NCASE M1: a crowdfunded Mini-ITX case (updates in first post)

sashi said:
As I am spending more and more time with my watercooled case I am falling in love with it more and more

How would one add a fill port?
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I personally like Herstal's fill port hole solution (link) he did with his Swiftech H220 setup. He complained later that it was too narrow to work well, so I did the same thing with my H220 setup but made the hole bigger:

MMc5pqy.png


I could have moved the radiator plus fans over to the left to clear the case's structural beam (on the right of the photo), but it's still manageable.

This will ofcourse depend on the radiator you are going to use but it might be a solution for you. An external reservoir (and thus fillport) will always be much easier to fill & bleed, but it will also be more expensive considering there are only a few reservoirs that fit without issue or that don't stick out 10cm.

sashi said:
What kind of hardware do I look for?
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That's quite ambiguous, but I'll give some general advice:

- a motherboard with the CPU socket NOT close to the PCIe slot, eliminates issues with heatsink or waterblock placement that have the fittings on the side. I prefer the Asus Z97I-PLUS (topic) and the Gigabyte GA-Z97N-Gaming 5 (topic), depending on personal preferences. There are also H97-chipset versions of those boards if you don't want to overclock. Basically, the Intel Socket 1150 platform is the best choice at the moment.

- CPU depends on use-case: gaming benefits the most from something like the i5-4690K or a non-K model if you are not going to overclock. If you are going to do content creation and multitasking, the i7-4790K or non-K models will perform better because of the HyperThreading.

- RAM I always suggest VLP (Very Low Profile) memory because it is about half the height of LP memory and even more when you are looking at ones with the useless heatsinks. VLP memory allows you to not worry about the RAM as being a heatsink or waterblock fitment issue. (example)

- GPU wise it depends if you are going to watercool it or not, but I consider it the only good reason to use watercooling, since a good Noctua air cooler makes less noise in cooling a CPU than any off-the-shelf watercooling and for less money. So either go with a reference GPU card so you can slap a fullcover block on that hotness or just go with an air cooler for your CPU altogether and save yourself the trouble. At the moment, you can't go wrong with a GTX 970 or GTX 980 if you can spend the dough.

- PSU is simple: an SFX model from Silverstone is prefered. They have a 450W (ST45SF-G) Gold-rated modular one and a 600W (SX600-G) Gold modular one. The last one comes with the ribbon-type cables which are a blessing in the Ncase M1.
Soon they'll release the 500W SFX-L (SX500-LG) which is a little longer but presumed to barely fit with a long GPU card installed. It will also have the ribbon cables. This one is expected to be the most quiet of the bunch with a 120mm fan which Silverstone has been putting extra time in to reduce fan noise and coil whine.

sashi said:
Push Vs Pull - I assume that push is better since I am pushing cool air into the case rather than pulling warm air inside
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Generally push, unless you have a radial fan cooled GPU (most non-reference GPU's), which dump heat inside the case. Than you'd want something to pull the hot air out of the case. And ducting the GPU's fans to the bottom of the case is strongly recommended.
 
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Hi all. Ive just become the proud owner of a rev 1 case (no 907) and the above ideas of a shroud or ducting to the cpu or gpu are becoming more and appealing. I will be using a Thermalright axp 200 muscle gpu cooler with a Noctua 140m NF-P14S-REDUX-1500-PWM Quiet Case Fan as a replacement for the stock fan. As the cooler is relatively low profile do you think it would be worth building a shroud/ ducting from the side of the case directly to the cooler to improve airflow directly to the cpu. I was thinking of using something like these.....

http://www.aquatuning.co.uk/air-cooling/fan-shrouds/9230/phobya-140x140x20mm-shroud-plexi?c=2807

....... to achieve it and thought similar 120mm ones could be used with the fans in the bottom of the case (or directly to the GPU) to achieve a similar effect. Would this work or be of benefit/ worth?
 
