The SFF and Mini-ITX thread

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Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

They had a ces demo last year

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 01:20

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 00:53

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Anime Schoolgirl posted:

Only one vendor worth a poo poo selling small SFX PSUs with any capacity, namely Silverstone.

Given an hour to think about it, I think I should dehumanize myself and face to bloodshed and buy a case that supports SFX-L

Silverstone sfx are trash

Corsair does a 600w version

# ¿ Sep 28, 2016 13:34

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Bag of Sun Chips posted:

Tom's Hardware reviewed the SF450 and the SF600 and found the SF450 to be incredibly silent, even moreso than the SF600.

SF600:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/corsair-sf600-power-supply,4537-5.html

SF450:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/corsair-sf450-power-supply,4512-5.html

Very tempted to pull the trigger on the SF450 if that's the case. I've been meaning to finally ditch my ATX PSU so I can inevitably upgrade to an Ncase M1.

the Silverstone 600w has a weird rear end clicky fan and non-Japanese caps. Buy corsair!

# ¿ Sep 28, 2016 17:20

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

VulgarandStupid posted:

The Ncase guys are floating a new concept. It's basically a Dan Case A4 with an integrated handle. Seems a bit silly to me, but the best part of their design is they're trying to source a cheaper and better engineered PCIE riser card/cable.

https://hardforum.com/threads/project-sidearmd-undecided-ncase-project.1917978/

but the dancase PCIe extension is 3M's which is known to be amazingly good??? It can even do PCIe 4.0 which is pretty crazy

# ¿ Nov 24, 2016 23:07

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

VulgarandStupid posted:

SG13B

It is good and expensive but the way it's used, with the double axial turns, it forces the mounting port to be a certain distance away from the case's edge to accommodate the curve. What these guys are doing is including a small PCB which will let them relocate the turn and put it in a dimension that the space isn't as important in.

That little pcb is likely gonna gently caress up the high speed signalling unless they get a good designer

# ¿ Dec 1, 2016 17:54

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Col.Kiwi posted:

Seems quite possible, since PCIe riser cables other than the 3M one are notoriously janky. I kinda hope they do it right though because that is a cool idea. Well, the PCB riser thing to make a slightly thinner case is cool. Handles seem a bit silly to me especially on such a small case. Last time I went to a lan party I just carried my SG10 under one arm and my monitor under the other. It's way bigger but it was easy.

Its almost guaranteed. High speed RF signalling is a black art

# ¿ Dec 1, 2016 23:07

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Silverstone SFX PSUs are trash. Upgraded to corsair sf600 and it's blissfully silent. So much nicer.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 14:56

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

knox_harrington posted:

I really like this case. What PSU and graphics card are you going to stick in?

Just watched a few videos and it looks like you need a massive power brick if you want ~200W.

external DC-DC psus are cool and good, i would rather have a giant rear end power brick under my desk than on it

# ¿ Jan 29, 2017 17:41

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Zero VGS posted:

Here's a pic of my case with the power switch and HDPlex DC-DC installed, and the wrap around aluminum slab bezel removed:

One awesome thing I didn't realize is there is a cutout in the chassis for the GPU. The intent was if your GPU would just barely fit, you could remove the bezel and use that to help you slide the GPU in then back, and reattach the bezel.

I think what I might do however, is leave the bezel off. Then I could have a huge GPU sticking out of the case if I needed. Something like reference blower with backplate wouldn't be too vulnerable to damage. The bezel is some serious aluminum and weighs over a pound, so leaving it off makes sense if I mount this PC to the back of my monitor and still keep my Ergotron for being weighed down.

According to the guy who makes this case, you can buy VHT vinyl dye to recolor the PSU wires to anything else you want, and the dye actually soaks into the wiring to bond permanently: https://smile.amazon.com/VHT-SP942-Vinyl-Black-Satin/dp/B000CPIN9S

I already have an HDPlex PSU to go in it, that can do 400w peak and maintains 250-300w no problem. I have an external Dell brick that does 330w, or I can use a battery pack (I have one I can use for VR backpack purposes).

For GPU, I'm probably going to try out the Zotac GTX 1080 Mini, $610: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500414

Technically, the external brick would be the AC-DC converter, and the internal PSU is the HDPlex DC-DC converter.

I feel this combo is the way to go for SFF, for several reasons:

- External AC-DC brick sits out of sight on the floor, and doesn't contribute waste heat to the rest of the system

- Emerging technologies such as "wide-bandgap" semiconductors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide-bandgap_semiconductor are enabling much smaller and more efficient AC-DC converters, such as this 65w laptop charger: https://smile.amazon.com/FINsix-Smallest-Universal-Accessory-Lightweight/dp/B01KJ4DOOA so in time we could have 300+ watt AC-DC adapters that can fit in the case or be inline with the plug you'd need anyways

- You don't need the AC-DC converter at all if you have a suitable battery. This could be a battery pack (i.e. VR backpack) or if you're running the PC of your 12v car battery for example. The HDPlex doesn't seem to support 12v input though, which is too bad, but there's plenty of car-audio oriented Pico PSUs that do.

real world switching PSUs have multiple stages including dc-dc to bus voltage after PFC and rectification from mains. There's some Chinese made dc-dc supplies that can provide 500w with a modded brick.

