My Raven m-itx build.

After watching loads of how to build a pc on youtube, I decided to try and build myself a nice little gaming pc.
I do however have an OCD issue, which means that I have to use as many parts of one brand as possible. I wouldn't be able to sleep if I had an evga mobo, msi gpu, corsair ram, kingston storage and so on. So it was quite hard to find all the parts i wanted here in small, expensive Norway.

The parts I used for this little build is as follows;

Intel Core i5-6600K Skylake
ASUS Z170I PRO GAMING
ASUS GeForce GTX 970 ITX
SilverStone Raven Mini ITX black
SilverStone SFX Series SX600-G
SilverStone SST-SOD02 Slot-In DVD
SilverStone Tundra TD03-SLIM
Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4-2666 DC - 16GB
Kingston HyperX Savage SSD - 240GB
Kingston HyperX Savage SSD - 480GB

I also got an SilverStone Nitrogon NT07 air cooler, just in case the Tundra aio watercooler wouldn't fit in this small case. I read on several forums that some were not able to fit the Tundra, but luckily that wasn't the case for me. It was a very tight fit though.

Here is the finished build before I did put the top cover back on.
A few things that did not go after plan: I was not able to use the angled sata cables that came with the mobo, so my dvd reader is not in use yet. I ordered some identical asus cables from amazon, so that will be sorted soon. Also, the way the sdd's had to be installed was a bit ******, had to turn them upside down. So the beautiful side can not be seen



Here is a couple of pics from after I got the cover back on. Was no easy task, because of the aio watercooler. I did swear a lot, and that seemed to help.





And finally, here is the Raven in use, in my little mancave.



Also, I did not like the way the magnetic dust filters look, they do a great job, but I bought 3 of these to replace them.



Unfortunately the screws that came with them, did not fit the radiator. So they have to wait until I get some new screws.

I am very pleased with this build so far, good performance, very quiet, and the temps are brilliant.
I will get a new gpu soon, so I can benefit from my 4k tv, but I'm not in a rush.
Not very happy with the new Nvidia pricing, so I will wait and see what Amd can come up with.

Tidy set up you've got there.

Thanks very much!
Next time I open up this baby, I'm gonna try and do something with that 24pin cable.
Kinda ruins my cable management. But the cable is so stiff and hard to wriggle around.

Also I just did my first 3dmark firestrike test, i got 8565, and that is all without any oc.
Is that ok with my setup? I tried to compare the results online, but it wouldn't let me compare with single gpu setups for some reason.

All those cables, in front of your TV stand

Score sounds about right.

Drollic said:

All those cables, in front of your TV stand

Score sounds about right.

Click to expand...

Thanks!
Haha I know, that is gonna be sorted though. Need a longer power cable for the new build. The cable that came with it was surprisingly short.

Also another question. The front bezel for the slim-slot dvd drive was very flimsy, it doesn't sit tight at all.
Can I remove that cover, and use the drive with no front cover? There is no eject button on the case anyway, it has to be done in windows.

Is it possible for a moderator to move this to a more suitable section? Maybe the desk and case gallery or something? It is still a project for me, but compared to the other projects here, my little project just looks silly

Oh btw, I'm gonna use a few words to praise this itx-chassis. I really recomend it!
In both HWMonitor and Afterburner, my idle temp is 25 and load under heavy gaming has never gone over 46. I am very impressed, considering the size of this build.

I really want to get the Asus GeForce GTX 1080 DirectCU III Strix Gaming gpu. Any of you experts know if this will be a good choice? That card doesn't have the blower style cooling, that vents the heat out of the back, like my current card got. But my case should be able to get the heat out anyway, since it is a positive pressure setup?
1 fan on the top and 2 fans on the bottom, all 3 blowing fresh air into the case. Appreciate it if anyone got some inputs

That AIO water-cooler - how do the tubes fit when the cover is closed? I'm thinking it might be better if the tubes were at 90 degrees rather than on opposite sides of the CPU. There would be less chance of a pinch and the tubes would coil better.

Quartz said:

That AIO water-cooler - how do the tubes fit when the cover is closed? I'm thinking it might be better if the tubes were at 90 degrees rather than on opposite sides of the CPU. There would be less chance of a pinch and the tubes would coil better.

Click to expand...

The tubes are laid down as flat as I could towards the power supply. Then coiled counter clock wise around the pump, all the way back towards the back of the case. After opening and closing the case quite a few times, it sems like the tubes have gotten used to the position they are in, and it all closes very easily without putting any force or pressure on the top cover.

Always a challenge to build in a small case. Nice work

koolpc said:

Always a challenge to build in a small case. Nice work

Click to expand...

Thanks very much!

It was challenging indeed, never done this before, so I am very pleased.
I just wish there where more I could do with the cable management, but that 24 pin cable is just to difficult to move around. Wonder if there are custom braided cables anywhere that would fit my power supply, would have made things much cleaner...

Small update!

My 1080 founders edition, and another 480gb Hyper X ssd was sent today.
Cant wait to put them into my little baby

I also tried overclocking the cpu for the first time, never overclocked before.
Used the 5 way tuning software that came with the motherboard, and my 6600k ended up on 4,7ghz! Thats a 30% increase, very impressed. So far I have just stress tested with FireStrike, and the temps went up to 59 celsius, while the volt got up 1,291.

Hopefully this will stay stable!