The Emulator build - SFF

[Jay85]

This is gonna be one of those as cheap as possible builds but it turns into abit of a expensive job... I can feel it already.

After stripping my dads pc down to its basic components and cleaned them thoroughly (heatsinks off, shrouds off, everything cleaned). I was sat thinking what i should do with it all since it still all works. I did contemplate selling it but it feels such a waste. It then dawned on me what i could do with it all.

The wife has been mentioning and talking about how she wanted to replay some old classics on N64 like Golden Eye and Mario Kart on Wii where she really enjoyed gaming. Light bulb lights up and i think to myself, why not make a emulator build to play these old games!

My dads old pc specs were as follows:

Intel 3570K
16gb Corsair Vengeance ram 1600mhz
MSI Z77A-G45 ATX motherboard
EVGA 550ti
Corsair TX750 (The OG)
Corsair Carbide 500R
No drives as he reused them.
Some ancient Arctic cooling cpu cooler.

Obviously not gonna have a giant rig in the middle of the living room, would be an eyesore! So this will be another SFF build which means new/used parts need to be purchased.

I'll be reusing:

Intel 3570K
16gb Corsair Vengeance ram 1600mhz
EVGA 550ti Replaced with 1060

What i've purchased so far:

Asus H61 ITX motherboard - £35
Corsair SF600 - £55
GEEEK A40 Case - £80 Returned!
Jonsplus i100 pro - £50!
Kingston A400 240gb SSD - £25
(GPU i might replace if i can find a decent one, i think a 1060 would be a better replacement however if anyone has any feedback please let me know.)
Bought a Zotac 1060 3gb from a friend for £60!
Total cost so far: £225

Emulator software wise i think i'll be using Dolphin for the Wii/N64 games as i had some advice from another member regarding this. I can't test how well it will run till i get this built up though so its just a matter of trial and error i think. I've tried to ask on the Dolphin forums for a spec check but the admins are slow to approve posts.

Pics will come as i start to get this built up tonight.

 

[Jay85]

Cryorig C7 has arrived! Really love this thing, its small, compact and will cool the 3570k no problem provided im no doing any overclocking which i won't be with a H61 board.

The case and SSD has also arrived, will get some snaps of those and the build process of the case later tonight!

 

[Jay85]

Well hit my first roadblock!

assembled the parts on a make shift test bed just to make sure it posts… and no post! Fans spin as they should but there’s nothing on the screen. Took the gpu out and same, no post.

Went through all the usual tests, removing ram, reseating cpu and nada. Even went as far as no heatsink and no ram and put my finger on the cpu ihs. It heats up so i know its working.

its dawned on me that the seller of this board might not have updated the cpu to take 3rd gen 3570k. I have the exact same board at work so will give that a go tomorrow.

Shame i don’t have a 2nd gen intel cpu to test it.

 

[mickyflinn]

Well hit my first roadblock!

assembled the parts on a make shift test bed just to make sure it posts… and no post! Fans spin as they should but there’s nothing on the screen. Took the gpu out and same, no post.

Went through all the usual tests, removing ram, reseating cpu and nada. Even went as far as no heatsink and no ram and put my finger on the cpu ihs. It heats up so i know its working.

its dawned on me that the seller of this board might not have updated the cpu to take 3rd gen 3570k. I have the exact same board at work so will give that a go tomorrow.

Shame i don’t have a 2nd gen intel cpu to test it.

Damm, you gonna get a 2000 series cpu to update the bios ?

Here is thd cpu support los8t for your motherboard looks like bios 0305 is the earliest so any of those cpu should work.

https://www.asus.com/SupportOnly/P8H61I_LX_R20/HelpDesk_CPU/

 

[Defy Belief]

Not sure why you're looking at the likes of a 1060 for this, you could go much more SFF and have something like a 3400g build for this in an asrock deskmini, dolphin emu can run on a potato or even phones very well even a 10th gen i3 would suffice on its own. The 550ti should be well more than enough!

Also side note but loads of great n64 games coming on switch online as an expansion on 5th Nov if you have a switch

 

[Jay85]

Damm, you gonna get a 2000 series cpu to update the bios ?

