SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

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wayner
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SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by wayner » Wed Apr 20, 2011 5:02 pm

I would like to build an HTPC system with a mini-ATX running an i3-2100 and using the integrated video. I would likely only have a small SSD for the system. I would like a case around the size of the Antec ISK-100 - the problem is that this case gets a less than stell review on this site.

Any other options around this size? It looks like the next size up is substantially larger where you get the toaster-like Shuttle type of cases.

ces
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by ces » Wed Apr 20, 2011 5:40 pm


wayner
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by wayner » Wed Apr 20, 2011 7:41 pm

That looks promising but it is probably at least 50% bigger than I need and I would prefer an external power supply. I don't need an optical drive.

It looks like there is another model - the PC-Q09 and I believe the difference is that the Q09 has an external power suppl and is a wee bit smaller.

ces
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by ces » Wed Apr 20, 2011 8:19 pm


boost
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by boost » Wed Apr 20, 2011 11:54 pm

wayner wrote:I would like to build an HTPC system with a mini-ATX running an i3-2100 and using the integrated video. I would likely only have a small SSD for the system. I would like a case around the size of the Antec ISK-100 - the problem is that this case gets a less than stell review on this site.
The Antec ISK-100 is a Mini-ITX case. What main board size do you want to use, Micro ATX or Mini ITX?

merlin
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by merlin » Thu Apr 21, 2011 12:06 am

The ISK-300 is a much better idea imho. The only negative is the 150 watt version has a pretty terrible psu.

Trav1s
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by Trav1s » Thu Apr 21, 2011 5:08 am

ISK-300 65 is a nice option if you can find it. I have one and love it.


http://www.buy.com/prod/antec-isk-300-6 ... 81114.html

wayner
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by wayner » Thu Apr 21, 2011 7:13 am

boost wrote:The Antec ISK-100 is a Mini-ITX case. What main board size do you want to use, Micro ATX or Mini ITX?
Mini. Why is it that a micro board is larger than a mini board? I guess there is no precise definition of micro and mini (although you could argue that micro is 10^(-6) ) but to me micro means smaller than mini.

wayner
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by wayner » Thu Apr 21, 2011 7:39 am

Trav1s wrote:ISK-300 65 is a nice option if you can find it. I have one and love it.
That is an option - what CPU cooler could you use in it with a Sandy Bridge CPU I don't really need an optical drive in it but I guess there isn't any downside in having one except for additional space. Note that the SPCR review on this case is now almost two years old and says that a larger CPU heatsink could work well without a dedicated CPU fan - here is the exact quote:
5. Finally, we still think a more ideal heatsink — one that occupies the entire space and height available with large fins surface area not too tightly spaced — would allow good cooling of the components with just one quiet 80mm case fan.
Have any heatsinks of this sort emerged since July 2009?

There now appears to be another model with a 150W external PS. The original 65W model seems to have lots of stock at NCIX.com - not so with the 150W model.

And finally - are there small form factor SSDs? Why does an SSD have to be 2.5" other than to fit in a traditional notebook hard drive slot and use regular SATA connectors? Why not make SSDs the size of an SD card, assuming that you come up with a microSATA connector of some sort? That would eliminate the requirement for dedicating any space to an HD in a case.

nutball
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by nutball » Thu Apr 21, 2011 10:31 am

wayner wrote:
boost wrote:The Antec ISK-100 is a Mini-ITX case. What main board size do you want to use, Micro ATX or Mini ITX?
Mini. Why is it that a micro board is larger than a mini board? I guess there is no precise definition of micro and mini (although you could argue that micro is 10^(-6) ) but to me micro means smaller than mini.
Only if you ignore what comes after the prefix!

ATX != ITX.

Furthermore a micro-parsec is much bigger than a millimetre :-)

Anyway, to answer your question this enclosure

http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal- ... -enclosure

will take a mini-ITX Sandy Bridge build (I've done this), though the external PSU isn't ideal. The ISK-100 is a roll-your-sleeves-up-and-mod enclosure as far as I'm concerned.

wayner
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by wayner » Thu Apr 21, 2011 12:51 pm

nutball wrote:Only if you ignore what comes after the prefix!

ATX != ITX.
I never noticed that before - to quote Spinal Tap "There is a fine line between brilliant and stupid"

Thanks for the case suggestion - I take it that this case doesn't require as much fiddling around as the ISK-100? And the M350 should be able to take a socket 1155 Sandy Bridge mobo and CPU?

