Hi,

could you please provide some suggestions about a video editing SFF machine I am about to build (needless to say I would like it as silent as the budget will allow).
It is turning out to be challenging to choose all the parts, in order to comply with the constraints (below) and I hope to get some good ideas in here.
Thanks a ton!

Roberto


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Usage: Video editing/encoding, Photoshop, Web browsing, Office (no gaming, no overclocking).

Budget: around 1K€ (display cost, tax and shipping excluded), flexible budget though. I live in Italy: I will purchase from any suggested european online shop

Specific features needed in the mobo: mini-ITXformat, Z97 chipset, PCIE x4 M.2 slot (required), at least 2 USB 3.0 (required) and 2 SATA 6Gb/s (required).

Space requirements: max 10cm vertical system measure, internal ODD required

Parts covered with budget: Z97MoBo with M.2 PCIE x4 slot (is the Asus Max VII impact my only current option?), Intel CPU (i5 or i7), CPU cooler, CPU fan, 2x8GB RAM, Antec ISK310 or ISK300 case (wanted. Anyway a different case should allow the use of PCIE slot, and should have a vertical measure < 10cm), extra case fans, PSU (Antec?Pico?), ODD BD writer (required), M.2 SDD Samsung XP941 256GB.

OS/SW/other: WIN 7 retail 64bit, Canopus Edius video editing software and a TS870-ultra QNAP NAS

Welcome to SPCR.


Is the max height requirement because this system will be inside a cabinet / low airflow environment?

Hi Steve,

Correct, its place is inside a cabinet: airflow is provided on the sides.

Roberto

Is there considerable venting, or do you expect that it will get warm in there? Reason I ask is if it does get warm in there, you've effectively raised the PC's ambient temperature and it'll be more challenging to cool.

There is a considerable venting but not active cooling: I would assume that the temperature won't exceed room's temperature by more than 5 degrees, that means PC air temp is 30 °C in the worst case.

Asus Z97I-Plus also has M.2. Looks like some early adopters (May, June builds) had compatibility problems with the Samsung SSD. Might want to look into it to see if it was resolved with later drivers/UEFI updates.

As much as I like the z97 Plus (a lot) its M.2 support is just 2X, not 4X (and it's PCIE v2.0 vs PCIE 3.0 of Maximus VII Impact)

Depending on how the venting plays out in reality, you construct a hotbox. Since the ISK moves practically no air in the direct vicinity of hte case, you might need to place the PC in open air or force some ventilation with a fan.

Maybe some foto/pics of your cabinet and venting can give us a hint.

I think that assumption is a bit optimistic, particularly under load (given the small internal volume and the tiny overall airflow).

Unfortunately I am anable to provide pics at this time, anyway the PC is to be located in a kind of rack, between two shelves (vertical space between them is 12 cm). The rack is totally open on the front, sides and back, hence my assumption that lateral fans should be able to keep the temperature within 5 °C from the one of the room (which never exceeds 25°C). Hope this clarifies the matter.

In a much larger Antec Minuet, free standing on the floor, I experience an internal temp rise of about 15°c over ambient with a single 80mm exhaust running approximately at 800rpm (but with a fanned TFX unit which help hot air exhaust through the back).

Obviously hardware is different, as well as placement and location, but personally I would be a bit surprised whether the ISK were able to mantain a modest 5°C rise at an acceptable noise level.

Ok, I get your point and agree, and I maybe was a bit unclear.

I was not talking about the temperature inside the ISK. I am referring to the temperature of the air surrounding the ISK ("PC's ambient temperature" as referred to by Steve some posts above).
The latter will differ from room's temperature since the shelves, are larger (about 15 cm on both sides) than the ISK. The former will be higher, agreed, depending on the amount/type of fans (plus PSU type) I am suggested to add.

As far as I know the ISK can mount a couple of 8cm pullout fans on the right side, plus the one of the internal 150W PSU.
I guess that some 8cm pullin fans could be added on the left side, and if needed (and depending on power requrements) a Pico-PSU could repalce the 150W PSU (freeing up some internal room and relocating outside the heat produced by the power brick of Pico PSU)...

