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

[Vittra]

Spoiler: power cable

"

Necere - If you're planning a V5 design perhaps cutting a *little* bit more out of the right of the frame's front panel where the psu cable is might help people who have PSU's with sockets on the left and want to orientate them to intake from the right of the case. That said, I'm pretty comfortable with this - and this socket here is probably as far to the left as you'll commonly get.

All in all I'm extremely happy with this case and the build so far. Thanks again to all you guys for your help!

You need a right angled cable. The V1 case came with a right angled cable. This caused a conflict with many power supplies. Subsequently, the V2, V3, and V4 come with left angled cables to support a wider range of products. Unfortunately the power supply you are using is one of the few that benefits from the original right angle cable.

You can purchase the right angled cable as an accessory from the website, however it appears no accessories are available for sale at the moment. I would suspect this is due to the remainder of the accessories that weren't sold during the V4 being shipped over to the US to Wahaha, prior to being shipped out to everyone else. This is only speculation however, the actual reason may be something else.

 

[Skott]

Reading a lot about what fits in terms of the corsair AIO kits in relation to overclocking the 5960x - is there anything better than the H105? I see it reaching 85-87C at 4.4ghz under load using an H105 in a couple different situations. Are there any AIO kits that fit the M1 but are stronger than the H105?

I've never done a roll-your-own watercooling setup before, what would I be looking at from a cost perspective to achieve better than AIO performance with a 5960x? How much would that change if I wanted to include a GTX 980 Ti in the loop?

Thanks again guys.

From what I have read and can remember from this long thread that the best cooling will come from full on water cooling set ups. The H105 is about as good as you will get as far as AIO units go. There is the C12 and C14 air units which are popularly used in the M1 but they won't probably provide the ultimate cooling you want for the 5960x overclocked. The 'roll-your-own watercooling set up' is the way to go if you are into that sort of thing. I wish you luck with that. It is for the Hard type user.

 

[bagpipes]

Could you explain why ? I thought it was only used for BitLocker, which is a Pro and Enterprise-only feature.

I can try, but I can't promise it will make any sense or be correct.

Full disclosure - I was told to do this by a friend who works in security. I'm only just looking up how it all works now!

As I understand it Windows now holds more than bitlocker keys in TPM, it can use it with UEFI and 'secure boot' on (in your BIOS menu) for 'Trusted Boot' and 'Measured Boot'. I was wrong about the Win 10 bit, it seems to be Win 8.1 onwards.

'Trusted Boot' is a Microsoft technique of verifying the integrity of your boot sector to protect against bootkit malware (pdf). There's also Measured Boot, another Microsoft feature that stores metrics derived from the boot process in TPM so Microsoft can verify the integrity of your installation remotely with it's Remote Attestation service.

It took me several readings to get this but it looks like Trusted Boot is an on-host check and Measured boot is maybe a more heuristic test the verifies remotely with MS. Either way it seems to be quite a clever way of using hashing and signing to ensure nothing messes with your boot sector - I'm sure there's probably a cascading effect on kernel level security too but I didn't really have the time to go down that road to check.

This is a good page with a decent explanation of Trusted Boot and Measured Boot: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/dn168169.aspx

I think the difference between Win 8.1 and Win 10 is that Win 10 will make use of the TPM module for storing more of the 'derived security' creds that MS will be using.

It looks like MS is forcing all OEMs from next year onwards to include a TPM module for Win 10 which to me suggests they're looking to use it as a core part of their OS security.

I hope that's useful (and correct!) maybe someone with more knowledge than me can give it an ok or correct me.

 

[Phuncz]

Thanks for the info, I will look into this out of curiosity.

 

[EdZ]

A TPM is NOT required for Secure Boot, that's handled by the UEFI firmware (replacement for the BIOS).
A TPM is a great idea for enterprise security management, but for a home user it's not going to provide a noticeable benefit. It's no good having the ability to more easily audit keys and certificates if you have no key and certificate management infrastructure.

 

[Nostalgia]

I'm planning on buying this case in a few months (if there's stock anyway) & was wondering if an XFX R9 Double Dissipation GPU would fit. The specs are: 11.61" x 5.63". I see some pictures with Windforce cards that are longer than this card but I'm worried about the height. Hopefully the answer is yes.