Lankius Maximus said:
Hi all. Ive just become the proud owner of a rev 1 case (no 907) and the above ideas of a shroud or ducting to the cpu or gpu are becoming more and appealing. I will be using a Thermalright axp 200 muscle gpu cooler with a Noctua 140m NF-P14S-REDUX-1500-PWM Quiet Case Fan as a replacement for the stock fan. As the cooler is relatively low profile do you think it would be worth building a shroud/ ducting from the side of the case directly to the cooler to improve airflow directly to the cpu. I was thinking of using something like these.....

http://www.aquatuning.co.uk/air-cooling/fan-shrouds/9230/phobya-140x140x20mm-shroud-plexi?c=2807

....... to achieve it and thought similar 120mm ones could be used with the fans in the bottom of the case (or directly to the GPU) to achieve a similar effect. Would this work or be of benefit/ worth?
Click to expand...

This sounds a lot tidier than cutting up pop bottles.I was thinking about this this morning and my thoughts drifted from creating a duct for each bottom fan to encasing the entire graphics card in a chamber that sits on the bottom panel of the case (around the edges of the bottom 120 mm fans) and is open only at the bottom and at the rear of the case. I'd remove the third (bottom) PCI slot cover and maybe the small rectangular plate above the PCI slot covers too. This way air could only flow into the chamber from below and exit to the rear of the case. Thoughts?
 
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Qrash said:
This sounds a lot tidier than cutting up pop bottles.I was thinking about this this morning and my thoughts drifted from creating a duct for each bottom fan to encasing the entire graphics card in a chamber that sits on the bottom panel of the case (around the edges of the bottom 120 mm fans) and is open only at the bottom and at the rear of the case. I'd remove the third (bottom) PCI slot cover and maybe the small rectangular plate above the PCI slot covers too. This way air could only flow into the chamber from below and exit to the rear of the case. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I thought about this too, but ended up scrapping it because most graphic cards have irregular shapes everywhere, and it would be very hard to amateur mod properly. I don't know if it will actually work either. My ghetto ducts from the GPU fans to the bottom gives the cold air an almost air tight path from under the case. It has access to cold air. All it has to do is get rid of it again, but it won't properly. In that sense i think restrictig air exhaust to direct it where you want it can end up trapping air an limiting the airflow.
However, from what you're describing it might work better. I think the main issue I'm having is due to the fans not producing enough static pressure, Proper bottom mounted SP optimized 120 fans would probably improve the airflow a lot. I would remove the GPU fans in that case, because they would prbably just be in the way. For me it would also be a must to be able to power the fans from the GPU directly, so they're mot spinning up un-necessarily.
Also keep in mind that if you force a lot of air through tight openings there will be a lot of airflow noise.

I think the overall best solution to this issue is to get an arctic accelero and remove the fans on it. It fits great with bottom mounted fans, looks good, and you probably won't need a shroud at all.
 
Hi guys, I got a question. I have the 600W SFX PSU from Silverstone. Is the vent supposed to be pointed to the inside? It's heating up the inside, and the hard drive which is mounted in front of it is getting hot to the touch.

Here's a picture of other people's builds (different PSU I assume):

http://i.imgur.com/uVfegkD.jpg

Here's mine:

http://i.imgur.com/f0nNgNq.jpg

I figure I need to put a 80/90mm exhaust fan in the rear. Right now if I take the top panel off the CPU temps drop by almost 10 degrees. Although it feels like taking the top off would still substantially reduce the temps while gaming even with an exhaust fan in the rear. I have a 120mm fan I could use as an intake fan right on top of the CPU fan on the side, wonder if that'll help. I'll need a splitter to put two case fans in though and I'm overseas right now without access to one.
 
adlsrf said:
Hi guys, I got a question. I have the 600W SFX PSU from Silverstone. Is the vent supposed to be pointed to the inside? It's heating up the inside, and the hard drive which is mounted in front of it is getting hot to the touch.