Here is thd cpu support los8t for your motherboard looks like bios 0305 is the earliest so any of those cpu should work.

https://www.asus.com/SupportOnly/P8H61I_LX_R20/HelpDesk_CPU/

Found my issue.... i had bad lighting last night so didn't spot it but this morning under the spot light... BAM! FML!



Off to try and return it without the seller blaming i did it.. can't imagine just installing memory could do this?


After finding this out i tried running it with just the right dimm installed and it posted so defo the left dimm causing the issue.

 

[Jay85]

Not sure why you're looking at the likes of a 1060 for this, you could go much more SFF and have something like a 3400g build for this in an asrock deskmini, dolphin emu can run on a potato or even phones very well even a 10th gen i3 would suffice on its own. The 550ti should be well more than enough!

Also side note but loads of great n64 games coming on switch online as an expansion on 5th Nov if you have a switch

I think on the other hand i wanted a spare gpu that had abit of grunt that i could use as a backup as well so works both ways for me.

I managed to secure a 1060 3gb Zotac card for £60 from a friend, did me a solid.

I did not know switch had this capability! I will look into this tonight, thanks Defy! Kinda in limbo with this build now that you've told me this lmao!

 

[Jay85]

A few build pics:

The GEEEK A40 V3.1 comes flat packed! It took a good 30 mins to peel all the protective film off the acrylic. I don't mind a good peel but this was painful .






Board assembled prior to me finding out i had issues with no post








The aluminium frame, it's not very sturdy as its only held together by a couple of screws. The main rigidity comes from the actual motherboard being mounted to it.

 

[Defy Belief]

I think on the other hand i wanted a spare gpu that had abit of grunt that i could use as a backup as well so works both ways for me.

I managed to secure a 1060 3gb Zotac card for £60 from a friend, did me a solid.

I did not know switch had this capability! I will look into this tonight, thanks Defy! Kinda in limbo with this build now that you've told me this lmao!

Fair enough, that's a decent price for a 1060 too, especially in the current climate!

It's all here: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/202...ndo-Switch-Online-Expansion-Pack-2044266.html

Always thought those geeek cases looked cool just never got round to building in one.

Edit looks like October 26th for the Switch update

 

[Jay85]

Fair enough, that's a decent price for a 1060 too, especially in the current climate!

It's all here: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/202...ndo-Switch-Online-Expansion-Pack-2044266.html

Always thought those geeek cases looked cool just never got round to building in one.

Yeah i was expecting him to sell it me for around £100+ but he was really fair. Decent little card for 1080p if i ever needed it as a spare.

Thanks man, appreciate the link. The wife will be stoked as she has a Switch haha, nearly had marriage issues playing overcooked 1 and 2 , she didn't speak to me for a whole day cos i dropped the plate.

The GEEEK cases are good, despite the reviews that i've seen i think with each revision they've listened and fixed the issues. I didn't have any problems with building it or alignment with the motherboard or graphics card. I did find the Riser card was super tight though, like it was pulled to its limit there's no give in it at all. Instructions aren't the best either but once you get going its fairly straight forward.

 

[Defy Belief]

Yeah i was expecting him to sell it me for around £100+ but he was really fair. Decent little card for 1080p if i ever needed it as a spare.

Thanks man, appreciate the link. The wife will be stoked as she has a Switch haha, nearly had marriage issues playing overcooked 1 and 2 , she didn't speak to me for a whole day cos i dropped the plate.

The GEEEK cases are good, despite the reviews that i've seen i think with each revision they've listened and fixed the issues. I didn't have any problems with building it or alignment with the motherboard or graphics card. I did find the Riser card was super tight though, like it was pulled to its limit there's no give in it at all. Instructions aren't the best either but once you get going its fairly straight forward.

Had arguments a plenty with my fiancé over overcooked, fantastic game but really is a relationship test I NEED A PLATE!

Nice to have the games in handheld too with the switch, another alternative to that is the Razer Kishi controller, mine works really well with dolphin on my OnePlus, also great with GeForce now etc.

Anyway won't derail your project thread any more

 

[Jay85]

Had arguments a plenty with my fiancé over overcooked, fantastic game but really is a relationship test I NEED A PLATE!

