My Raijintek Metis Plus Mini-ITX Case Build 'Full Circle'

[Darren_uk]

(1) Case Feet Changing
(2)Installing the Hardware
(3)Power Adapter Cable Mod
(4)Acrylic Side Panel Mod
(5)

 

[Darren_uk]

ote1, Quiet, Even on Benchmarking & playing games, I adjust the case fan & CPU Fan by the gigabyte (System Information viewer App ) From Silent to Full Speed or Leave it on Auto Smart Mode,

 

[Darren_uk]

upcoming

 

[Darren_uk]

Awesome, are you going to add in some thin case fans then? Please post the results. I'd like to have a Metis as my main case if the cooling performance were better.

Playing Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor on max settings, heat & sound is a problem, motherboard temp over 50c, SSD reaching over 50c
graphics card fans can be heard a lot, a lot of heat coming out the bottom of PSU really hot,
normal light tasks like watching blu-ray movies stay cool & no sound.
see how it goes
Just looked at the CPU temp in RealTemp_370 & Reaching over 80c ...the I7 4790K not even OC yet

 

[Darren_uk]

Changed the CPU Cooler]

 

[Darren_uk]

Seems all fine now with temps .

 

[Darren_uk]

hey Darren, I would ask are you leaving the top off to keep it cool ??

if not I would advise you to change your fans a bit, quick diagram to help explain what I mean: ( -> / <- the direction of air )

PSU <- -> CPU -> exhaust......I know this is a default layout for the fans but it seems to force the air in all directions rather than In a nice path, remember the PSU fan takes in from the fan and out the bottom. but your 2 other fans are counting it making the PSU on load fight for air.

I would swap it so it was PSU <- CPU <- Intake <- this would improve the flow of air, and maybe add a filter to the back fan or a cut up stretched tight or something. although the air going to the PSU would be warmed by the "CPU" it will be easier for the air to flow and when cool the intake and CPU will push the air into the PSU and out of it as a nature vent. the GPU will share some of the air and gain it from the mesh side panel opposite.

Edit: it is nice to see a fellow Kent person ^^ I'm from Sittingbourne

Hello Fellow Kent person, HalfBakedJake & ote1,
yes, that is one way I Thought about when building it PSU <- CPU <- Intake < I already been thinking about,
I put this case on hold at the moment when I get back to doing the case I will reverse the case so Graphics card at bottom & CPU at top with 120mm rear fan outtake,
I will make a nice pattern of holes on front panel for PSU & make holes also on top,
simple mod job,
also been looking at the SilverStone NightJar 520W Zero dBA "80+ Plus Platinum" Fanless Power Supply (SST-NJ520) and how that reacts to standing upright and holes in the front, be very Interesting when I get around to it.

 

[Darren_uk]

Afraid not. Did a build in one of these and get similar temps to you using a 270X MSI ITX. I then fit a HDD in at the top, but that totally restricts what little room the GPU has for air.

Card was reaching 90c's and sounded like a train with a HDD in place.

Other than that, the case is brilliant, the non windowed variant is SLIGHTLY better for cooling as it has a vent where you could either stick a fan or have a low profile CPU cooler that chucks air through it. Since the entire case is metal however, its great at dissipating the heat.

The temps on the CPU look good anyway, its just the GPU that can get toasty. Drill some holes in the top and stick a fan there !

EDIT: Better to have a fan on your PSU here, as its still pulling in some air at least (at least mine was pulling in air, I cant remember if I reversed the PSU fan or not). Fanless is going to mean you have no intakes whatsoever.

 

[Darren_uk]

Agree

 

[Darren_uk]

Very tempted to buy one of these cases but I have a Silverstone SG09 sitting in my bedroom going to waste so no need for one ATM, it's also my favourite case after having overheating issues with my enthoo pro

I purchased the Raijintek Metis ITX Case as its one of smallest & made of aluminium,
so don't take much room up and can be placed in very small places & on the shelf or next to the Main tv or easy to take it to a friends house in a small bag.