 

[ctrlbrk]

What about USB Type C support? Is there a way we can add this to the build ourselves, since it seems they don't offer it?

 

[Necere]

I'm planning on buying this case in a few months (if there's stock anyway) & was wondering if an XFX R9 Double Dissipation GPU would fit. The specs are: 11.61" x 5.63". I see some pictures with Windforce cards that are longer than this card but I'm worried about the height. Hopefully the answer is yes.

I'm assuming you're talking about this card? The specs say no, but the pics say maybe. The PCB looks reference height (which is good), and the cooler does not appear to be as tall as the 5.63" would indicate. It's possible they measured the card from the bottom of the metal bracket, which is a less common way of doing it and adds some 15mm to the measured height.

What about USB Type C support? Is there a way we can add this to the build ourselves, since it seems they don't offer it?

Not easily. There's no standard for the USB 3.1 internal header, and therefore no motherboards with a header, so front panel connectors would need to be passed through to the rear ports. Until that situation changes, don't expect Type C support on our cases.

 

[callumbolch]

I'm planning on buying this case in a few months (if there's stock anyway) & was wondering if an XFX R9 Double Dissipation GPU would fit. The specs are: 11.61" x 5.63". I see some pictures with Windforce cards that are longer than this card but I'm worried about the height. Hopefully the answer is yes.

the 290 DD fits, so if the dimensions are the same then itll fit.

 

[ctrlbrk]

What do you guys think about the new Seasonic Snow Silent line? The small one is 750W ATX, measures 170mm x 150mm x 86mm. It has a 120mm FDB fan.

http://www.seasonicusa.com/SnowSilent Series.htm

I plan to use the R9 Nano in my build. Comments on combining it with this PSU? 750W is overkill, but I love Seasonic and didn't want a completely fanless PSU due to heat concerns.

Comments?

 

[evilsofa]

What do you guys think about the new Seasonic Snow Silent line? The small one is 750W ATX, measures 170mm x 150mm x 86mm. It has a 120mm FDB fan.

The 750W reviewed very well here on HardOCP.

But will it fit? According to the website, the maximum recommended length for an ATX PSU in the Ncase is 160mm, and HardOCP measured the length of the Snow Silent 750W to be 6 5/8", or 168mm. And you do give up the dual 3.5" HDD cage or 240mm radiator mounted to the side bracket when using an ATX PSU.

 

[ctrlbrk]

The 750W reviewed very well here on HardOCP.

But will it fit? According to the website, the maximum recommended length for an ATX PSU in the Ncase is 160mm, and HardOCP measured the length of the Snow Silent 750W to be 6 5/8", or 168mm. And you do give up the dual 3.5" HDD cage or 240mm radiator mounted to the side bracket when using an ATX PSU.

I plan on running a single SM951 NVMe/M2 SSD and no other drives.

 

[ctrlbrk]

Regarding the Seasonic Snow Silent 750W again, what about the power plug orientation? A problem?

 

[Hanakuso]

Regarding the Seasonic Snow Silent 750W again, what about the power plug orientation? A problem?

I don't know your answer but at least you could always buy the plug that is oriented the opposite way so it should work.

 

[Qrash]

The V4 power cable is long enough that it should work with that PS whether the fan is facing the front panel or the rear panel.

Seasonic makes 140 mm PS, the S12G series, that has good reviews, but it is not a modular unit. If it was me I'd shorten the cables and remove the ones I didn't need. This would still permit the use of longer graphics cards and the front portion of the bottom of the case.

 

[fs454]

Today's nVidia DX12 news has officially put me off to building this generation. I've got an M1 on the way that will sit dormant until the successor to the 980 Ti is released (as well as the replacement to Haswell-E). I was already skeptical about building at this point for maximum longevity because the 5960x is a year old, 9xx series GPU tech is a year old.

Call me crazy, but I jumped on the 2008 Mac Pro (8-core Xeon 2.8ghz Harpertown dual-cpu) the day it was released and to this day, over 7 years later, it still runs great and can keep up with a lot of modern hardware. For example, it scores 12,000 in Geekbench multicore 64 bit and can run Bioshock Infinite nearly maxed at 2560x1440 at over 50fps with its GTX 470. I want to hit the ground running with new hardware, I'm pretty sure.

