ITX upgrade - critique my build

covenantuk

covenantuk

covenantuk

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Edinburgh
Currently I'm running an mATXbuild from 6-7 years ago - 7700K/Asus Z270G/1080ti and an AIO and it's time to pass this to my son and build a new one for myself.

To be honest I play far less games than I used to and no longer have the time to tinker with overclocking much so don't need a top level board any more, but the few games I do play need to be 1440p and I want to leave myself open to "treating" myself to a decent card in the future. I have a "spare" 1080ti which I'm going to use until funds allow, at which time I'll probably be open to CPU upgrade if needed. I think this CPU will be ok up until a 4070 though?

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £1,057.90 (includes delivery: £0.00)


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Comments please?
 
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CPU is fine and overall the system is good and has potential , no drive m2 in the list ?

For an extra £20 think I would up the psu to the 1000w version.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Corsair SF-L Series SF1000L Fully Modular 80 Plus Gold SFX-L Power Supply

Order Corsair SF-L Series SF1000L Fully Modular 80 Plus Gold SFX-L Power Supply now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk www.overclockers.co.uk
 
 
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Asus ROG Strix B760-I Gaming WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ITX Motherboard
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FREE DELIVERY
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be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 750W ATX 3.0 80 Plus Gold Power Supply
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It might be advisable to reconsider your choice of motherboard. It's dumb that some ITX motherboards have a very small chipset and/or vrm fan. From previous research, I learned these small fans could be rated up to 20K hours at 40c whereas at 60c or 80c they start to fail a lot quicker resulting in an annoying fan whining sound.

I don't know the model of fan in the Asus B650-I, however, it looks likely to be the 30mm fan they've used in previous motherboards.

I stopped using my Asus B550-I a few weeks after upgrading to a 5950X. It was only ~10 months old at the time and before the upgrade the fan usage was estimated to have been only a couple of thousand hours. The VRM temps were hitting 60+ and sometimes 80+ with the 5950X at full load and soon the fan noise became unbearable. The fan was running at up to 9K+ RPM and after a few weeks of using the 5950X the annoying whining sound started.

I have my watercooled ITX PC running virtually silent in light/medium use and at load I prefer only "airflow sound" which I guarantee by buying quality 120/140mm fans that don't produce motor whine.
 
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I'm sort of second guessing myself now you've reminded me of chipset fans - I'd rather not have chipset fans at all and went AMD as I want to keep overall TDP/Heat low too to give lots of headroom to air cool (current system is AIO and I want something a little more maintenance free), but there are very limited options for AM5 ITX.
 
I'm still using AM4 and I had an old Gigabyte B450 ITX board I could use. Historically, it appears they over-engineer their ITX boards to not require a VRM fan with better VRM phases design and bigger VRM heatsinks.

The main thing when deciding on a board is to read reviews to ensure there isn't a hidden tiny fan and I would suggest looking at Gigabyte's offerings. I'd be surprised if their AM5 ITX boards weren't over-engineered in the VRM department although it could happen, just look at Asus, one would expect them to over-engineer to prevent the use of VRM fans especially with their supposedly top of the range boards but evidently they dropped the ball a long time ago.

I am looking into buying the EK monoblock for my Asus B550-I, as I can then watercool the VRMs, chipset and CPU. Then I can remove the VRM fan. The EK block isn't fully compatible with the Asus B550-I, it's designed for the Asus X570 ITX board, but the design is close enough that I can get it to work, I'll have to uninstall the top M2 slot and the audio connectors, but it'll be worth it. :D

I contacted Asus asking asking for a couple of their VRM fans so I could get the board back up and running, but the answer was they don't stock parts and I needed to go through the retailer. I looked into the RMA proccess for Asus and the retailer so I knew what I was getting into. I tried to communicate with the retailer (not OcUK) but they weren't interested in a conversation. Also, the evidence of how badly the retailer supports their customers is all over the internet, so I gave up. Maybe in the future I would take the time to show them how to provide better customer support but I'm too busy to have a project like that and it would stress me out too much.
 
str said:
The main thing when deciding on a board is to read reviews to ensure there isn't a hidden tiny fan and I would suggest looking at Gigabyte's offerings. I'd be surprised if their AM5 ITX boards weren't over-engineered in the VRM department although it could happen, just look at Asus, one would expect them to over-engineer to prevent the use of VRM fans especially with their supposedly top of the range boards but evidently they dropped the ball a long time ago.
Click to expand...
Yeh, the Gigabyte boards seemingly have their own issues too though. Strange Asus didn't want to send you a fan - there's literally a video on YT where the guy emailed asking for and got sent one.

