 GB 3200 MHz stick will do the job. I know, I know, single channel ram anno 2021 is pretty cringeworthy. The thing is, as an HTPC, its main task will be watching movies on the TV. For this you need: 1. a GPU with hardware decode capabilities, and 2. a strong enough CPU to decode whatever the GPU can't. RAM speed is not an issue here.

My main choice of store, Scan.co.uk only seems to be selling Corsair RAM lately, so that's done: a single stick of 8 GB Vengeance LPX 3200 MHz.

As for the GPU, I'm always hunting for interesting specimens, so I naturally didn't want a generic whatever. The criteria here are: HDMI 2.0 but at least 1.4 (c'mon, it's 2021 already), low-profile with an included bracket to fit the CS-101, and it doesn't hurt if it's as small as possible, with as little power consumption as possible. So then, my choice fell on this:

A GT 710 that fits into my palm! No-brainer, had to buy it. It also has a physical PCI-e x8 connector (all GT 710s connect through x8 wiring, but this one has an actual x8 plug). I tried to think why, as no motherboard I know has an x8 slot that would necessitate such a construction, but I think it's mostly cost-cutting on EVGA's side with the smaller PCB more than anything else. It's still interesting, though.

The old system is a Core i7-3770T + random Corsair H55 for some reason, random MSi H61 mini-ITX board, 2x 4 GB RAM and a passively cooled Palit GTX 1050 Ti that I'm going to keep as a spare, and also because it's a unique piece of tech. All in a Coolermaster Elite 110A mini-ITX box.

The new system is in my signature. Pics follow:

Edit: Future upgrade plans include a GPU with HDMI 2.0 to be able to watch 4K 60 Hz (it's gonna be 4K 30 Hz for now) and some more storage. Unfortunately, GT 1030s are still too expensive for a secondary build, and the new Ryzen APUs aren't gonna be cheap, either.

 

[tabascosauz]

@AusWolf if nothing else, x8 makes for a very interesting card

Isn't the 5600G supposed to be $250 though? Shouldn't hurt to wait and see what it's like. Only 2 more days, hopefully there won't be any bizarre availability issues and I'll be doing some direct comparisons to the 4650G. I'm counting on HWUB's [arrogant] pessimistic reporting to turn people away so they stop interfering with my ability to pick one up

 

[dgianstefani]

You don't need to compromise on low wattage parts in an SFF build. I have a 13.8L sm570 with an overclocked 5950x and 3080 in it, both liquid cooled with temps in the 60s.

It's quiet too.

 

[AusWolf]

You don't need to compromise on low wattage parts in an SFF build. I have a 13.8L sm570 with an overclocked 5950x and 3080 in it, both liquid cooled with temps in the 60s.

It's quiet too.

View attachment 211093

I'm not compromising. My main build is a liquid cooled Core i7-11700 with no power limits and a 2070 in a Corsair 280X, temps in the low 70s for both.

Saving on parts and power with the HTPC is more about trying not to pay for something I don't need.

@AusWolf if nothing else, x8 makes for a very interesting card

Definitely.

Isn't the 5600G supposed to be $250 though? Shouldn't hurt to wait and see what it's like. Only 2 more days, hopefully there won't be any bizarre availability issues and I'll be doing some direct comparisons to the 4650G. I'm counting HWUB's [arrogant] pessimistic reporting to turn people away so they stop interfering with my ability to pick one up

Still a bit steep for a secondary rig. My R3 3100 cost me £90 when it was new, and the small 710 was £35. Shame the 5300G isn't coming for DIY.

 

[Valantar]

I'm not compromising. My main build is a liquid cooled Core i7-11700 with no power limits and a 2070 in a Corsair 280X, temps in the low 70s for both.

Saving on parts and power with the HTPC is more about trying not to pay for something I don't need.


Definitely.


Still a bit steep for a secondary rig. My R3 3100 cost me £90 when it was new, and the small 710 was £35. Shame the 5300G isn't coming for DIY.

You'll likely still be able to find gray market 5300Gs at decent prices. Or maybe a used pre-built with a 4000-series APU you can scavenge? That ought to be a very good solution, including HDMI 2.1 support up to 4k60 (no 120Hz on the APUs without 4:2:2 (or was it 4:2:0?) chroma subsampling sadly).