Here's a picture of other people's builds (different PSU I assume):

http://i.imgur.com/uVfegkD.jpg

Here's mine:

http://i.imgur.com/f0nNgNq.jpg

I figure I need to put a 80/90mm exhaust fan in the rear. Right now if I take the top panel off the CPU temps drop by almost 10 degrees. Although it feels like taking the top off would still substantially reduce the temps while gaming even with an exhaust fan in the rear. I have a 120mm fan I could use as an intake fan right on top of the CPU fan on the side, wonder if that'll help. I'll need a splitter to put two case fans in though and I'm overseas right now without access to one.
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So a couple things:

1. The PSU fan is an intake, so it's pulling air away from the HDD area.

2. 3.5" HDDs can get hot to the touch regardless of what else is going on.

3. You're using an open cooler/axial fan GPU, which isn't recommended and is the biggest factor in heating up everything else in the case.

4. It looks like you're not using any intake fans at all, and you really should be. You need to have some fans dedicated to setting up airflow in the system, otherwise the CPU and GPU fans will just be sitting their recycling a lot of their air and relying on passively exchanging air through the vents. A fan on the side bracket is the minimum, but a fan on the bottom and a rear exhaust will help as well.
 
I agree with Necere. The PSU's orientation is fine. With your setup it's probably best in that orientation or things would get hotter. The biggest issue is no intake or exhaust fans. All that hot air is relying on the heat to naturally rise, which isn't good enough.
 
Necere said:
So a couple things:

1. The PSU fan is an intake, so it's pulling air away from the HDD area.

2. 3.5" HDDs can get hot to the touch regardless of what else is going on.

3. You're using an open cooler/axial fan GPU, which isn't recommended and is the biggest factor in heating up everything else in the case.

4. It looks like you're not using any intake fans at all, and you really should be. You need to have some fans dedicated to setting up airflow in the system, otherwise the CPU and GPU fans will just be sitting their recycling a lot of their air and relying on passively exchanging air through the vents. A fan on the side bracket is the minimum, but a fan on the bottom and a rear exhaust will help as well.
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It's the video card from my other desktop, I just swap it in because it's too expensive to get more than one of. The temps are about equivalent on the video card to my other case (but it's cramped there too, it peaks at 79-80 C while gaming in both).

I can put a Scythe 120mm Slim fan on the side right above the CPU, would that make a difference? Without an exhaust fan for now?
 
970 REFERENCE COOLER

Just an FYI Bestbuy has ref nvidia 970s for $380, will try and get them to price match around $350. im selling my gigabyte g1 970 right now to get this for my ncase ill be ordering friday. that way I can use a 3.5 hdd at the bottom without worrying about not having fans for my gpu.

It is not online but talked to someone on OCN who said he saw it instore so i went instore today and sure enough i found this.

DhAUfp6l.jpg

2aJxvNfl.jpg
 
No Hands 55 said:
Just an FYI Bestbuy has ref nvidia 970s for $380..
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Wow, nice find! Think that's the only blower 970 you'll find in the US that doesn't look like a cheap piece of crap :D

I posted a link in the Nvidia forum pointing back to your post, since a few folks in there were looking for the exact same thing.
 
Buying electronics in Europe to ship to the US is always expensive (included tax, higher price, overseas shipping) and vice-versa too.
 
Sunnni said:
its an exclusive card for these shops
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This very special NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 is the only one of its kind designed by our in-house VGA Guru Gibbo making this the worlds ONLY genuine reference 970 available in the world.
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How much do you wanna bet the OCUK and BB reference 970 cards are the exact same thing?

Dunno, maybe not? But it just seems weird that a reference 970 would suddenly appear at the same time, exclusive to 3 different shops in UK, DE & US and not be from the same run. Would be kinda funny if someone did a tear-down of the BB version and it actually had Gibbo's special plastic housings for the caps.
 
