http://i.imgur.com/NQi2xdA.jpg
UPDATE 0
I've been looking forward to this one for a while now. Unlike some of my previous builds this one should be pretty much stress free (fingers crossed). It's not a competition entry with a deadline, it's not a buddy build, nor a personal rig upgrade leaving me living off a test bench until complete. This one is a goody, a new LAN rig, in a chassis I'm super excited to build in. With no end date *cough* i60 LAN in April *cough*, so come along and enjoy the journey.
This is a sponsored project, for which I'm hugely grateful! Massive thanks go out to NFC Systems for their support, E22 for once again showing their faith in my work and indeed Gigabyte for taking the risk and hooking me up. :thumb:
http://i.imgur.com/5GFiIFb.jpg
...
http://i.imgur.com/oG2yAyQ.jpg
...
SPECS:
After my beloved Parvum Veer (MODZERO FOUR) took a savage thieving (of it's mod cubes) in order to complete my Thermaltake UK modders trophy 2016 entry I was left without my LAN buddy. That was back in late April. I'm pretty sure I'd seen the NFC PURIEL build someplace and went in search of more information. That took me to YouTube and there I met the S4 Mini.
Once MODZERO OCTO was finished I kept coming back to that S4 Mini I'd seen. At that time the GTX970 was about as powerful a GPU you could fit in the little monster (although couple folks over on the SFF forums had got the AMD Fury Nano running pretty stable too..) but the 10 series was coming soon and with it I was sure one of the board partners would put out a great ITX card.
I'd contacted Josh at NFC about sending me the S4 Mini with the panels bare. At the time, very day I was driving past a BMW garage and had found a liking for some of their blues. A M4 in ESTORIL BLUE to be exact. The more I saw of it the more I liked it. From the chromed trim accents to the deep red of the rear light housing, I liked how the black of the grill contrasts against the blue metallic paint work. The actual paint work was done by B-Negative and he nailed it! Thanks buddy!I left the panels to truly harden then went about giving it a cut and polish. I had the color I wanted, so that was it, I'd base my S4 Mini around the aspects of the BMW M4 I liked.
THE NFC SYSTEMS S4 MINI
Many may already be aware of this chassis or at least Josh and his years of great work in the modding community, for those that aren't, this is the NFC S4 Mini. A 4.3l air cooled ITX chassis designed by Josh, manufactured in small batches and sold direct from his NFC SYSTEMS website. You can find out a lot more about it over on his page but for now I'll just show a couple shots of mine.
http://i.imgur.com/S1Qj7mt.jpg
...
This way up?
http://i.imgur.com/490nTkj.jpg
...
Or this way?
I think I'm leaning toward the second, there are vents under the Alu wrap-around and as we know, heat rises. With the GPU being that end of the case, I think I may see some performance gains in this rotation.
http://i.imgur.com/8A9a5fH.jpg
...
You can just about make out the vents under the Alu panel.
http://i.imgur.com/6ag3K59.jpg
As the build progresses I'll drive inside the chassis and show some of that, I may take a second pass at the cut and polish I think there are areas for improvement.
Outside of the custom paint work and sleeved cables I plan to make some modifications to how both the CPU & GPU are cooled and try my hand with some other materials to help make some of the internals really pop.
Thanks for check it out, hope you stick around and enjoy the log.
J.
UPDATE 0
I've been looking forward to this one for a while now. Unlike some of my previous builds this one should be pretty much stress free (fingers crossed). It's not a competition entry with a deadline, it's not a buddy build, nor a personal rig upgrade leaving me living off a test bench until complete. This one is a goody, a new LAN rig, in a chassis I'm super excited to build in. With no end date *cough* i60 LAN in April *cough*, so come along and enjoy the journey.
This is a sponsored project, for which I'm hugely grateful! Massive thanks go out to NFC Systems for their support, E22 for once again showing their faith in my work and indeed Gigabyte for taking the risk and hooking me up. :thumb:
http://i.imgur.com/5GFiIFb.jpg
...
http://i.imgur.com/oG2yAyQ.jpg
...