 

[AusWolf]

You'll likely still be able to find gray market 5300Gs at decent prices. Or maybe a used pre-built with a 4000-series APU you can scavenge? That ought to be a very good solution, including HDMI 2.1 support up to 4k60 (no 120Hz on the APUs without 4:2:2 (or was it 4:2:0?) chroma subsampling sadly).

I've thought about that too. I don't have spare cash for more parts at the moment, so we'll see what ebay drops in my way in the future.

Speaking of 4K and chroma subsampling... I've just realised that the 710 is actually capable of 4K 60 Hz with 4:2:0. So far, I can't see any difference on the Windows desktop, but I'll have to test it with a movie later. If there's still no perceivable difference, I might as well just leave it at that.

 

[Valantar]

I've thought about that too. I don't have spare cash for more parts at the moment, so we'll see what ebay drops in my way in the future.

Speaking of 4K and chroma subsampling... I've just realised that the 710 is actually capable of 4K 60 Hz with 4:2:0. So far, I can't see any difference on the Windows desktop, but I'll have to test it with a movie later. If there's still no perceivable difference, I might as well just leave it at that.

I honestly didn't see much of a difference on my TV with subsampling, and gaming at 4k120 FreeSync (even at much, much lower render resolutions) is pretty awesome. IIRC I did spot some oddities that made me switch back though - it might have been the impossibility of HDR at that quality.

 

[AusWolf]

A small change:

I upgraded my fans to 2x 14 cm be quiet! Silent Wings 3 and 2x Silent Wings 3 High Speed units. First, I tried them with the configuration (badly) illustrated on the left for a positive pressure setup. The results were okay. No noticeable difference in cooling, but extreme silence, as the SW3 fans spin at around 350 RPM at their lowest speed, while their high speed counterparts spin at 600.

Then I had an idea. As air has to travel a longer distance at the lower back part of the case with no fans nearby than in the top front corner where basically two fans are fighting against each other, why not use the high speed fans to push and pull air across the case, and leave the normal ones for the top front corner? This idea of mine seemed to be validated by the fact that the back exhaust fan's airflow was always warmer than that of the front. Therefore, I swapped the fans into the position in the right drawing. The results: a weird looking PC with case fans spinning at different speeds, but also a 3 °C cooler GPU.

 

[AusWolf]

It's been a while since the last update. Only minor changes this time, regarding the cooling and storage.

Cooling: I bought a be quiet! Silent Loop 2 280 mm AIO. It's whisper quiet and cools like crazy! With a 200 W load on my CPU in Prime 95, it barely touches 90 °C. In Cinebench, the 11700 "only" needs around 165-170 W max, which gets it up to 75-77 °C. I've managed to squeeze in 2x 140 mm Silent Wings 3 fans as front intake. This is the only config the Corsair 280X case allows, despite the official documentation stating that a 280 mm AIO is fine at the front. Nope. It's not. Never mind, at least my GPU gets some nice fresh air instead of exhaust from the radiator.

Storage: I bought a PCI-e to M.2 adapter, so all my internal drives are nvme now. I've got a Crucial P5 Plus in the PCI-e 4.0 M.2 slot under the motherboard's heatsink, a normal P5 in the 3.0 M.2 under the GPU, and I'm using a cheap, discounted P2 in the adapter as boot drive. I know, I know... it's the slowest of the bunch, but with me booting up Windows maybe once a day, I couldn't care less if it takes 10 seconds instead of 8. Game drive speed matters more anno 2022 in my opinion. I also don't mind its low endurance rating because 1. it was dirt cheap, and 2. with the adapter, swapping it out couldn't be easier.

Pics with different drives, just for the sake of testing:

 

[kiakk]

HI! I see your one of your current PCs:
HTPC2: MSi H81I | Intel Core i7-4765T | 2x 4 GB HyperX Fury Beast DDR3-1600 | ASUS GeForce GT 1030 | 512 GB ADATA SU900 | be quiet! SFX Power 3 300 W | SilverStone Milo ML09

Have you checked the power usage with a plug-in power meter? I am curious about that how much of power does it need in idle, browsing, youtube 1080p60fps/1440p60fps.
Can you "benchmark" it?