Hello!

I am just curious about what temps are people getting with air cooled systems here. :)

I have ASUS GTX 760 at the moment, and plan on upgrading it to a 970 since both of these have the same-ish TDP. I am mostly interested in the 970 temps due to this, especially the 970 mini if someone already has one.

Thanks in advance!

P.S It doesn't hurt to know the temps in other builds as well ;) (just building theoretic build for myself for the upcoming case)
 
The temps are very dependant on a number of factors:
- GPU cooler
- the load (some games more than others)
- number of casefans but also their type, rpm and placement
- use of dust filters
- ambient temp
and some more.

You shouldn't be worried about running a GTX 970 in the Ncase M1, some people are running overclocked 780Ti's or Radeon 290X's in this case without an issue, which use a lot more power and generate more heat.

I'm also in the school of thought that I don't care what my temps are, as long as stay well within spec (85°C for CPU, 85-95°C for GPU). This allows the fans to be run at lower speeds, minimizing noise.
 
Hilarius said:
I have ASUS GTX 760 at the moment, and plan on upgrading it to a 970 since both of these have the same-ish TDP. I am mostly interested in the 970 temps due to this, especially the 970 mini if someone already has one.
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Just ordered the new Gigabyte 970 ITX this weekend. Not sure when I'll get a chance to install it, but I'll post up my temps when I do.

I'm kinda curious to find out how well the heat will escape with this particular card, since it's supposed to push air out to the sides of the heatsink (towards the mostly sealed off PCI bracket, and towards the front of the case). Hopefully the card is wide enough to keep the heat from blowing up towards my CPU cooler, and instead, force it towards the front where it will hit my bottom front fan (think I'd rather have my drives warmed up, instead of my CPU and mobo).
 
AFD said:
Just ordered the new Gigabyte 970 ITX this weekend. Not sure when I'll get a chance to install it, but I'll post up my temps when I do.

I'm kinda curious to find out how well the heat will escape with this particular card, since it's supposed to push air out to the sides of the heatsink (towards the mostly sealed off PCI bracket, and towards the front of the case). Hopefully the card is wide enough to keep the heat from blowing up towards my CPU cooler, and instead, force it towards the front where it will hit my bottom front fan (think I'd rather have my drives warmed up, instead of my CPU and mobo).
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I think it'll be good. The main issue with open air coolers is that the full leght cards section off the entire bottom of the case. With a short pcb/cooler air will have more space to move. I think for air cooling a short pcb is a good idea. I would expect with the NH-C12 you still have some headroom with CPU temps, so it should be fine even if the temps up top rises a bit, no?

This is just me thinking out loud though. It would be interesting to see 970 temps short vs full legth comparisons to see if it actually does matter. If results are significantly different it might be worth it to go short pcb even if the cooler is smaller.

Oh and since the fins on the heatsink is oriented back to front on that card most of the air is probably going to want to go out the back and up towards the PSU in front of the case. Air coming over the sides of the card would probably be air from the fan tat doesnt "catch" the heatsink. I'll be intrested to see how this turns out as i am considering this card for my 2015 upgrade.
 
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I am talking to Manli.com now. They sell the reference GTX970 from warehouse in Hong Kong. They have it in stock and they are $390USD plus shipping which is more expensive but ocuk are charging more than that! Think i might order from Manli. Expect manli's eshop to have the option to buy online soon.
 
Someone has one case for sale? Damn I was so late I almost had one M1 V2 case,
Any idea for upcoming stocks or releases?
 
Hi!

Got my M1 v1 a couple of weeks ago and have been testing my custom water cooling loop since. Here's my build log.

My setup is an Intel i5-4670S, Zotac GTX980 (non-Extreme or Omega) with a full block water cooling setup and a 240mm rad with Noctu 120mm fans. I also have a LCD temp sensor in my res so I can monitor loop temps outside the case.