SPECS:
- INTEL CORE i5 - 6600K CPU
- HYPERX FURY DDR4 2400MHZ 16GB (2X8GB) RAM
- GIGABYTE GA-Z170N GAMING 5 MOBO
- GIGABYTE GTX 1060 ITX OC 6G GPU
- SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2-2280 250GB NVMe SSD
- HDPLEX Hi-Fi 250W DC-ATX PSU
- NOCTUA NH-L9i COOLER
- 2X SCYTHE KAZE JYUNI SLIM 2000RPM
- NFC SYSTEMS S4 MINI CUSTOM CHASSIS
After my beloved Parvum Veer (MODZERO FOUR) took a savage thieving (of it's mod cubes) in order to complete my Thermaltake UK modders trophy 2016 entry I was left without my LAN buddy. That was back in late April. I'm pretty sure I'd seen the NFC PURIEL build someplace and went in search of more information. That took me to YouTube and there I met the S4 Mini.
Once MODZERO OCTO was finished I kept coming back to that S4 Mini I'd seen. At that time the GTX970 was about as powerful a GPU you could fit in the little monster (although couple folks over on the SFF forums had got the AMD Fury Nano running pretty stable too..) but the 10 series was coming soon and with it I was sure one of the board partners would put out a great ITX card.
I'd contacted Josh at NFC about sending me the S4 Mini with the panels bare. At the time, very day I was driving past a BMW garage and had found a liking for some of their blues. A M4 in ESTORIL BLUE to be exact. The more I saw of it the more I liked it. From the chromed trim accents to the deep red of the rear light housing, I liked how the black of the grill contrasts against the blue metallic paint work. The actual paint work was done by B-Negative and he nailed it! Thanks buddy!I left the panels to truly harden then went about giving it a cut and polish. I had the color I wanted, so that was it, I'd base my S4 Mini around the aspects of the BMW M4 I liked.
THE NFC SYSTEMS S4 MINI
Many may already be aware of this chassis or at least Josh and his years of great work in the modding community, for those that aren't, this is the NFC S4 Mini. A 4.3l air cooled ITX chassis designed by Josh, manufactured in small batches and sold direct from his NFC SYSTEMS website. You can find out a lot more about it over on his page but for now I'll just show a couple shots of mine.
http://i.imgur.com/S1Qj7mt.jpg
...
This way up?
http://i.imgur.com/490nTkj.jpg
...
Or this way?
I think I'm leaning toward the second, there are vents under the Alu wrap-around and as we know, heat rises. With the GPU being that end of the case, I think I may see some performance gains in this rotation.
http://i.imgur.com/8A9a5fH.jpg
...
You can just about make out the vents under the Alu panel.
http://i.imgur.com/6ag3K59.jpg
As the build progresses I'll drive inside the chassis and show some of that, I may take a second pass at the cut and polish I think there are areas for improvement.
Outside of the custom paint work and sleeved cables I plan to make some modifications to how both the CPU & GPU are cooled and try my hand with some other materials to help make some of the internals really pop.
Thanks for check it out, hope you stick around and enjoy the log.
J.
Last edited by a moderator:
I'd no idea she'd hooked that up, much impressed.
) outside the chassis first. Then run some stress benches with all the hardware test fitted in the S4 Mini before I start working on the cables. I'm running a 95W CPU and a GTX1060 + M2 SSD off a 250W PSU, I wanna be certain I'm not pushing my luck. 
with a different layout for the connections ( better suited for the S4 Mini). However this one is going a great job, If I were to swap out the 1060 for say the 1070 then maybe I'll look at buying the 300W. 
Sheet metal can be a pain in the a**! I often wish I can better tools, think I'd try my hand at so much more. It's all a part of the process thou.. fun fun fun and all that. 