Metaluna
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by Metaluna » Thu Apr 21, 2011 1:28 pm

wayner wrote:And finally - are there small form factor SSDs? Why does an SSD have to be 2.5" other than to fit in a traditional notebook hard drive slot and use regular SATA connectors? Why not make SSDs the size of an SD card, assuming that you come up with a microSATA connector of some sort? That would eliminate the requirement for dedicating any space to an HD in a case.
Yes there are a number of alternative form factors coming on the market. There's one that looks like a traditional 2.5" drive, but cut in half lengthwise, so it has the same SATA data/power connectors and width as a 2.5" drive but is half as long. Then there are various ones that look like DIMMs or mini-PCIe cards but with the pins redefined to carry SATA signals. I don't know of any motherboards outside of laptops and netbooks that use these yet though.

http://gizmodo.com/#!5364485/msata-its- ... ut-smaller

EDIT: Also, if you buy a small capacity budget SSD (e.g. Kingston SSDNow 30GB) and crack open the case, you will probably find that it's mostly air inside with a very small circuit board. So if you don't mind voiding the warranty and can find a way of mounting it without shorting anything out you can save some space that way. Keep in mind that Flash chips aren't infinitely small, so there are limits to what you can fit in, say, an SD card form factor. Though they have similar capacity, those tiny cards people use in cameras and media players are *much* slower than even the worst SSD.

Abula
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by Abula » Sat Apr 23, 2011 9:15 am

nutball wrote:http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal- ... -enclosure

will take a mini-ITX Sandy Bridge build (I've done this), though the external PSU isn't ideal. The ISK-100 is a roll-your-sleeves-up-and-mod enclosure as far as I'm concerned.
Just wondering since you have already done Sandy bridge ITX builds on that case.

The M350 seems ideal for in ITX build, but im worried about how the CPU socket is placed, watching this two pictures of the M320, the cpu socket is placed to the side of motherboard, and the intel cpu cooler plastic harness almost touches the hdd bracket, now the SB ITX boards seems to have placed the cpu socket further in the board, pic of intels DH67CFB3 , most of the time beside the PCIe slot, which makes me think that the intel cpu cooler plastic harness will not allow to place the hdd bracket, can you confirm this is true in your SB ITX builds? and if so what have you done?

Thanks,

ces
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by ces » Sat Apr 23, 2011 2:08 pm

Abula wrote:
nutball wrote:http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal- ... -enclosure will take a mini-ITX Sandy Bridge build (I've done this), though the external PSU isn't ideal. The ISK-100 is a roll-your-sleeves-up-and-mod enclosure as far as I'm concerned.
The M350 seems ideal for in ITX build, but im worried about how the CPU socket is placed, watching this two pictures of the M320, the cpu socket is placed to the side of motherboard, and the intel cpu cooler plastic harness almost touches the hdd bracket, now the SB ITX boards seems to have placed the cpu socket further in the board, pic of intels DH67CFB3 , most of the time beside the PCIe slot, which makes me think that the intel cpu cooler plastic harness will not allow to place the hdd bracket, can you confirm this is true in your SB ITX builds?
That is a good observation. I have read that the stock 1155 cpu cooler is only 20mm high.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... 00_10.html

That seems awfully low. In the alternative you can try the SILVERSTONE NT07-1156 90mm CPU Cooler - 93 x 36.5 x 93mm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by solitus » Sat Apr 23, 2011 8:12 pm

ces wrote:
Abula wrote:
nutball wrote:http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal- ... -enclosure will take a mini-ITX Sandy Bridge build (I've done this), though the external PSU isn't ideal. The ISK-100 is a roll-your-sleeves-up-and-mod enclosure as far as I'm concerned.
That seems awfully low. In the alternative you can try the SILVERSTONE NT07-1156 90mm CPU Cooler - 93 x 36.5 x 93mm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product
I've used the NT07-AM2 on an AM2 mobo in my HTPC and its nice and quiet. The design is different, but I was impressed by the Silverstone fan (can't remember whether I used a fanmate or not - I think the AM2 version doesn't have a PWM fan, and I'm too lazy to go downstairs and check).

From the ISK-100 review, there's 4cm clearance, so the NT07-1156 should fit in there on an i3 2100T.

Anyone know whether there's enough space? I'm thinking if there is, I can lose the noisy 10cm fan and rely on just the 9cm cooler fan to push air over the mobo heatsinks too.