I've been testing with OCCT (Lin test without AVX) + FurMark. My GPU TDP was around 80% along with 100% CPU including a 10% overclock that OCCT appeared to add. After 30 minutes my system water temp was stable at 40-41C. I also played a bit of Lords of the Fallen, because, as you'll see below, it's basically a heat generating infinite loop app.

I did this testing primarily at my work bench with M1 side panels on and my rad fans suck air in from the side panel. That is cool air is pulled into the case through the rad.

Lords of the Fallen v1.3 appears to generate more heat in my loop than OCCT + FurMark combined. At my bench I see my loop temps continue to rise as high as 44C. I'm of the opinion that it would keep rising. The CPU was up to 60C, the GPU was lower, like 50~C.

I decided that with the rad getting so hot, that the warm air pulled into the case through the rad is not helping inside temps.

So I flipped the fans and now air is pulled into the case via vent holes, and push out through the rad and side panel. With this setup my Lords of the Fallen loop temps dropped and stabilized back to 40-41C after 10-15 minutes.

Great! So I move my M1 back to my family room on top of my speaker next to my stereo cabinet. After 30 minutes of playing my temps are climbing again over 44C! (I didn't keep going to see where it stopped)

I then occurred to me that the M1 was maybe too close to the cabinet and wasn't able to blow enough air out, so I moved it above the cabinet. It seemed a bit better, but I still had climbing loop temps.

Finally I pulled the side panel off. My loop temps are now stable at 40-41C.

I'm not sure if anyone else with an M1 can comment, but I'm finding that the side panel restricts the air flow too much for me. I don't know what to do just yet.

You could argue that my PWM fans aren't running at a high enough RPM, but that would only highlight that the air flow restriction imposed by the side panel requires that the fans work even harder to vacuum air in/out.

I think I might pick up an alternative set of high pressure 120mm fans tonight and see what I see. My Noctu's are high pressure fans.

I don't want to have to cut a window and grill it to open up the air flow. Has anyone had a similar experience? I completely assumed fan air flow wouldn't be a problem, but flipping the panel off made enough of a difference that the loop temps stopped rising.

A possible option for a future M1 version could be a side panel with the rad fan vents cut out and mounting holes for 120mm filters or grills.
 
Some questions:

Will there be an option to buy one case with both black and silver panels?

How quiet is the Silverstone 600w SFX psu? If it is loud, would switching my GPU to a 980 keep it quiet? If I'm switching to a 980 then can I get away with the ST45SF-G?

I'm looking to build a quiet system and so far I have a Reference 780 Ti.

Here's my considered build.

CPU - Intel 4790k
Mobo - Asus Maximus VII Impact
Ram - 8 GB Corsair Low Profile DDR3
CPU cooler - Corsair H100i with noctua NF-F12
SSDs - 2x Samsung 850 Pro 500 GB raid 0
HD - 1x WD Red 6Tb
PSU - Silverstone SFX S600G or ST45SF-G
GPU - 780 Ti or 980
Silverstone CP11 Low profile Sata Cable

Are there any conflicts?
 
themojo said:
Hi!

Got my M1 v1 a couple of weeks ago and have been testing my custom water cooling loop since.
Click to expand...

If your worry is with your temps not being like a well-ventilated case, you were apparently expecting it to be on-par with bigger cases that have more volume. This has been mentioned in the Thermal Testing (see link in the first post) and since components only have degraded performance near their maximum allowed operating temperature (CPU: ~85°C, GPU 85-95°C), I don't see the issue with 60°C CPU temps and 50°C GPU temps. I've been running that way for almost a year.
 
Does anyone have a link to the people who have stuffed (2) 240mm radiators in one case?

Second, are they planning a third production run?
 
Phuncz said:
...since components only have degraded performance near their maximum allowed operating temperature (CPU: ~85°C, GPU 85-95°C), I don't see the issue with 60°C CPU temps and 50°C GPU temps. I've been running that way for almost a year.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.