Nice to have the games in handheld too with the switch, another alternative to that is the Razer Kishi controller, mine works really well with dolphin on my OnePlus, also great with GeForce now etc.

Anyway won't derail your project thread any more

Not at all mate, its all relative haha.

Heard that one screamed at me, never seen a woman need a plate so bad in my life .

That's the other thing i need to look at if i do get this finished, controllers!

 

[Jay85]

Another thing i remembered:

The board only has USB 2.0 headers but the case uses USB 3.0 ports. Can i use one of these to get the usb 3.0 ports to work in 2.0 mode?

Case comes with one of these essentially:

Can i plug the above into this and then plug that into the motherboard usb 2.0 header?

 

[mickyflinn]

Another thing i remembered:

The board only has USB 2.0 headers but the case uses USB 3.0 ports. Can i use one of these to get the usb 3.0 ports to work in 2.0 mode?

Case comes with one of these essentially:

Can i plug the above into this and then plug that into the motherboard usb 2.0 header?

Yes you can but the usb 3 will only run as usb 2.

 

[Jay85]

Yes you can but the usb 3 will only run as usb 2.

That's fine, only need it for controllers as long as they will work.

Awesome, another query answered! Thanks Micky!

 

[Jay85]

Some updates on the SFF build!

So last night after work, i decided to have a look on facebook market to see what's about. Spotted 2 things i wanted and ended up travelling upto Wakefield to collect a Barrow cpu/res/block combo which then lead me to somewhere else further up wakefield to collect a rather cheap Jonsplus i100 Pro case in black! I got both items at an absolute steal, spending less than a £100 for both items!

The case had a few scratches but nothing a sharpie can't fix and its barely noticeable.

So where do we go from here?? Well the SFF build is now getting a bit larger, i'll be returning the GEEEK case and using the Jonsplus i100 instead and likewise i'll now be watercooling the 3570k on a 360 rad with the Barrow block combo so i don't have to use a res (though if i can find one for cheap i may still use one for easy filling). I have a ton of old EK 13/10 fittings back from 2012 from a EK LT kit that i'll be reusing with this build, finally found use for them .

I've ordered the following from OCUK today as i'm short on some fittings:

• 90 degree rotaries
• 13/10 clear tubing
• inline xspc filter
• Noctua FC controller as the board is very short on fan headers.

Moving forward i want to sort the noise issue with the 1060 gpu, the fan is super noisy even at 40% fan speed (which is its lowest setting). The Zotac mini shares the same cooler as the AMP! edition card but trying to find a cooler or a dead card so i can salvage the cooler is proving difficult. Alternatively i could watercool the card but there is no full size block available, a universal block might do but again finding one that actually fits properly could be a headache.

With more room available in this case now i might look at getting a Kraken G12 with an AIO pump but it would mean mounting it with the rad at the bottom which is not ideal.


If anyone had any better ideas do let me know.


Pictures to come later!

 

[Defy Belief]

Glad to see i'm not the only one that builds something then it escalates very quickly...

Raijintek Morpheus could be a good shout for the gpu, but i'd wait for a second hand / b grade one (Last one in b grade was £39.99 I think...)

 

[Jay85]

Glad to see i'm not the only one that builds something then it escalates very quickly...

Raijintek Morpheus could be a good shout for the gpu, but i'd wait for a second hand / b grade one (Last one in b grade was £39.99 I think...)

It's escalating very quickly... im finding myself pumping money into this build for no particular reason .

I looked at this but my only issue with it is... going from the pics i've seen it turns a double slot card into a triple slot. In a vertical mounted position (which im currently doing) it will stick out too much for the side panel to close.

I'm wondering though, if i could run this passively without any fans and have the 140mm fan at the bottom of the case to blow through it instead of having active fans on the heatsink since its only a gtx 1060.

 

[Jay85]

I'm sat on a third option at the moment, EKWB Thermosphere.. it's tempting but buying a waterblock for a 1060 seems rather dumb lol.

 

[Jay85]

Third option it is then... Just caved and bought a EKWB Thermosphere! Not to decide whether i want to soft tube or hardline.. i got spares for both.