 

[AusWolf]

HI! I see your one of your current PCs:
HTPC2: MSi H81I | Intel Core i7-4765T | 2x 4 GB HyperX Fury Beast DDR3-1600 | ASUS GeForce GT 1030 | 512 GB ADATA SU900 | be quiet! SFX Power 3 300 W | SilverStone Milo ML09

Have you checked the power usage with a plug-in power meter? I am curious about that how much of power does it need in idle, browsing, youtube 1080p60fps/1440p60fps.
Can you "benchmark" it?

Sure, no worries. I have a power meter somewhere, I just have to find it. Though it's worth adding that the GT 1030 eats about 30 Watts at peak, while the little i7 has a hard limit of 35 W baked into it.

 

[Valantar]

That build should be well below 100W no matter what you throw at it - depending on the game it might not even exceed 50W before PSU losses. It'd be interesting to see how it compares (both in power consumption and performance) against my haswell travel system (i5-4670T+RX 6600), which is probably closer to 150W while gaming.

 

[Lei]

@AusWolf
This is my case. Very mini.

Pic taken on May 22 2020
I added another column on the far side, so the support behind motherboard is a square. I use a copper sheet for back and top panel. And that L thing in front was removed in the final stage.

 

[AusWolf]

That build should be well below 100W no matter what you throw at it - depending on the game it might not even exceed 50W before PSU losses. It'd be interesting to see how it compares (both in power consumption and performance) against my haswell travel system (i5-4670T+RX 6600), which is probably closer to 150W while gaming.

By my estimation, it must be sipping 60-70 Watts at full load, but it'll be interesting to see what it needs when idle. My guess is around 20 Watts.

Fun fact: it runs Nascar Heat 5 at 1080p with full graphics at 40-50 fps. Who said low power gaming was dead?

 

[Valantar]

By my estimation, it must be sipping 60-70 Watts at full load, but it'll be interesting to see what it needs when idle. My guess is around 20 Watts.

Fun fact: it runs Nascar Heat 5 at 1080p with full graphics at 40-50 fps. Who said low power gaming was dead?

I'm looking forward to having some more free time in the coming weeks, as I really want to do some UC testing of the 6600. And I need to get my hands on a wall power meter I guess - given that it tends to sit around 2.4GHz at its stock 100W limit (which seems to be GPU only, as the TBP is supposedly 132, but it's the only power number reported by the card, so it's a bit odd), I'm very curious as to how it would do at, say, 1.5-2GHz, and what power consumption would be like. It's too bad I'm limited to just a -6% power limit through Wattman, as it would have been better to do this through power limits than through direct underclocking, but hopefully I'll still find stable settings.

 

[AusWolf]

I'm looking forward to having some more free time in the coming weeks, as I really want to do some UC testing of the 6600. And I need to get my hands on a wall power meter I guess - given that it tends to sit around 2.4GHz at its stock 100W limit (which seems to be GPU only, as the TBP is supposedly 132, but it's the only power number reported by the card, so it's a bit odd), I'm very curious as to how it would do at, say, 1.5-2GHz, and what power consumption would be like. It's too bad I'm limited to just a -6% power limit through Wattman, as it would have been better to do this through power limits than through direct underclocking, but hopefully I'll still find stable settings.

Yes, AMD measures GPU only power consumption - the rest of the card is a wild guess at best. I'm not sure if I like this, or Nvidia's approach better.

 

[Valantar]

Yes, AMD measures GPU only power consumption - the rest of the card is a wild guess at best. I'm not sure if I like this, or Nvidia's approach better.

Yeah, it's rather weird - the VRM controller must be able to read out every rail, and HWinfo does seem to have listings for things that estimate total board power, but they're essentially identical to the chip power number. I would definitely prefer to have both.

 

[kiakk]

Sure, no worries. I have a power meter somewhere, I just have to find it. Though it's worth adding that the GT 1030 eats about 30 Watts at peak, while the little i7 has a hard limit of 35 W baked into it.

