My first SFF build

So what about the bracket that holds the ODD in place?

What about it? :confused:

The bracket fits back in it's original place (I hadn't yet re-fitted it in the pic above), but you have to remove the HDD cage from underneath it. The optical drive bracket/plate itself is unaffected by the rad.
 
Yeah, sorry, was posting from a phone and I don't tend to type enough to make myself clear. :)

Did you manage to remove the HDD part of it without cutting? Just wondered as mine seems riveted to the ODD part to it would involve chopping?
 
This looks great, almost exactly what I want my next pc to be!

Do you think it would be possible to squeeze another 2.5 inch hdd in there somewhere?
 
smoove said:
Hows the temps drexel?

25-35c idle, 55-65c under heavy load (LinX). That's with the i5 760 at 3.4ghz (stock volts) with speedstep and turbo enabled (hits 3.87ghz in single threaded apps).

I'll soon be installing a GTX 460 1gb too :)
 
Last edited:
Another new toy:

DSCF0026Small.jpg


I took a risk with this card as I measured that it would *just* fit, but wasn't sure I'd be able to get the PCI-E power connectors in.

Card unboxed, it's a great looking card:

DSCF0029Small.jpg


Luckily, it just about went in. As predicted, the PCI-E connectors were tight, but I was just about able to fit them in:

DSCF0034Small.jpg


DSCF0033Medium.jpg


Case back on:

DSCF0037Small.jpg


DSCF0038Small.jpg


First impressions are great card, virtually silent. Just need to put it through it's paces now :cool:
 
I'm currently drawing up plans for a small boost to mine. According to Wiki there's little over a week to wait for the ATI 6 series so i'll be popping one of those in there most likely.

Add to that 8GB DDR3 and some Sandy Bridge action in January/February and i'm really looking forward to it! :D
 
I have almost the exact same build after reading this drexel!

I will be following you an getting a h50 and a 260 in there, do you know if the cyclone version would be much better than that card? As in temps/noise?

Have you experemented replacing the stock H50 with something else?

Did the GFX increase temps much? What are they like now?

thanks

Can't comment weather the Cyclone would be cooler/quieter but TBH the Gigabyte runs virtually silently, and nice and cool. You can just hear it under load, but the loudest thing in my case is the H50 fan. It's almost silent most of the time, but it does get relatively loud when the CPU is under load and the fan ramps up. It's not massively loud or unpleasant, just a kind of 'wind' rushing noise under load. If you want total silence all the time then you might want to run a different fan on the H50.
 
Last edited:
Bit of an update, I've been getting frustrated with the over-current protection kicking in and not allowing an overclock much higher than 3.6, a bit of research shows that these boards can trip the OCP when overclocking with LLC enabled. So I disabled it, and started my OC from scratch and the result so far is 4.0ghz :D

Overclock.jpg


As you can see I have also overclocked the 460 to 800 core and 2000 mem. So far so good. Ran through cinebench and vantage a few times, and have been playing Crysis (maxed out :D ) for the last hour and a half and it's been flawless, seems stable and temps are good. The GPU fans and H50 fan can get a little noisy under load, but nothing too bad. Loving this little system :cool:
 
Last edited:
Hi,

When you say the system gets a little noisy, just how bad is it? I'm tempted by this to replace our main computer given the amount of space freed up under the desk by the size of the little thing!

Thanks.
 
Whats so special about these new ATI 6 series then?

Mini ITX sandy bridge mobo sounds nice :p

Well at the moment it's mainly rumours, but this is the latest:

HD5750/70 to be renamed the HD6750/70 sometime next year.
HD68** series to become the new mainstream. Priced at £100-200. Expect a 50 series card to take on the GTX460 1GB and a 70 series to come somewhere close to the GTX470.
HD69** series to be the new top end. £200+. Expect a 50 series card at around GTX480 speeds, 70 series a bit quicker and a 90 series sporting two of either of the aforementioned chips.
 
Hi,

When you say the system gets a little noisy, just how bad is it?

Basically I have smart fan control enabled in the bios, so when the CPU is idle/light usage the fan on the H50 is almost silent, however when under load the fan ramps up and there is an audible 'whooshing' sound. It's not particularly loud or offensive, but it's not exactly silent. The same goes for the fans on the GTX 460, they are almost silent when idle and light load, but after a bit of gaming they become audible with a similar (but slightly higher pitched) 'whooshing' sound.

On the whole though it's a very quiet system most of the time, and bear in mind that I'm using a Corsair H50 with the fan that came with it, the stock SG05B intake fan is virtually silent.
 
Last edited:
Just looking at your SSD Drexel, did you use sticky velcro to hold it there or just sticky pads?

If so, which ones did you go for?
 
Back
Top Bottom