(smash cut, me saying "**** it" and building this thing anyways once I see the M1 in person)

 

[csd]

I don't think you can every really plan for longevity - just buy the best that you can afford at the time

Each generation promises big jumps in performance, but in "real world" terms it's very little. There are some good benchmarks of a 2500k vs 4790k in a series of games and the average performance increase is ~5% (from memory).

Jump on a Haswell-E and 980ti and build that M1!

 

[luddviig]

I'm going to buy a ncase m1 v4, these are the components I want to put in, does it work?
I want it to look something like this:
http://abload.de/img/img_0064g1lqd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/7oNdZSN.jpg

Intel Core i7 6700K 4.0 GHz
Samsung SSD EVO 850-Series
Corsair 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2666Mhz Vengeance LPX
ASUS Z170I PRO GAMING mITX
ASUS GeForce GTX 970 DC Mini
Silverstone Strider ST55F-G + SilverStone Short Cables PP05-E
be quiet! Shadow Rock LP (Or maybe something else?)

I'm looking for a quiet computer, is there anything you would change? I have read that the power supplie should be quiet and good. I'm a little unsure of CPU cooler, I've checked the be quiet! Shadow Rock LP, but do you guys have any other suggestions?

Sorry for my bad English!

 

[Necere]

But will it fit? According to the website, the maximum recommended length for an ATX PSU in the Ncase is 160mm, and HardOCP measured the length of the Snow Silent 750W to be 6 5/8", or 168mm.

The only reason I suggest keeping it to 160mm or less is to make it a bit easier to deal with the cables. Longer PSUs do fit though.

Not that you should, but here's an example of a 200mm long PSU in the M1:

Regarding the Seasonic Snow Silent 750W again, what about the power plug orientation? A problem?

I don't believe it will be a problem, but you may need to have the PSU oriented with the fan facing the front of the case if the AC cable is squeezed too tight by the PSU bracket.

I'm going to buy a ncase m1 v4, these are the components I want to put in, does it work?

Choose a different power supply - the inlet orientation needs to be compatible in accordance with this image.

Looks okay otherwise. You'll probably want to add a couple 120mm fans to mount on the side and bottom, and maybe a 92mm fan on the rear as exhaust.

 

[luddviig]

Choose a different power supply - the inlet orientation needs to be compatible in accordance with this image.

Looks okay otherwise. You'll probably want to add a couple 120mm fans to mount on the side and bottom, and maybe a 92mm fan on the rear as exhaust.

Okay, maybe I should go for the SilverStone SX500-LG instead? Or maybe the EVGA Supernova GS 650W?

 

[s0skey]

Gotta say: Reading through this thread it was clear Necere put a lot of thought into this design, but getting the case and working in it has given me an even greater appreciation for just how well thought out this case is. It's a work of genius!

For anyone thinking about using the Asus Z97i-PLUS and/or the Kabuto II - which I thoroughly recommend as a pairing - here's my input.

Mounted heatpipes-rear there's plenty room for a 92mm fan intake/exhausting the heatpipes if needed. The right side of the Kabuto allows a small but sufficient amount of cable management room between it and the hard disk mounting cage, which keeps everything neat. The added bonus is that the fan's screw holes line up *almost* perfectly with the fan bracket, close enough that with a couple of fan gaskets I expect to achieve a flush and airtight fit between heatsink, fan and fan bracket (cowsgomoo - woooooo!!). I'd say the clearance is probably about 4-6mm with the only modification at this point being removal of the Kabuto's clamp.

I swapped the Scythe fan for a Noctua NF-F12 PWM which is significantly quieter even without the low noise adapter, although that's staying on. The Scythe is there for backup at higher temps, although the 65W TDP of the 4690S isn't really much of a challenge to cool when the case is this empty.

I will mention this, the Asus TPM module (a TPM module should absolutely be in your build plans if you'll be running Win 10) does sit against the Kabuto heatpipes in this orientation. I'm comfortable with that, I don't see too much of a risk, but it's worth pointing out. Probably should put some insulating tape on the top of it though...

Power Supply Placement (Sparkle Power FSP400-60GHS)

You can see the plug, socket and cord are subject to a small amount of stress situated this way, which was necessary so the PSU would intake from the right of the case and not internally.