Specs on the NT07 cooler are:
Fan speed - 1200~3000rpm ± 10% /1200~1800rpm ± 10%
Max air pressure - 0.5~2.75 mmH2O/0.5~1.58mmH2O
Max airflow - 12~40CFM/12~23CFM
Noise - 15~38dBA/15~23dBA
CPU TDP 95W
Its PWM controlled, and given it has a TDP-capabiltiy of 95W should spend a lot of its time at the lower end of the rpm range even on the slow setting with a 35W TDP i3 2100T.

The build will have this fan be the only moving part - its just a general purpose desktop for a family member so doesn't need large graphics grunt, quad cores or overclocking.
Last edited by solitus on Sun Apr 24, 2011 2:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Abula
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by Abula » Sat Apr 23, 2011 9:00 pm

ces wrote:That is a good observation. I have read that the stock 1155 cpu cooler is only 20mm high.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... 00_10.html

That seems awfully low. In the alternative you can try the SILVERSTONE NT07-1156 90mm CPU Cooler - 93 x 36.5 x 93mm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product
Thanks for the reply, i didnt notice it but you are right, the 2100T comes special less tall heatsink compared to all others Sandy bridge chips, upon continue searching some i found this post, where you can see it its less tall than the standard, i would say almost the size of memory installed, this is nice, but idk for sure if its enough to install the 1xhdd bracket with 1xhdd mounted on the M350.

ryguy92250
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by ryguy92250 » Tue Apr 26, 2011 3:01 pm

I own the m350 case and am using a core i3 2100t inside it with the stock heatsink since it is low profile. I also have an intel x-25m 80gb 2.5" ssd that I have placed right above the heatsink. I can tell you now that this is probably not something you would want to do; rather, place the ssd in the other bracket spot and leave that one empty. The 2.5" ssd/hdd will fit inbetween the stock heatsink and the hard drive bracket, but the clearance is negligible if any at all. I feel as though my ssd is touching the top of the heat sink on the plastic. Regardless, I don't see how I would be able to get much air with the ssd blocking it.

For now I am moving the ssd over to the other side of the case on a different bracket and leaving that bracket where it is. Maybe try to find a slightly bigger case?

The habey emc-800b looks to be a case worth mentioning (dimensions of 9"x8"x3"). perhaps even fit a low profile graphics card in it (if 3 inches is tall enough).

solitus
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by solitus » Wed Apr 27, 2011 12:03 pm

solitus wrote: From the ISK-100 review, there's 4cm clearance, so the NT07-1156 should fit in there on an i3 2100T.

Anyone know whether there's enough space? I'm thinking if there is, I can lose the noisy 10cm fan and rely on just the 9cm cooler fan to push air over the mobo heatsinks too.
Bugger.. my supplier checked and the Australian distributor of Silverstone doesn't supply the NT07-1156 locally.

It would be good to know for sure whether the NT07-1156 fits the ISK-100, before I pay a bunch of $$ shipping one internationally :D

wayner
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by wayner » Mon May 02, 2011 2:06 pm

How noisy is the stock Intel heatsink and will the stock heatsink from an i3-2100 (NOT 2100T) fit inside the M350?

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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by matt_garman » Thu May 19, 2011 7:14 am

ryguy92250 wrote:I own the m350 case and am using a core i3 2100t inside it with the stock heatsink since it is low profile. I also have an intel x-25m 80gb 2.5" ssd that I have placed right above the heatsink. I can tell you now that this is probably not something you would want to do; rather, place the ssd in the other bracket spot and leave that one empty. The 2.5" ssd/hdd will fit inbetween the stock heatsink and the hard drive bracket, but the clearance is negligible if any at all. I feel as though my ssd is touching the top of the heat sink on the plastic. Regardless, I don't see how I would be able to get much air with the ssd blocking it.
Any chance you could post a picture? Also, do you happen to have temp measurements? I too am interested in the m350 and an i3-2100T, but concerned about the H67 motherboards having the CPU socket in the "middle" (as opposed to on the edge).

ces
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by ces » Thu May 19, 2011 10:32 am

wayner wrote:How noisy is the stock Intel heatsink and will the stock heatsink from an i3-2100 (NOT 2100T) fit inside the M350?
Do you know if there is a difference in size between the 2100 heat sink and the 2100t heat sink?

ces
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Re: SFF Case for Sandy Bridge CPU?

Post by ces » Thu May 19, 2011 10:34 am

Here is an interesting thread regarding the 350 case and the 2100t:

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=62226&start=0

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