Sic is already in use in high end PSUs (sic boost diodes) but gan is not even used in those finsix or avogy ( a goddamn fabless gan company) mini chargers because it's basically vaporware. High frequency switching = smaller supplies

Power electronics are the major thing keeping us from miniaturization. Most of the board space is wasted routing power and poo poo, look at how simple haswell made mobos after Intel went fivr.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2017 12:01

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

silence_kit posted:

Why do you say that? Gallium nitride is doing really well in the area of RF components. GaN is what is in white/blue LEDs and blue laser diodes. It is not vaporware--it is real technology.

Sure but there are dozens of gan power electronics companies and you can basically only get samples at best for the higher voltage stuff. Avogy couldn't even build a gan based charger, they had to use SiC MOSFETs.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 07:18

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

silence_kit posted:

Reading about this more, it is possible that GaN homo-epitaxially grown devices on the GaN wafers, which are needed to make the highest voltage and highest power devices might still not be ready for prime time. I'm not sure which is the harder technical problem--production of the bulk GaN wafer or the device engineering of the vertical GaN FETs.

Both white LEDs/blue lasers and GaN RF devices and chips are produced in different ways/use slightly different manufacturing technologies than what is needed for the highest power devices.

Gan on gan/sic is expensive, the big advance is gan on si so that you can use cheap processes and also get logic and power integration. Gan wafers are small and there's no scale from that commodity silicon processes

Blue led use gan on sapphire which is also relatively expensive compared to gan on si but I guess scale makes it ok and lattice mismatch is not as bad.

Idk about rf

The upshot to all this for sff systems is that high voltage gan power devices => faster switching smps=> much smaller and denser power supplies.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2017 15:52

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

silence_kit posted:

1. Malcolm XML claimed that the 65W dart charger probably doesn't have gallium nitride or silicon carbide devices in it. I have no clue whether that is true or not.

2. I do know that the power devices which have the highest breakdown voltages and conduct the largest currents are those of the 'vertical' type. I do not know enough about the subject to say where the line is drawn between the 'lateral' and 'vertical' semiconductor devices and in what applications you tend to use one type or the other type.

The point of my earlier post was to point out while there are gallium nitride semiconductor devices which exist today, the types of gallium nitride transistors needed to replace silicon transistors for use in the higher/highest power applications require development of new semiconductor device manufacturing technology.

Chip works did a teardown on the zolt and it uses a sic MOSFET. This is strange because avogy is a gan company. Your titanium PSU probably has a sic diode. Tom's has really detailed PSU reviews and is super good at picking apart the topology and parts.

Gan offers even better density but hasn't cracked the market yet.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2017 15:55

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Palladium posted:

So are these new fangled power electronics gonna fix the awful efficiency of current PSUs are around 30W DC and below?

Yeah but who gives a poo poo if it's like 1w in wasted power?

silence_kit posted:

GaN on Si is a specialty technology. It isn't like you can grow the GaN on the silicon and run that wafer through a silicon fab using the same manufacturing processes that you'd use for silicon devices. To make GaN on Si devices you'd need to run a special GaN on Si device/IC manufacturing plant.

You do get cost savings for using the cheaper silicon wafer (but I don't think just the plain wafer cost is that large fraction of device/IC cost, even for non-silicon semiconductor devices and ICs), and more importantly, you gain the ability to use IC/semi-conductor device manufacturing equipment which can handle larger wafer sizes, which helps lower device/IC production cost, since silicon wafers can be larger than other semi-conductor wafers.

GaN wafers are a newer technology. The reason why GaN metamorphically grown on Si, SiC, and sapphire are current technologies but not GaN homo-epitaxially grown on GaN is that bulk crystal growth of GaN can't be done in the same way as other semiconductors, like silicon, gallium arsenide, indium phosphide, and germanium, and isn't straightforward to do economically.

I bring up GaN wafers because for GaN devices to compete with silicon devices at the highest voltages and power levels, they will need to be 'vertical'-type devices. I think that GaN on SiC, sapphire, or silicon technologies cannot achieve 'vertical'-type devices because the hetero-interface between GaN and the dissimilar wafer is not a good conductor of electricity.

In addition, the GaN power transistors themselves, for the same power level, can be smaller than an equivalent silicon part.

This is why it is kind of tough to talk about cost. While it is unlikely that GaN on anything will ever be as low cost/area as silicon, the GaN devices are smaller themselves, and since they go to higher speeds for the same power levels, they enable smaller, cheaper inductors and capacitors. People don't care only about the device cost--they care about the entire power system cost, and GaN helps lower other costs in power converter systems.

The wafer size and type is a huge driver of cost-- sic and gan wafers are small and hard to create so using silicon as a substrate is really appealing. This means that you don't have a bom increase which helps offset the engineering you need to handle VHF switching in you power supply for tiny power supplies.