Yes there are some misunderstandings: in your first post I thought you were talking about the cabinet (furniture, as in italian "cabinet" can be referred to a case/enclosure), and my answer was related to that, while in your second post, as you were talking about fans, I intended you were referring to the ISK enclosure, and thinking my first answer was somehow wrongly directed, my second one was related to the case itself.

Anyway, both the temperature are (you know) related.

As you don't have active cooling into that cabinet, you rely upon convection solely.
So, summarizing, hot air rise from bottom to top: but at the top there's another shelf, so you will likely experience some heat build up.

With reference to that heating, although fluid dynamics is a complex matter, currently I don't think the side fans may help substantially pushing the hot air away from the relevant shelf, as the volume outside the case is much larger than the internal one and a fan isn't a nozzle, so it cannot direct the turbulent flow straight out from the impeller.

The ISK airflow design is fairly simple: it has a small inlet on the bottom and exhaust from the top.
When you flip it on the wide side, the inlet is higher than the outlet: it can still works, probably less efficiently as you loose the chimney effect, but in your specific scenario that inlet will stay right there where the heat build up occurs.

So that (now I'm reprising my first answer) you may likely have such a scenario, under load: the fans exhaust the hot air from the right side, most of that air will be entrapped under the top shelf, and that's where the inlet will breath, and no fresh air will go inside the case, iterating this process. Given that, I think that a modest 5°C rise may be a bit optimistic, particularly under load (around the case, between the shelves).

If the case had not a shelf over it, things should go surely better.

Two further considerations: SPCR tested the 65W ISK 300 with a cool Core 2 Duo E7200, and you can see it ran pretty hot; up to now I think that with a powerful Haswell Core i5/i7 you may only have worse temps (but that's just my not-so-educated guess).
As a consequence, it shouldn't run quietly: probably it won't be unbearable, but more probably that not it will be far from quiet.

Last but not least, the proprietary fanned PSU of the ISK-310 is fairly loud, so IMO you have to swap it.

Ok, as per Pappnaas suggestion pics should help:

-the PC is going to be hosted in a structure similar to this one.
-ISK 310-150 venting details (left and right view)

Please notice that venting design is different from ISK300-65 reviewed by SPCR: here grills extend almost completely on both sides. My understanding was that fitting pull-in fans on the left side and pullout fans on the right airflow would move horizontally inside the case and between the shelves (more so if the ISK would be placed close to the left edge of the cabinet).

I agree that included power supply is not the best option. It probably shall be replaced by an external brick and an internal DCDC PSU (e.g. http://www.aliexpress.com/store/211500).

Please let me know if this makes sense to you...

Thanks for the pictures - we definately had a English/Italian language issue. I'd call that media center shelving rather than an enclosure/cabinet. In any case, place the PC in the lower shelf so it doesn't get residual heat from whatever (probably an A/V Receiver) goes in the other shelf.

Going with the Pico PSU/brick will also help reduce internal heat loading.

RAM: 2x8GB can be useful for very large Photoshop workloads or if you want to run a RAM Disk. Not sure if it helps with video. In any case, go for lower profile sticks so they don't conflict with your CPU cooler. G.Skill ARES is one.

CPU: I don't think you can cool a standard i7 in this case as you won't be able to put a decent cooler in it. You could go with a lower TDP i7, but then if you lower the TDP, why not go with a nice fanless case and call it a day?

CPU cooler: Useless Antec does not state max cooler height in spec or manual...the ISK300 was found to have 65mm between CPU and drive frame and you'll want 10mm of clearance for top-down fan airflow. Stock Intel will clear but will have lousy airflow with 2mm clearance.

I would opt for a decent supplier, maybe like: http://www.logicsupply.it/power-supplies/.
I don't know how you can mod that case to get rid of the PSU, so check carefully how you can do it.

Broadly speaking, the large shelf IMO doesn't help (but putting the enclosure onto the top shelf will do), but the second intake of the ISK 310 would offer some fresh breath to a Core i5 (4430/4590), while I don't think you may squeeze a regular Core i7 in such a setup. Your best option for the cooler should be the Scythe Big Shuriken 2, but check the socket placement as it's rather wide.

Too tall. It's 58mm w/o the slimline fan and 71mm with it.