Thank you! I do not need much power, because I play relatively low spec games, so I thought my PC is OP for them. I am thinking about shrinking down my PC power.

That build should be well below 100W.

I know. But I whould like to know the exact values. My Optimized PC consumes 115W avg. from the wall, during Tomb Radier (2013) max settings (1080p) with 72 fps avg. Paladins with 120fps limit, custom settings (low and max mixed) @ 70-85 watt depends on the scene.
Full idle desktop is around 28-32 watt depends on my HDDs is on or sleep.
Youtube 60fps full screen (Peru 8k hdr 60 fps, HDR OFF)
1080p @ 34 - 41 watt
1440p 35-44 watt
2160p 39 - 50 watt
Starts youtube playing the PC do not set the correct power management for the first 15-20 sec so this period the PC consumes much more power. For example: 4K up to 70 watt. After the first 15-20 sec. the power goes down to between 39 and 50 watt, with around 44 watt avg.

I'm looking forward to having some more free time in the coming weeks, as I really want to do some UC testing of the 6600. And I need to get my hands on a wall power meter I guess - given that it tends to sit around 2.4GHz at its stock 100W limit (which seems to be GPU only, as the TBP is supposedly 132, but it's the only power number reported by the card, so it's a bit odd), I'm very curious as to how it would do at, say, 1.5-2GHz, and what power consumption would be like. It's too bad I'm limited to just a -6% power limit through Wattman, as it would have been better to do this through power limits than through direct underclocking, but hopefully I'll still find stable settings.

I am waiting for the results. RX 6600 / RX 6600 XT are the best efficient GPUs in the market currently. Youtuber tech yes city made an undervolt video with 6600 (RX 6600 undervolt result)

 

[AusWolf]

I'm checking in with a complete system overhaul this time - it'll have to be the last one for a while because 1. it's quite overkill for my needs, and 2. my PC room is already full of unused stuff, and I literally don't have space for anything else.

Long story short, so many people are crying about Zen 4 that I got tempted to try it. A friend of mine said that he wants a light gaming PC for his daughter, so I thought about giving one of my HTPCs to him, and re-purposing my Core i7 11700 main rig as the new HTPC / mini gaming station for the living room. This plan gave me a reason (besides curiosity) to give Zen 4 a go.

The new specs are as such:

• MSi Pro B650M-A Wifi motherboard - I was torn between this and the Asus TUF Gaming B650M-Plus Wifi, but I chose the MSi because the Asus was only available as pre-order (and I also wanted a break from all the gamery bling).
• Ryzen 7 7700X - cooled by my trusty be quiet! Silent Loop 2, totally fine for my needs.
• a 32 GB 6000 MHz Corsair Vengeance EXPO kit - no RGB, no bling-bling, no fuss.
• Radeon RX 6750 XT reference model - I got it for the same price as a 6700 XT, which is about £100 cheaper than other 6750 XT models.
• Everything else stayed the same: 2x 1 TB nvme SSDs, a Seasonic Prime 750 W Gold PSU, and the Corsair 280X case which I changed later (more about it below).

First reactions:

• The reference 6750 XT isn't only the most beautiful GPU I've ever owned, bot also the hottest one. 80+ °C core temp and 100-105 °C hotspot temp are normal. Luckily, I only have a 60 Hz display, so a 60 FPS cap can do wonders on a monster card like this one.
• As I thought, the 7700X can easily be tamed by adjusting the PPT (power target). Around 100-120 W seems to be the sweet spot for my setup. If I let it run wild, the 280 mm AIO is just about enough to max out its 142 W default PPT at 95 °C. Decreasing PPT to 100 makes me lose about 500 points in Cinebench, but the CPU never exceeds 80 °C in return.
• Either the MSi motherboard, or the early AGESA version has its quirks. I've never experienced the several minute-long first boot time that others speak of, but when I start the system cold, it tends to hang up, and I have to turn it off and on again, then everything is fine. I was told in another topic that the high automatic SoC voltage might cause this - I'll have to do some more testing to confirm.
• Airflow in the Corsair 280X case is crap. It's an awesome-looking case, but it clearly wasn't designed to be used with parts with such high heat output. I decided that after spending so much for a system upgrade, spending a little bit more for a new case won't kill me, so I ordered a relatively dirt cheap Kolink Citadel Mesh which arrived yesterday. I did the case swap today, and I can confirm that it isn't only miles better in the airflow department, but also easier to install, and its paint quality is better, too. The Corsair's paint chipped away at the case fan mounts which is quite unexpected from such an expensive case. The cheap little Kolink really beats it all around.