Necere - If you're planning a V5 design perhaps cutting a *little* bit more out of the right of the frame's front panel where the psu cable is might help people who have PSU's with sockets on the left and want to orientate them to intake from the right of the case. That said, I'm pretty comfortable with this - and this socket here is probably as far to the left as you'll commonly get.

All in all I'm extremely happy with this case and the build so far. Thanks again to all you guys for your help!

Just wanted to say thanks for this post as it helped me finally find a good air cooler for my motherboard in this case (Asus Z97i-PLUS) that allowed me to use the HDD cage as well.

 

[Necere]

Okay, maybe I should go for the SilverStone SX500-LG instead? Or maybe the EVGA Supernova GS 650W?

The SX500-LG is not a bad choice. Being SFX-L, it leaves more options open in the M1 than an ATX PSU. There's a thread here for it.

The EVGA would work as well, but again, ATX leaves less options for upgrades (long GPU etc).

 

[fs454]

I don't think you can every really plan for longevity - just buy the best that you can afford at the time

Each generation promises big jumps in performance, but in "real world" terms it's very little. There are some good benchmarks of a 2500k vs 4790k in a series of games and the average performance increase is ~5% (from memory).

Jump on a Haswell-E and 980ti and build that M1!

My biggest issue is that I want Thunderbolt as the world I live in is all-Apple, and the cross-compatibility with the ~200 hard drives we have for projects and the Apple displays and peripherals would all be left behind - I'm not over this fact yet, haha.

Considering there's only one or two LGA-2011v3 boards in ITX to begin with, none of them support Thunderbolt. Next best bet is the mATX boards, which don't fit. If the NCASE was an inch larger, I could do it, haha.

Dilemmas, dilemmas.

 

[Qrash]

If you don't need WiFi a last resort option is one of the mPCI-E to PCI-E x1 adapters and then place a Thunderbird card in the third expansion card slot. That is, if a Thunderbird card is a 1x PCI-E card.

Edit: Nevermind: Thunderbolt cards appear to all be PCI-E x4.

 

[EdZ]

If you don't need WiFi a last resort option is one of the mPCI-E to PCI-E x1 adapters and then place a Thunderbird card in the third expansion card slot. That is, if a Thunderbird card is a 1x PCI-E card.

Edit: Nevermind: Thunderbolt cards appear to all be PCI-E x4.

Then look for a board with a 4x m.2 slot, and use an adapter from that.

 

[Epos7]

Is anyone running LGA 2011-v3 in the NCASE on air? I've seen a few builds using watercooling, but I'm not planning on going down that route. Looking into the ASRock board, just not interested in the noisy included cooler.

I have my NCASE here, just debating between a 6700K or 5820K. I'm planning on using a Silverstone SX500-LG, I think that would be adequate for a 5820K?

 

[Blk]

Is anyone running LGA 2011-v3 in the NCASE on air? I've seen a few builds using watercooling, but I'm not planning on going down that route. Looking into the ASRock board, just not interested in the noisy included cooler.

I have my NCASE here, just debating between a 6700K or 5820K. I'm planning on using a Silverstone SX500-LG, I think that would be adequate for a 5820K?

If you check the motherboard thread, there are a couple of guys looking at some options and mods with noctua stuff.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1855235

 

[bagpipes]

Just wanted to say thanks for this post as it helped me finally find a good air cooler for my motherboard in this case (Asus Z97i-PLUS) that allowed me to use the HDD cage as well.

No probs s0skey, glad I could help!

I have this crazy theory that you might like...

I managed to screw the HDD cage to the back of a 120mm fan... if you have an SFX PSU there may be enough room to put 2x3.5" HDDs behind a (slim? modded?) intake fan with enough clearance that the fan would cool one of the HDDs and the airflow could be directed down to the bottom half of the case for GPU cooling.

There are obvious heat connotations with the PSU-facing HDD, and there won't be a lot of room for airflow - so it might not be worth it. I plan on testing this configuration when I drop dual 3.5" HDDs in later in the year.

 

[friend'scatdied]

Is anyone running LGA 2011-v3 in the NCASE on air? I've seen a few builds using watercooling, but I'm not planning on going down that route. Looking into the ASRock board, just not interested in the noisy included cooler.

