ITX Build for travelling

RyzenJunkie

RyzenJunkie

RyzenJunkie

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Joined
1 Mar 2019
Posts
234
Hi,

Just bought an i5 2018 Mac Mini as wanted something small and to use for video editing but tbh its running like a dog. I plan to go longish term travelling in motorhome but need something for video editing. I will have a decent monitor that iw ill use for a TV in the motorhome anyway so I may get rid of this and build a small mini itx computer that I can shove away in the motorhome but be really powerful.

My requirements are:

ITX
Small Case (small enough to hide out of the way but bog enough to offer decent cooling.
Powerful Cpu such as threadripper or ryzen. Would go intel if was a better choice
Powerful GPU such as radeon 7
Quiet fans and decent temps (don't want the fans blaring all the time)
Possibly water-cooling but not sure how it would work as would be driving the motorhome a lot and would the swish of the fluid cause issues in transit?

Any help appreciated

Cheers
 
Troop said:
How are you going to power everything, will you be on campsite power or off grid wild camping in the camper.
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You know, I totally overlooked that. I would lots of the time be using local electric points plugged into the motorhome but would need an off the grid solution such as leisure batteries to power the pc when I can't get access to the mains .

Would I be able to do that off leisure batteries considering the total draw from the pc is likely going to be 700w ish if I'm going threadripper?
 
Troop said:
If you want off grid a good laptop is the way to go, try to find one with a good on battery time 6-10 hours.

My van has 500W of solar on the roof and 300A of batteries, 8 months of the year in the UK it all works easily, the 4 dark months with very long nights its a no go without travelling every day for the motor to charge up the batteries.
(300A gives me a max of 150A usable power without risking battery degradation )
700W PC is NO go as its close to 60 Amp draw if you're off grid

I use 2 Laptops and a tablet, charge up during the day and use then at night time.

I only do Off grid :)
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Yeah looking like a decent laptop then. Looks like a MacBook Pro 15" with Vega 20 GPU is the only way forward then as the Dell XPS 15 is powerful but also rubbish battery life so I'm told. Grrr

You travel long term in yours then? How you finding it? It's the freedom I am craving and a way to be less tied down. I blame the Saggitatius in me haha
 
WantoN said:
Small cases are fine for cooling, they can recycle the total air volume of the case quickly.

I’d suggest something like a small ITX case that offers 240 rad space for an AIO, and a ‘mini’ card like the 1080ti / 2089.

That’s what I’d do anyway, that or a decent laptop.

Honestly I have a Dell XPS15 with a 7700HQ and a 1050, it plays games fine. I even enjoyed Shadow Warrior 2 on it. Something with a 1060 or 1070 would be great for gaming.
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Whats the battery life like where gaming, which I presume would be similar load as video editing?
 
Ok, when I mentioned threadripper, it was because I will be doing video editing with Davinci Resolve. Read lots about it and the threadripper seems to be the best. I suppose I could get away with a Ryzen 2700x or the 3 series when it's out and a Vega 64/Radeon 7/Navi

I just don't want to be lacking in power when it comes to 4k video editing.

Cheers
 
Troop said:
He needs to be able to power whatever he gets first!. hence laptop for their battery use when no power is available.

Pics,

Started with this.

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Then I ended up with this.... all hand built by me.

Pics are some of the ones sent to the DVLA to get it changed from van to "motor Caravan"

vkOp8v0h.jpg



Laptop :)
M6OKMpzh.jpg



Last one. made all the cabinet and even the cushions a first for me.

ic95iQQh.jpg
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Wow, looks really well done. What van is that? There's going to be 5 of us in mine (myself, wife and 3 kids which are home educated) so guess I'm going to be looking for something quite big unless I can sort it like an itx build lol
 
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Poneros said:
Battery is easy enough to sort out. Or well, it's complicated, but doable. Too many variables to get into it without them being spelled out (location, budget, requirements etc). Nonetheless, PCs these days can be incredibly power efficient and running them even in a camper van off of batteries isn't that far off from a laptop. After all, if you're doing any kind of work that battery is going to be gone quick, so either way you'd want to sort out the energy storage unless you want to only do 1-2hrs a day of work. Remember, the work hasn't changed & the parts are not any more efficient, there's only so much you can do with a <99 Whr battery.

For example, this system if properly tuned for optimal efficiency would not require more than 250ish watts IF it was all equally and fully stressed, which is never really going to happen. So realistically you'd be looking at <200w for an absolute powerhouse. Obviously, the 2080 ti is overkill and can be changed easily for another turing gpu, but it is the most efficient GPU once properly undervolted, so there's that.
2Kf1LWv.png
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When I put them components into a PSU calculator, it comes up way more than 200w?
 
Ok,

So what do you think would be the best 250w or lower pc I could build that would do 4k video editing? I can get enough solar panels and batteries that would allow me a few hours a day
 
Right,

I've seen a 200ah 12v leisure battery on Amazon .if I bought 2 or 3 of them, how much solar wattage would I need to charge them up so I could have say 500w of PC to be able to use it for say 3hrs at a time and be able to power led lighting in the motorhome? Trying to find a calculator online but can't .

I would need an inverter to change from 12v to 240 wouldn't I? Don't need if that would affect it all?
 
breadturbo said:
One 200ah will give you 100-110mins of use with a little extra thrown in for lighting etc. Also bear in mind a single 200ah agm battery will weigh 60-70kg and be 50x20x20cm ish. For 3hours of use two should be nice.

Now you can rarely charge AGMs over 90% and should not allow it to drop below 50% to preserve the life of the battery.
soooo, 90% of 200ah=180ah of which 50% is 90ah

As for solar, a single 100w panel is 100w/12v= 8.3amps,but that is assuming 100% efficiency which wont happen, 85% is the used number for marine sailboats so should work for motorhomes (i think)
85% of 100w = 85w
85w/12v = 7.08amps

50% of 400ah(two batteries) with the 90% rule and 50% minimum gives 180ah of usable power
180ah/7.08amps = 25.4hours to recharge to 90%


This is all based off my sailboat knowledge where I use a 3.5kw inverter, but should all be very similar, although the sun in the UK is rather unreliable.

this may help you
https://www.camperlands.co.uk/camping-inverters-leisure-batteries/#lookup_time
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Cheers for that. Seems 3x105ah would be better and weigh less. All I need is enough to power a fridge, 12v led lighting dailydail then enough to power a pc for 2 to 3hrs but that won't be every day . Probably twice a week for the pc
 
What would be the lowest power draw CPU and GPU if I wanted 8 core 16 thread and at least 8gb GPU vram? Would undervolting and therefore not overclocking the above lose me a lot of performance?
 
Someone today has told me the best way is to have solar power for the lighting and fridge and then get a suitcase generator for when I need big power for a PC. Wonder if you can get a diesel generator that is fed off the main tank? If so would be perfect and can then get an all singing and dancing threadripper setup
 
Going to be doing a custom case so it's in disguise. The idea I have, if anyone breaks in, they would never think that it's a PC lol

In fact I may do a few pics of the motorhome interior and see if anyone can spot it when it's done haha
 
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