To be honest, I'm thinking maybe just spend the extra and get the ASRock offering with a 7600X - I can't see fans anywhere on their design except the M.2, which I can just leave off or replace with a heatsink instead. It's not going to be overclocked, I just want something trouble free for the next 5-7 years with a CPU upgrade path should I need it.
 
covenantuk said:
Yeh, the Gigabyte boards seemingly have their own issues too though. Strange Asus didn't want to send you a fan - there's literally a video on YT where the guy emailed asking for and got sent one.

To be honest, I'm thinking maybe just spend the extra and get the ASRock offering with a 7600X - I can't see fans anywhere on their design except the M.2, which I can just leave off or replace with a heatsink instead. It's not going to be overclocked, I just want something trouble free for the next 5-7 years with a CPU upgrade path should I need it.
Click to expand...
Reading a review on the Asrock motherboard it mentions lowering the tj max settings to 85°c to keep the vrm in check.

www.pcgamer.com

ASRock B650E PG-ITX WiFi

Mini ITX AM5 with full PCIe 5.0 support.
www.pcgamer.com www.pcgamer.com
 
covenantuk said:
Currently I'm running an mATXbuild from 6-7 years ago - 7700K/Asus Z270G/1080ti and an AIO and it's time to pass this to my son and build a new one for myself.

To be honest I play far less games than I used to and no longer have the time to tinker with overclocking much so don't need a top level board any more, but the few games I do play need to be 1440p and I want to leave myself open to "treating" myself to a decent card in the future. I have a "spare" 1080ti which I'm going to use until funds allow, at which time I'll probably be open to CPU upgrade if needed. I think this CPU will be ok up until a 4070 though?

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £1,057.90 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

​
​
​

Comments please?
Click to expand...

Any particular reason you're getting the older A4 instead of the A4 H20 case for cheaper?
 
Because I have a RTX 4080 I was considering the cases below.

Dan C4-SFX
Cooler Master NR200P MAX
I went with the Cooler Master as I like the pre-installed AIO + PSU as I've recently built 2 NZXT H1 v1 cases.

Also I went with an Asrock board because of the eDP port which I will have play with using Asrock's LCD panel kit:)

Also consider the NZXT H1 v2 as it's down to £229.00 with AIO + PSU
Also there's a P200A in the B grade section. I always look there first myself for a basic case as I've not had any issues with the 4 I've had from there.

This is my first DDR5 build and what I learned is the stated speeds aren't certain to work out the box even if the parts are on the relevant QVL lists.
 
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AMD Ryzen 5 7600X Six Core 5.30GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail
CP-3DG-AM
£240 (incl. VAT)
£210 (incl. VAT)
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Asrock B650E PG-ITX WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ITX Motherboard
MB-18Z-AK
£350 (incl. VAT)
£275 (incl. VAT)
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Noctua NH-D12L Low Height Dual Tower CPU Cooler
HS-040-NC
£90 (incl. VAT)
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covenantuk said:
So, from feedback:

: Change to motherboard without chipset fan
: Minor CPU upgrade
: Dan C4 SFX



My basket at OcUK:


Total: £1,237.90 (includes delivery: £0.00)​
Click to expand...
Personally I would drop back down to a 7600 but all looks good.
 
AMD Ryzen 5 7600X Six Core 5.30GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail
CP-3DG-AM
£240 (incl. VAT)
£210 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Asrock B650E PG-ITX WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ITX Motherboard
MB-18Z-AK
£350 (incl. VAT)
£275 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Noctua NH-D12L Low Height Dual Tower CPU Cooler
HS-040-NC
£90 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
covenantuk said:
Strange Asus didn't want to send you a fan - there's literally a video on YT where the guy emailed asking for and got sent one.
Click to expand...

That's interesting, which YT video? I've seen other AM4 ITX board manufacturers like ASRock have provided free replacement small chipset fans but not anything about Asus yet.
 
I completed my Dan C4-SFX build last week but went down the Intel route.

Currently running a Intel 13700K cooled with Noctua D12L, Asus B760i Mobo (only ITX mobo I have found without a fan) and RTX 4070 FE.

Really happy with the build as its silent in low to medium load and pretty quiet even when everything is stressed during synthetic benchmarks.
 
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