I have my NCASE here, just debating between a 6700K or 5820K. I'm planning on using a Silverstone SX500-LG, I think that would be adequate for a 5820K?

I emailed Noctua and the only coolers they explicitly mention will support the board are the i4 units. The NH-D9DX i4 seem to be the only suitable one that will fit, but it doesn't seem to be very proficient at cooling.

FWIW stock estimated power draw for my proposed 5820K + 980 Ti build was in the mid-400s, so 500W might be a little tight unless you cut back on the GPU.

 

[Epos7]

I emailed Noctua and the only coolers they explicitly mention will support the board are the i4 units. The NH-D9DX i4 seem to be the only suitable one that will fit, but it doesn't seem to be very proficient at cooling.

FWIW stock estimated power draw for my proposed 5820K + 980 Ti build was in the mid-400s, so 500W might be a little tight unless you cut back on the GPU.

Thanks for the input. Sounds like finding a good cooling solution will be a challenge. I'll have a look at the ASRock thread to see what solutions they're looking at.

GFX is going to be the Asus mini 960, so less power draw than your 980. The short version should also free up some more PSU space if need be.

 

[friend'scatdied]

Thanks for the input. Sounds like finding a good cooling solution will be a challenge. I'll have a look at the ASRock thread to see what solutions they're looking at.

GFX is going to be the Asus mini 960, so less power draw than your 980. The short version should also free up some more PSU space if need be.

One guy ordered the Narrow-ILM mounting kit that comes with the i4 series coolers to try to jury-rig the other SecuFirm coolers (either NH-C14/S or something else). Noctua claims that the non-i4 coolers are physically incompatible with Narrow-ILM for whatever reason.

Honestly the Ncase + X99E-ITX/ac situation pretty much sucks. Besides noisy and/or weak air coolers you have to choose between a few suboptimal AIOs (e.g. H105, H100i GTX) or an EK loop unless you get creative with the mounting bracket.

I chose to take a gamble on the H100i GTX with a plan to flex the tubing and run the fans sub-1k.

 

[Curiositie]

2011-3 is definitely doable on air, Dondan has done it in his A4 with coolers much smaller than Noctua's offerings.

 

[fs454]

If you don't need WiFi a last resort option is one of the mPCI-E to PCI-E x1 adapters and then place a Thunderbird card in the third expansion card slot. That is, if a Thunderbird card is a 1x PCI-E card.

Edit: Nevermind: Thunderbolt cards appear to all be PCI-E x4.

The other thing I discovered is that Thunderbolt only works with motherboards that are "Thunderbolt-ready", meaning they have some sort of controller onboard and the PCI-E cards simply add the port directly to the PCI-E bus. So, unless someone makes a LGA2011-3 mITX board or flex ATX board, getting thunderbolt into the NCASE with more than 4 core CPUs is off the table entirely until new mobos come out.

 

[Epos7]

One guy ordered the Narrow-ILM mounting kit that comes with the i4 series coolers to try to jury-rig the other SecuFirm coolers (either NH-C14/S or something else). Noctua claims that the non-i4 coolers are physically incompatible with Narrow-ILM for whatever reason.

Honestly the Ncase + X99E-ITX/ac situation pretty much sucks. Besides noisy and/or weak air coolers you have to choose between a few suboptimal AIOs (e.g. H105, H100i GTX) or an EK loop unless you get creative with the mounting bracket.

I chose to take a gamble on the H100i GTX with a plan to flex the tubing and run the fans sub-1k.

I'll have to follow along to see what his results are.

I have a Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 on my i7 920. Was hoping to be able to use it with the mounting adapter on a 6700K if I decide to go that route in the NCASE, but it looks like it's too tall at 158mm. If anything that just gives me extra incentive to go 2011-3

 

[jb1]

The other thing I discovered is that Thunderbolt only works with motherboards that are "Thunderbolt-ready", meaning they have some sort of controller onboard and the PCI-E cards simply add the port directly to the PCI-E bus. So, unless someone makes a LGA2011-3 mITX board or flex ATX board, getting thunderbolt into the NCASE with more than 4 core CPUs is off the table entirely until new mobos come out.