 

[Darren_uk]

also with this Raijintek Metis Case nice to mod it to make it an Air-friendly case for High-end hardware,
I once owned the Silverstone SG09 , very AIR friendly & can take full-size cards & takes good size PSUs in front

 

[Darren_uk]

Problem with this case is there's no provision for natural convection to occur. Some holes in the bottom and top would help massively I think.

Will be interesting to see the results of your drilling.

Indeed, that's why I am going to really make this an air vented, bottom rear 120mm fan intake, front top out, back top in, this also cool the graphics card more
was going to make air venting for the PSU on the front panel, but I think I let that suck air in from inside the case & out the bottom, possible 80mm silent eagle fan up to 2000rpm on the window.
Being there is only 1 system fan connector on the motherboard , I will mod a small fan controller to the front.

 

[Darren_uk]

What does your cat think? Is it Purrfect?

He's thinking Purrfect small case

 

[Darren_uk]

Modding the top panel be finished tomorrow.

 

[Darren_uk]

This is exactly what this case needs. Going for the window means that you loose out on some vent holes on the side anyway, but this will fix it very nicely.

Honestly, not sure why Raijintek didn't have this to begin with. Nice work!

I guess it is down to the price, under £40 pounds for alu case, More done to the case more they charge, I am happy to make my own fan/Vent holes in the window, that be done at the end of this project

 

[Darren_uk]

That's the end of this update, More will follow soon.

 

[Darren_uk]

This is great! Was hoping someone would do this for the rest of us to see. Will be watching keenly.

Thanks, Ote1 , I am really enjoying this modding project

 

[Darren_uk]

I have a mod just like yours, GTX 970, MSI MiniITX and water cooler (Corsair h80i)

A few things I would suggest to people who want to try building a gaming rig in this case:
1: Buy an SFX PSU, it´s cranked in there and you will thank me once you do.
2: if you settle for a low-mid GPU you can actually build mod-free I had Asus R9 270 OC DCII and got around 70c in heaven extreme, thats an acceptable degree. If you would settle for even less i would buy MSI 750TI it shouldn't be more than 60c in this case modfree and still be able to play most new games on medium.
3: water cooling is really good in this case, 28c idle and max 59c FULL LOAD
4: If you really want a high end GPU you will have to mod the top, I did a clean 240mm cut out and used a fan grill from Phobya it look nice. No extra fans needed for good airflow.

I did one thing i regret, I wanted as few cables as possible so i cut the HDD cable, did´t like the red light it flashed when the HDD was working... now it´s constant RED!!! what a hell?!

1) I researched into the SFX PSUs sometime ago,600Watt review states its maybe a little noisier than the 450watt, the SFX cost a lot more money than what I got now, also limited on Connectors for SATA, Molex,
the Silverstone SFX-L 500W '80 Plus Gold' Fully Modular Power Supply, on pre-order looks interesting,
only 130mm depth.

2) My GPUs, Nvidia GTX 970 being very Good on watts, I have a Gigabyte gtx 970 itx ver & a zotac 970 , the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 "Mini-ITX" 4096MB temps underload around 60c Unigine_Heaven-4.0 on extreme HD 1920 x 1080p 8x aa from my old case builds , the zotac gtx 970 card , the target temp is set to 79c in the FireStorm software, can set the target temp to what you like in the software ,more you set the target temp more it ajusts the volts for overclocking, thats why it always reads 79c in the benchmarks .

3) I have been water cooling for 10 years, now retired from it
, my Parvum Systems case build was the last water-cooled build.

4) Modding the top i went with drilling air vent holes instead of cutting most of the top off or cutting out big round holes, I think it makes the top look better/keeping the beauty of the case & allows adding different fan sizes for this build, well that just my Own Personal View

With the Nvidia new low wattage Architecture on the high-end GPUs 970, 980 GTX is a great thing & allows the 970 cards underload to only reach around 60c on stock cooling like the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 " Mini-ITX.

 

[Darren_uk]

you can't get this results, I get 1400-1500 in 1080P with GTX 970. Heaven settings maxed, did you alter the settings? Or is it true extreme 1080P ?

Hello ulanddanne & welcome, that Picture benchmark from the old Valley Benchmark 1.0, not Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0
keeping watching this project I will post Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 test and CPU, System temps when I finished this project.

 

[Darren_uk]

Update 06-02-2015