The Pain of Assembly
Building a small form factor system is an exercise in flowcharts. If you’re using a highly compact case, like the Silverstone SG04B, the order of assembly is critical. The power supply, for example, goes in last.
The Asus motherboard offers a fairly clean layout, so there’s ample room for a large CPU cooler. However, I discovered late in the game that the SATA ports are poorly located, which means a long graphics card butts up to some of the SATA connectors. The board has plenty of ports, however, and does support USB 3.0, with an onboard NEC USB 3.0 controller.
Attaching the CPU cooler was challenging, too. I’ve generally liked Scythe coolers, but the designers often don’t think about how you actually mount the HSF. The Shiruken is a very low profile cooler, just 58mm high, including the skinny, 120mm fan. However, it’s fairly large, at 4.7 inches square. Plus, the Intel mounting tabs are under the radiator.
All this meant two things: I needed to install the HSF before installing the motherboard in the case.
Installing the cooler was an exercise in patience. I needed a large, flat bladed screwdriver, because there was no way I was going to get my fingers in between the HSF radiator and the top of the mounting pushpin, and still exert enough force to press the connector down until it snapped into place. Even then, I wasn’t 100% sure that all four pushpins had locked down.
And the Patriot memory modules, with their slightly taller silhouette, meant that two of the memory sockets weren’t usable. Lower profile memory modules would have allowed me to install four modules instead of two, if I wanted to go beyond 4GB.
Once the heat sink, CPU and memory were in place, the motherboard slid into the case nicely. It’s definitely a snug fit, since the case is just the right size for a micro ATX motherboard.
The biggest pain, though, was installing the Radeon HD 5850 graphics card. The XFX card is based on the reference design, and is 9.5 inches long. However, the power connectors are on the rear of the card. This had two consequences: you needed to attach the PCIe power plugs before installing the card in the case. Secondly, getting the card into the case meant slipping the card in at an angle, holding cables out of the way, and making sure you didn’t bump SATA or front panel connectors.
Due to the location of the SATA ports, I had to route the SATA cables over the top of the graphics card. Otherwise, I’d need to run them under the card, and that space is already pretty crowded.
The Silverstone case mounts hard drives in the base of the case, which is removable. However, as with the motherboard tray, space is tight, so you need to attach SATA and drive power after you close up the case bottom. I needed to be very careful, as the power adapter and SATA plug have barely enough room. It would be very easy to damage a SATA drive connector.
Once I figured out cable routing and got the graphics card running – which took several cycles of installing and removing the card, then re-routing cables – I booted the system. Everything was good. Installing Windows went smoothly.
The OCZ drive is fast, too. It’s in a 3.5-inch shell, rather than the more common 2.5 inch mechanism, and is really two 128GB modules pre-configured inside the shell for RAID 0. (Users never see the RAID configuration.)
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pakotlar - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
Right, because being informed is such clearly a waste of time. Glad I just bout $120 Monster Cables, and spent $2100 on a dual core PC in 2010. Thank Loyd, and thank you dear poster for re-enforcing my favorite slogan (I tattooed it on my face): Ignorance is bliss (at 20 an hour).xenor - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - link
Being OVER informed is what leads to baldness, strokes, heart attacks and early death.Shhhh..if we didn't have people spending way too much money on kit, then innovation and experimentation would signifcantly decrease.
A lot of research time on a car I'm going to drop $25k on(and another $10k maintaining) and own for 10 years makes sense. Stressing out about $500 I may or may not have spent in the best manner over a system which will lose my interest within 6 months.....yeah not so much.
One might question getting a slogan tattooed on your face though. Unless, of course, you're getting paid to market something...
pakotlar - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - link
I was going to market to GOP representatives :)xeopherith - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I understand that this is the 6th page of comments and my opinions have already been stated in the previous.I do at least want to +bump these opinions though.
Did any intelligent thought go into picking these components?
Why is this article posted?
It isn't pushing some micro PC boundary or some other extreme...
I work as a system admin and when people ask me what I think about x product or how they would like to build a computer I point them to this site. I certainly wouldn't if it was full of these articles.
This is certainly blog quality and doesn't really deserve to be put anywhere on the front page.
notty22 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
This is one , I don't get either. A third of the article telling us, yes these are crazy choices, but I chose them. Then a 1/3 telling us in depth what a bitch it was putting it together, yawn!So you had to put the hsf on before m/b installation, NO WAY. Then we held our breath with anticipation as you slipped in the video card, power connectors already in place, NICE, lol. I enjoy the ride of spending the money with you, but if there were 10 builds with various combination s, users would vote this rig last without even seeing the other selections.
Deosneos - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I understand not having benched this build yet, but what I don't understand is just starting off a build with goals, a list of components and just start building.Why these components? Why this case, why not a cheaper, smaller SSD, why not another brand of graphics card with a quieter cooler?
Right now it just feels like buying the most expensive components and sticking them on a small mb in a small case et voila, money spent, job done.
AstroGuardian - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
What the hell are you asking that for? Why why why? Why not?The choice of hardware was only a sample and a suggestion. The purpose was a gaming rig! Why i7 when it can be i5?
And why the hell do you need benchmarks? Would the score be any different if it wasn't for the small form factor, the short cooler etc? No they wouldn't. So why are you asking for benchmarks? Don't you all seen the i5, 5850, SSD benchmarked?
Of course you have all seen it.
So stop ****** around and thank the man for showing the idea of great gaming machine in a small case.
Great post Loyd
AstroGuardian - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
What the hell are you asking that for? Why why why? Why not?The choice of hardware was only a sample and a suggestion. The purpose was a gaming rig! Why i7 when it can be i5?
And why the hell do you need benchmarks? Would the score be any different if it wasn't for the small form factor, the short cooler etc? No they wouldn't. So why are you asking for benchmarks? Don't you all seen the i5, 5850, SSD benchmarked?
Of course you have all seen it.
So stop ****** around and thank the man for showing the idea of great gaming machine in a small case.
Great post Loyd
Deosneos - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
No thank you. I'm asking for information that in my eyes would make this article, you know, informative.No need to take this tone, I clearly don't stand alone in this opinion.
A smaller case does make a huge difference for overclocking, cooling etc, so yes, some info on those would have helped. Or, as the case is meant to be a quiet gaming rig, how about some noise figures?
Anandtech is hardly a showcase for rigs is it?
Teefs - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I've been thinking about trying to do something similar. A few things I would do different:1. Use Antec p180 mini case (since it can fit a more powerful radeon 5870)
2. Use a Sapphire Radeon 5870 Vapor-X (it should have same idle power usage as a 5850 and the Vapor-x cooler should be quieter.)
3. Use an 80 plus gold rated power supply
4. Use a Corsair p256 SSD instead (it is cheaper, smaller and has slightly lower idle power usage)