Yep, you're right about this, you can't just plug a Thunderbolt card into a PCIe x4 slot. You need GPIO header pins on the motherboard. I would like to know why these are necessary. Has anyone tried to use one of these thunderbolt cards without plugging into a GPIO header? I heard that it had something to do with the integrated graphics, but if you route the DP signal from your discrete GPU then maybe you don't need the GPIO pins?

 

[s0skey]

No probs s0skey, glad I could help!

I have this crazy theory that you might like...

I managed to screw the HDD cage to the back of a 120mm fan... if you have an SFX PSU there may be enough room to put 2x3.5" HDDs behind a (slim? modded?) intake fan with enough clearance that the fan would cool one of the HDDs and the airflow could be directed down to the bottom half of the case for GPU cooling.

There are obvious heat connotations with the PSU-facing HDD, and there won't be a lot of room for airflow - so it might not be worth it. I plan on testing this configuration when I drop dual 3.5" HDDs in later in the year.

Ha let me know how that goes. For now I think I'm just putting one hard drive in.

 

[evera]

for a while i had dual 120mm rads with fans set to intake from the side. under load, i found out that it was blowing hot air directly on the psu and mb, so i'm experimenting with setting the fans to outtake and having negative pressure

my mb temps are drastically cooler, but i'm worried about dust, so i ordered the demciflex filters, and while they cover the main holes, the cracks still "leak" a decent amount of air in. i'm hoping that my rads are pretty easy to clean, so it won't be a big deal, but for anyone in a similar situation i think that, with the ncase on my desk, negative pressure isn't so bad.

 

[Skhmt]

I emailed Noctua and the only coolers they explicitly mention will support the board are the i4 units. The NH-D9DX i4 seem to be the only suitable one that will fit, but it doesn't seem to be very proficient at cooling.

FWIW stock estimated power draw for my proposed 5820K + 980 Ti build was in the mid-400s, so 500W might be a little tight unless you cut back on the GPU.

I have a 5820k at 3.8ghz (preset overclock, it hit 80c under sustained stress test), 980ti reference, h75 on the cpu, 2 ssds and a hdd with the 500w silverstone sfx-l. No power issues that I've found on the asus cpu+gpu stress test.

Im planning on putting an aio on my 980ti since its boost is fairly low due to thermal limiting.

for a while i had dual 120mm rads with fans set to intake from the side. under load, i found out that it was blowing hot air directly on the psu and mb, so i'm experimenting with setting the fans to outtake and having negative pressure

my mb temps are drastically cooler, but i'm worried about dust, so i ordered the demciflex filters, and while they cover the main holes, the cracks still "leak" a decent amount of air in. i'm hoping that my rads are pretty easy to clean, so it won't be a big deal, but for anyone in a similar situation i think that, with the ncase on my desk, negative pressure isn't so bad.

Mobo temps were reduced, but was your cpu turboing just as high with lower temps?

I was considering actually putting some kind of insulation on my psu since it intakes air from the outside of the case.

 

[friend'scatdied]

My tentative plan is to run the H100i GTX as push/exhaust, SX600-G as intake, with a Noctua NF-A9x14 slim 92mm in the rear bracket as intake. I'd run the Corsair and Noctua fans as low as would be practicable.

Anyone know if it's possible to jury-rig two 140mms in the bottom on the V4? I have Noctua and Nexus rubber fan mounts which are notoriously flexible, so I wonder if they'd make it possible to stretch (literally) the explicit 120mm support with dual Thermalright TY-140s. Those have 120mm mounting holes and are narrower along one side. I'd like to run them as intakes.

 

[Qrash]

Anyone know if it's possible to jury-rig two 140mms in the bottom on the V4? I have Noctua and Nexus rubber fan mounts which are notoriously flexible, so I wonder if they'd make it possible to stretch (literally) the explicit 120mm support with dual Thermalright TY-140s. Those have 120mm mounting holes and are narrower along one side. I'd like to run them as intakes.

I think my previous post and linked image may be helpful: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1041797997&highlight=#post1041797997

In the V4 there are two extra motherboard standoffs at the bottom of the case which will interfere with square fans. The ones I used were octagonal. I also had to drill mounting holes for the rear 140 mm fan. Finally, I decided that too much of the bottom panel was covering the area of the fans so I drilled some extra holes.