And now, some pics of the final setup:

The "Radeon" logo on the 6750 XT has a constant red glow, so I chose a red light on the AIO pump. What I especially like about it is that I don't need MSi's crapware running for RGB controls. I only need to set it one time, then I can uninstall it. I couldn't do this with my Asus TUF Intel board before - it reset itself to rainbow puke mode at every restart and didn't change to my setting until I logged into Windows.

 

[tabascosauz]

Is there room to undervolt the 6750XT in wattman or something? It's a bit of a hungry GPU in the lineup (funny enough the exact same position the 3070 Ti finds itself in), but it's also got a beefy cooler.

As for airflow, it might help if you run push pull. Right now you're just heating up everything in your case incl GPU through either warm AIO exhaust or lack of airflow. I ran my 5900X on a push-only intake 280x45 rad and thermals everywhere were unacceptable. Final setup was push-pull on the rad when I put the GPU in the loop, and RAM/board/drive temps were much better - even though none of the wattage was being immediately exhausted from the case. For intake rads you really need that extra set of fans to provide any real airflow to other stuff in the case.

Or ideally just setting up the rad as exhaust will help everything else massively. A lower front fan is that GPU's lifeline. Be Quiet is probably not my first choice for rad fans

 

[AusWolf]

Is there room to undervolt the 6750XT in wattman or something? It's a bit of a hungry GPU in the lineup (funny enough the exact same position the 3070 Ti finds itself in), but it's also got a beefy cooler.

I've tried, but -50 mV already makes it unstable. An undervolt+underclock combo might be better, but that will need some trial and error. As long as the 60 FPS cap works, I'm fine.

As for airflow, it might help if you run push pull. Right now you're just heating up everything in your case incl GPU through either warm AIO exhaust or lack of airflow. I ran my 5900X on a push-only intake 280x45 rad and thermals everywhere were unacceptable. Final setup was push-pull on the rad when I put the GPU in the loop, and RAM/board/drive temps were much better - even though none of the wattage was being immediately exhausted from the case. For intake rads you really need that extra set of fans to provide any real airflow to other stuff in the case.

Or ideally just setting up the rad as exhaust will help everything else massively. A lower front fan is that GPU's lifeline.

Funny enough, I had the rad as exhaust in the Corsair case, but the GPU is already cooler and quieter in this one, even with the rad as intake. I would use it as exhaust here, too, but it's just a tad longer than it needs to be to fit on the top of the case.

 

[AusWolf]

I've just finished upgrading my HTPC into a mini gaming station.

I'll provide updates in the next couple of days (or maybe weeks - Christmas is upon us), but here are the basics of it:

• I needed the system to fit into a 35x35x42 cm Ikea cube unit, and it had to be micro-ATX due to my motherboard, so my choice of case fell onto the Silverstone Sugo SG11.
• I am selling everything from my old HTPC, but I've got parts left from a main PC upgrade, so I'm using them for this one:
  • An Asus TUF Gaming B560M-Plus WiFi motherboard,
  • A Core i7-11700 (with factory power limits enabled due to the small volume of airflow), cooled by a be quiet! Shadow Rock LP,
  • 4x 4 GB basic DDR4,
  • The star of the build: an Evga RTX 2070,
  • Some nvme SSD I had laying around,
  • A 500 W Seasonic Core Gold PSU - I know it's not their best series, but for the low power i7 and the 2070 at stock speeds, it'll do.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the building process, and the case is a nightmare to take apart (I even cut my thumb on the top/side panel). I hope to correct this mistake and offer some visuals of the finished build at least, but I'll definitely post updates on how the system performs later, once I get around to installing Windows on it, which will be difficult with the missus being home for the festive period, and watching TV.