The gan power devices problem is that no one has been able to get devices to market even though you can see research projects with insane energy densities. That's why it's vaporware. You can actually buy SiC devices and they are used in real power supplies.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2017 03:44

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

FlyingCheese posted:

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=16388

Is this a good deal for an ultra low budget SFF PC? I mainly just want to throw linux on it, use it as a Plex/torrent/file server. I don't need a lot of power for gaming as I have a gaming rig for a desktop, I'd like to use the Steam In Home Streaming too, is it powerful enough for that? I'm probably going to throw another 4GB of ram in it and maybe an SSD.

Just buy a shield TV or something supported and good

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 14:00

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

They're up for preorder on ocuk

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 01:58

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

ASRock X299-E ITX/AC Motherboard

the absolute madmen

# ¿ May 29, 2017 14:32

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Zero VGS posted:

Preorders are up on ShopBLT for the overpriced Asus: http://www.shopblt.com/cgi-bin/shop/shop.cgi?action=thispage&thispage=01100300U033_B1FD867P.shtml

Not too horrible at $185, but why the gently caress do we keep needing new motherboards with pretty much each and every Intel chip? What changed this time around? I'm pretty sure the motherboard makers pay Intel to intentionally not make chips backwards compatible.

If you can't understand why intel is doing this you are one dense motherfucker

# ¿ Sep 29, 2017 20:26

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Zero VGS posted:

Well yeah, I mean I thought my last sentence was a solid theory. You'd think they'd dial it back a bit now they they have actual CPU competition again.

It's pretty clear intel can't turn on a dime and is flailing to protect its margins so would thus not give a gently caress about forcing a Mobo change since ryzen was not a thing during the z370 development and it looks essentially like a minor change for Mobo makers. Forcing a Mobo change lets them sell high margin chipsets and other garbage to pad sales numbers while CPUs are losing margin due to the increase in die size

In short they didnt give a gently caress about the consumer since they didnt have to and didn't count on having to due to having market dominance

AMD should be drilling this home but they are well AMD

# ¿ Sep 30, 2017 01:11

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

yo people wanting high airflow and SFF are being moronic. you get one or the other, it's basically not possible without screaming fans

the compromise of SFF is that you sit on the optimal point of perf/watt instead of OC'ing 100 watts to get 3 more fps b/c it allows you to stuff that 1080Ti Founder's into a weenie case and not having it throttle at stock

# ¿ Oct 28, 2017 18:23

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

isn't matx dead? like no mobo manufacturers want to make boards. Cerberus X is small for an ATX case too

# ¿ Jan 13, 2020 04:58

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

iv46vi posted:

Looks like Asus version has 70A VRMs and tiny fan for active cooling while AsRock has 90A VRM just by their lonesome.

For anyone here with X570-i motherboards, how noisy are fans on those?

noisy. i have an x570 itx/tb3 and this fucker shits all over it

# ¿ May 23, 2020 07:43

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Warmachine posted:

Ali Sayed posted his Ncase M1 dual-radiator build this week, which is what I'd been planning since I got my M1 case back in February. Glad to see my concept isn't utterly mad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmq0J9hzmlk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agMUqqhtaAA

Mine is going to include a backpack reservoir/pump combo from aliexpress. Think FrozenQ but with an integrated DDC pump, which leaves me free to use a standard low profile CPU water block.

It likely won't be ready until the end of the year, sadly, since I need a new GPU first.

i would like to subscribe to your newsletter

which version of ncase? v6 drastically improved airflow.

I also planned out a loop with that radiator/pump combo but only one side radiator since ncase < v6 have issues with bottom radiator length and it's not completely clear that a single 30mm 240 is actually a real hinderance

# ¿ Jun 11, 2020 07:25

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Warmachine posted:

Honestly he's the only tech YouTuber who does dedicated SFF content. I don't think I've seen any other major channels doing what he does. They're all rainbow puke gamer channels.

Gamers Nexus and Buildzoid do great technical content, but they're not SFF focused like OT.

buildzoid is only relevant if, like him, you care about about "truly" hardcore OC

no, having extra phases doesn't make a card better if you aren't pumping hundreds of extra amps through it on the reg

it just costs more lol

# ¿ Sep 21, 2020 15:31

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

Warmachine posted:

He's like a weird college professor to me that starts a lecture on one topic but keeps getting side tracked by other interesting topics related to the lecture at hand. I feel like I've learned a good few tidbits about the underlying electronics that make the pretty light pictures.

The GPU thread pointed out a great line from his 3080 video though: "I'm just pushing sliders around, and I can push sliders around for a lot cheaper."

he has literally one and only one criterion for a good card and that is power delivery

it's a critical part but once you can deliver enough power more is not better

# ¿ Sep 21, 2020 23:27

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 00:53

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

anyone want a ncase m1 v3 at a discount? It's fine, but I want to switch to something different.

From the US

It'll fit 5700XTs and everything but the girthiest of cards.

Includes some filters and whatever else i can salvage

# ¿ Oct 5, 2020 19:15

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