60C CPU + 50C GPU would have a water temp above 40C, like I'm running now with my side panel on. With the panel off it drops and sticks around 40-41C. Maybe you're just not monitoring the loop water temp.

I'm worried about the loop more than the components. Personally I don't want to see an uncontrolled climb to 50C in a tube. The tube will soften and wear. Bends can kink if the tube wall softens. I don't think the M1 layout will generally have a problem with kinks, but I don't want to see my tube leach stuff into the water after 4 months because its been sitting at 50+C for hours at a time. It's the reason I only use clear tubing so I can panic as soon as I see a plastic floaty!

Also its not that I expected air flow like in a larger case. I've been building mini-ITX exclusively for years now, the limitations are pretty clear in my mind. (not bragging, just that I know smaller is more challenging) I mean the M1 has a lot of ventilation and we're only talking about a 240mm rad that sitting at the side and top next to the vents. With a GTX970 this setup would be 40C. With a more vented side panel this setup would be 40C. With the side panel on I can't move enough air out of the case. I would have to increase fan RPMs to force air out when a better vented side panel would allow the fan to move what it's spec'd to do at a given RPM.

Anyways, not complaining. The M1 is a great case. I'm just sharing my cooling experiences and seeing what you guys think. I still think a optional side panel is a good idea. I might not have ordered it myself until seeing my current testing, but I would order it now if it was available.
 
gameaholic said:
How quiet is the Silverstone 600w SFX psu? If it is loud, would switching my GPU to a 980 keep it quiet? If I'm switching to a 980 then can I get away with the ST45SF-G?
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I have the GTX980 and SX600 in my M1 right now. The SX600 will boot silently and will not spin at all until, supposedly, it hits a minimum temp. However even at idle or sitting in the bios, after 5 minutes or so the SX600 fan will false start a couple of times then spin up and never stop. I mean if the PSU can't idle without the fan, how will it cool down and stop at all?

At low rpm I don't like the audio profile. It kind of sounds like a chugging. Here's a link to a post where I describe it along with a video I took of the PSU audio.

I also didn't like the ST45F-G's fan. I ended up replacing it with an externally mounted Noctu fan that was great, but it won't fit in the M1 if you have a rad.

You can go with a ST45F-G and the GTX980. My i5-4670S + GTX980 at load use no more than 325W-350W.

The reason for a high watt PSU in a build like this is to have more room for lower heat and higher efficiency at the PSU's power draw sweet spot, and not try to max it out. You don't want to draw 450W on a 450W PSU. I call that a stress test.
 
Urelure said:
I think for air cooling a short pcb is a good idea. I would expect with the NH-C12 you still have some headroom with CPU temps, so it should be fine even if the temps up top rises a bit, no?
Click to expand...

For everyday use, yeah, a little hotter will still be fine. But with a stock 4790k, I'm already hitting in the mid-70C average for benchmarks (bounces from the 60s to 80s for AIDA64 blended tests, and CPU will throttle within minutes of an FPU-only test). Idle is usually 34 to 40C. So, a few extra degrees won't matter too much, but I probably won't be happy if it causes a 10C+ jump.

dsmwookie said:
Second, are they planning a third production run?
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3rd production run is underway and/or completed. No pre-orders were done this time, and ordering for this run should start this Friday, I think.
 
Hi guys,

I putted my system together a few weeks ago. Sad news is, since a week ago I got some annoying noise coming from my PSU, it's like a constant whistle. When the fan starts up it sounds like it is trying hard to start for a thousand times (with a little beep every time), and then kicks in with a whistle. It's a new Silverstone SFX 600W version. I made a short video of it (with my phone so it's not that good quality) and posted it on Youtube: http://youtu.be/EIxPqfESkRE. I'm wondering if there is a fix for this other than replacing the fan itself. Because I'm guessing this is not RMA'able. Any of you guys that have the same problem?
 
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