Have you considered a fanless A/V style case like the HD Plex?

No Steve, I think there's a misunderstanding: that cooler is 58mm tall including the stock slim fan.
I'm more concerned about the cooler width, as it could interfere with the enclosure internals.

you are right.

Luca, the Big Shuriken 2 looks very interesting, thanks for your suggestion.
Do you see a particular reason to prefer 4430/4590 over I7-4770 with my setup?

Steve, I did consider HD Plex and Streacom (both very nice cases), but my impression was that an active cooled case could privide more safety margin in my case (suboptimal PC location, 84W TDP CPU...)

Correct. For a system intended for heavy load, and with a quad core CPU the passive cases aren't optimal.

Hey, this is written in the early morning with my first mug of coffee. So, take it with a grain of salt.

tl;dr: I think it'll be problematic quietly cooling an 84W Haswell i7 in the Antec case. The case should handle the 65W S parts. But, if you go with an S part, the HD Plex is a better choice.

The i7-4770 runs hot. It may be 84W vs SandyBridge's 95W, but the smaller die and lack of solder TIM make is worse, thermally. The Big Shuriken 2 Rev B might be able to keep it cool in this case. Figure the overvolted/overclocked Sandy Bridge in the review might be a decent comparable....but it's also in an open air test versus the Antec case with only 7mm clearance for the fan. Lot of ifs. If it were directly comparable, and if you had room temp of 25C and, say 10C rise in the shelf area, and another 10C rise inside the case, and if you wanted the CPU to stay below 80C, that leaves 35C for CPU. Implying the Scythe fan will be running @ 30dBA plus whatever turbulence from the low clearance.

If, the numbers are more liberal, call it same as the OC/OV Sandybridge, but only 5C shelf rise and 5C internal ambient rise, that leaves 45C rise for the CPU with the 80C limit. That throws you to around 14dBA.

So, 10C can make the difference of ~15 dBA. Not much margin for error.

If you are willing to let the CPU go to 90C, then maybe the std i7 can be quiet in this case.

If you were willing to buy an S suffix product (or fiddle with undervolting/underclocking to get there), the effective TDP* goes down to 65W, so there's less temp rise for the CPU and a bit more margin. So, for the liberal example above, this would lead to ~70C CPU temp @ ~14dBA (plus whatever turbulence you get from low clearance) and for the more conservative case, ~80C @ ~14dBA (plus...).

Then again, if you are getting the 65W part, you can easily cool it with a decent passive case. HD Plex, for example. It'd probably run ~50-55C over ambient stressed as the 55W Ivy Bridge in the review ran 45C over with stressed load....and call it ~35C over ambient while transcoding video.

In summary:
- You can go with the std i7 in the Antec case and you might be able to get it to be quiet, but it'll run damn hot.
- You can go with the i7-S in the Antec case and it'll probably be quiet (especially from 10' away).
- You can go with the i7-S in a passive case like the HD Plex and it'll be silent and as cool as in the Antec.

* There is the whole caveat that TDP doesn't mean actual watts...it's just a design profile and Intel throws entire classes of CPUs into these buckets of TDPs. For example, an 84W i5 will never use as much power as an 84W i7.

Steve: thanks a lot for your thorough analysis!
Would an undervolted 4770K allow for a more precise heat point (/noise level) setting than a 4770S?

About passive cases (HD plex, Streacom): it seems to me that heat pipes are not compatible with VRM board of Asus Z97 Maximus VII impact (which is the only mITX board sporting M.2 PCIe x4 I was able to spot).
This would lead towards an active cooling solution, after the check suggested by Luca about the MB/HS compatibility...

To be honest, I'm afraid you will have to mod the upper cage in order to fit the Big Shuriken: in case, the smaller Shuriken may offer you a viable alternative (but for a noticeable less cooling prowess).



Set aside there's no need to prefer a 4770/4771 over the newer 4790, three are the reasons to opt for the Core i5: price, power draw, heat, as the only real advantage of i7 (HyperThreading) doesn't seem to apply to your usage pattern.



There's no need of any -K SKU: those K CPUs allow overclocking, but any undervolting capability belongs to the motherboard.