My first SFF build

Soldato
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Had a quick think about my build, here are some scribbles:

SG05
222mm (w) x 176mm (h) x 276mm (d) = 8.74in (w) x 6.93in (h) x 10.87in (d)

H5O
120mm (w) x 152mm (h) x 27mm (d) = 4.72in (w) x 5.98in (h) x 1.06in (d)

A standard 120mm fan is 25mm deep (0.98in), a slim 120mm fan is 12mm deep (0.47in)

Therefore, assuming that the whole depth of the SG05 is on offer.

H5O with standard 120mm fan: 276 - (27 + 25) = 224mm (8.82in)
H5O with slim 120mm fan: 276 - (27 + 12) = 237mm (9.33in)

I know this won't be totally true as there's some loss in the front panel etc. but considering a slim 120mm fan might well open up an extra half an inch for graphics card.

My question to you Drexel (and I promise this is the last one ;)) - do you think a slim 120mm fan would be able to cool well enough for a modern processor?
 
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My question to you Drexel (and I promise this is the last one ;)) - do you think a slim 120mm fan would be able to cool well enough for a modern processor?

I honestly don't know, my temps are great so assuming a slim fan won't raise temps that much it'll probably be ok.
 
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Just make sure you leave load-line calibration off, if you switch it on at anything above ~3.4ghz it spikes the current and trips the overcurrent protection on the board which manifests itself as a hard lock requiring the power to be physically switched off and on.

Mine will boot into windows at 4.2 but it's not stable at all. I've actually backed it off to 3.9 now (186 x 21) because I was getting the occasional BSOD at 4.0. I've found that this board/CPU combo overclocks best when leaving everything on auto apart from the vcore and ram voltage. When I manually try to set the QPI/VTT it immediately becomes unstable for me.

So yeah, basically to get a rock solid 3.9ghz my settings are:

Base Clock - 186
Multi - 21
Turbo off
LLC off

That's pretty much it, everything esle is on auto/default :)

Cheers for the pointers, I had a bit of a time getting it stable at stock which was a little disappointing for "new" kit. All the auto settings kept hanging during Windows install, I ended up dialling everything in to get it to stabilise. Very odd, but it seems ok now.

I'll keep the settings you posted in mind, I'm aiming for 4ghz but the VID on the chip I've got is pretty high at 1.26v... :(
 
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Had a quick think about my build, here are some scribbles:

SG05
222mm (w) x 176mm (h) x 276mm (d) = 8.74in (w) x 6.93in (h) x 10.87in (d)

H5O
120mm (w) x 152mm (h) x 27mm (d) = 4.72in (w) x 5.98in (h) x 1.06in (d)

A standard 120mm fan is 25mm deep (0.98in), a slim 120mm fan is 12mm deep (0.47in)

Therefore, assuming that the whole depth of the SG05 is on offer.

H5O with standard 120mm fan: 276 - (27 + 25) = 224mm (8.82in)
H5O with slim 120mm fan: 276 - (27 + 12) = 237mm (9.33in)

I know this won't be totally true as there's some loss in the front panel etc. but considering a slim 120mm fan might well open up an extra half an inch for graphics card.

My question to you Drexel (and I promise this is the last one ;)) - do you think a slim 120mm fan would be able to cool well enough for a modern processor?

It's the rad that governs the length of the card not the fan,you mount the rad to the chassis and place the fan on the inside to give you the maximum card length,which in the SG-05 with the H50 mounted this way is ~8.5".
If you plan to offset the rad then you'd have the full length of the case again which puts you into 5850/470 territory.
 
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Similar to mine TBH, I need 1.4v for 4.0ghz.

I think I might need more than that :( Managed to get 3.8ghz stable last night at 1.38v which was a massive jump up from the 1.235v I needed for 3.6ghz.

Temps are going to be my issue I fear, I've gone back to single fan to try a few things in the case with a 3.5" drive and my temps are notching on 68 on one of the cores at 3.8ghz. Getting a bit high for my liking, although I guess I've got a bit more headroom. Still 1.4+v is not going to be good for a 24/7 clock.

Give it another crack tonight, might see about sticking the other fan back in again and forego the idea of an internally mounted 3.5" disk... Pinched your SSD idea btw, works well especially when you route the SATA cable under the motherboard. Cheers for that. :)
 
Soldato
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It's the rad that governs the length of the card not the fan,you mount the rad to the chassis and place the fan on the inside to give you the maximum card length,which in the SG-05 with the H50 mounted this way is ~8.5".
If you plan to offset the rad then you'd have the full length of the case again which puts you into 5850/470 territory.

Aaaargh of course! You're spot on. Just from looking at my own build, the HD5850 slots neatly down the side of the fan so I don't need to bother incorporating it into my calculations.

The rad will block a long GPU, but that's all I need to consider.

So an SG05 with an H5O leaves 249mm or 9.8in. An HD6870 is certainly a possibility as the power connectors are mounted on the top.
 
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The length I gave you (~8.5") was with the H50 rad on it's side so you can keep the slimline optical drive like Drexel has done.

Removing the hdd cage and foregoing the slimeline optical allows you to mount H50 vertically and you can choose any card you want (up to the length of the case).

A 6870 will fit no problem with the H50 mounted vertically.
 
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Soldato
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I guess at the end of the day I should stop being so sodding lazy and pull my SG05 apart and look for myself. I just don't want to start pulling stuff out until i'm ready to upgrade - the HD5850 in particular is a little bit tricky to get in the case.
 
Soldato
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what cases are you guys using ? ive seen the silverstone sg07 but its a mini-itx case, im guessing this wouldnt house a mATX mobo ??

Not without serious modification to the fundamentals of the case.

If you want microATX, get a microATX case, there are plenty out there all good to go, for example:

Silverstone TJ08/TJ08E
NZXT Vulcan
Silverstone Sugo SG01/SG02/SG03/SG04
Antec Mini P180
Fractal Define Mini
Lian Li V350/V351/V352/V354
Lian Li A03/A04
Silverstone FT03
ZNXT Rogue

Those are the ones I can think of, there are certainly even more.

My personal favourite of those is the Sugo SG03, it's ~22L and has the footprint of an SG05. Pure win.
 
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Hmm Sugo SG03, ill have to look at that. Ive seen the SG07 which looks nice, im swaying towards Mini-ITX rather than mATX.

Gonna build something that can sit under my TV so i can game on it and also use it as a media centre. well thats the plan :)
 
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