My day at work

"JGrabowMSt" (jgrabowmst) 08/26/2014 at 22:24 • Filed to: computerlopnik

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So I work at a little computer shop, where half my job consists of just doing random things to figure out how they work. Today's experiment? Beta version of the SteamOS.

So I made a computer that will be a HTPC for myself (I bought all the parts), and figured, when there's a will, there's a way. I've managed to get the SteamOS working once before, but for some reason, this little computer isn't cooperating nearly as much. The wrong drive is getting partitioned which borks the install process and makes it fail, but I'm sure I'll figure it out in the next couple days.

This sports a Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI motherboard (bought on sale, with bonus $30 rebate), which came with a Wireless AC/Bluetooth combo card, dual network adapters, dual HDMI (important later on), 4x USB3.0 on the back and 2x USB3.0 on the front, 2x USB2.0, DVI and HD audio. This thing literally has everything I could have asked for. All powered by an Intel i3-4130 Haswell CPU (bought used to keep costs at a minimum) RAM was recycled from upgrades on other machines, as well as the smaller SSD and heatsink which was originally for an i7 (meaning it'll keep the i3 cooler than the normal heatsink it would have come with).

The dual HDMI is an important feature, because this is going to be running SteamOS, and my girlfriend wants to make Lets Play videos. I can duplicate the HDMI output, and run one into a capture unit and the other to the TV. Simple as can be.

The case was a pricey one, the InWin H-Frame ITX case with 180W power supply. I got it after the price dropped from a less than reasonable $199 to $159. Considering it comes with a good power supply, I'm not going to complain. Most of the parts were used or on sale, funny enough, I checked some of the parts, and they went back to full price the next day.

The case left a little to be desired with cable routing, but it came basically pre-wired. I just had to drop in the motherboard, plug everything in, and hit the power button. Very simple install. But I'm borderline OCD, so I disassembled most of it, and cleaned up the cables as best I could given the space. For an ITX case, it's everything I could have asked for. Very clean look to it, the green looks great, and it has space for everything I would need to put in it.

It's missing a couple parts still, but it's fully functional, I just need to work out the SteamOS and get that installed and working. The main part that I haven't ordered yet is the wireless receiver for the Xbox controllers. There's a USB one on Amazon for $12 that is good for up to 4 controllers and 4 wireless headsets. It also looks small enough that I can hide it in the space for the second hard drive (there will only be one 80GB SSD and a slim bluray drive in the case). Once it's completed, the rear cables will only be HDMI and power, as the mouse and keyboard will be bluetooth. It wont need any extra USB adapters to make it ugly. The dual network cards will be used to supplement devices with no wifi, like my older bluray player (good for hulu, netflix, and quick access to watching a movie) and the Xbox which has no internal wifi adapter.

Overall, the machine is a lower power thing, I didn't build it to compete with my dual xeon desktop, it was strictly made to be a HTPC. When it's completed, it will hopefully replace the need for the bluray player, by taking those duties in the living room (and so it can move the bedroom as it's quieter and simpler). The machine has 4gb of RAM to start, upgradeable to 16gb if I ever feel the need (though I don't see myself going over 8gb for this). All that said though, an i3 is more than enough power for 95% of users. Even moderate users will rarely tax an i3 system. Anyone who realistically needs an i7 or more is doing video editing or CAD type work. Paired with an SSD, the machine has plenty of power for nearly every Steam game and HD playback.

So that was a good portion of my day at work, putting this together, as until I'm 100% finished with getting it together, it will also be a demo unit at work, for customers to see and have an idea of the possibilities (if provided the budget). Even before it was finished, I sold a slightly lower end, ITX machine to a customer to replace an aging, and failing full sized desktop. Profit is good, especially when my quotes don't get fudged by my boss.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > JGrabowMSt 08/26/2014 at 23:02

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that case is badass

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > JGrabowMSt 08/26/2014 at 23:12

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I love that case. I wish they made an ATX case that looked identical but scaled up in every dimension.. their other H-frames aren't anywhere near as pretty.

JGrabowMSt > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 08/26/2014 at 23:16

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Right?! I was hooked on it. There aren't many really good options for ITX computers right now. Lots of cases made, but few that really look great. There's 3 on the market that I really like, and so far, I've done builds in two of them. I'm going to try and convince my boss to order the last one I like, and see if we can do a build in it for another client soon. It looks different, but modern and clean, which is a great change.

For 95% of my clients, ITX is perfect for their needs. ATX or even mATX builds are simply unnecessary at this point. The one computer I'm about to build for a customer, their previous one was custom built, but had a mATX motherboard in a full ATX case, and they just used integrated everything. The old card reader was totally full of dust, so I can tell with 100% certainty, they never used it.

Why bother taking up all that space and literally never use it? Luckily the computer industry is allowing more options now in terms of sizing. Even this time last year, ITX was still just beginning to get mainstream options you would actually want.

JGrabowMSt > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard 08/26/2014 at 23:31

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I'm really picky about my computers. It's funny that this case cost so much, because the dual xeon machine is in a $49 case, where this one cost basically 3x as much.

I think InWin has come a long way with their designs, and I think they've been implementing the use of tempered glass really well. I'm not sure I'd want to see this in ATX form. It would be very heavy, and difficult to manage. The H frame pieces would end up being very sharp and difficult to move around the room even. The proportions are perfect for ITX. I like this case a lot better than the Antec ISK series that I've used a few times in the past, though the ISK is cheaper, and a bit easier to put together. The only other ITX case that's caught my attention recently is the Xigmatek Nebula, which is just a couple inches too tall from being a perfect cube. The colors and design on that are very minimalist, and I think it's a great looking case. Aside from the Nebula, ISK and this H-Frame, there isn't any other ITX case that I really like the looks of. I've used a cheap $40 industrial case for the stores front desk POS, which is very convenient for hiding the backup thumb drive in the front panel, as well as preventing unwanted access to the machine, but it's not something most of my customers would even be interested in (though a couple businesses might also see how it's convenient and slightly more secure).

It took me a while to be able to justify the cost of that case, and it's not without it's quirks, but i'm happy with it.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > JGrabowMSt 08/27/2014 at 00:54

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I think if it's going to be on display under your TV then it's easy to justify something that's as pretty as the H-frame.

Yeah, the ISK's all look too much like an business unit to me, not pretty enough for a home build. I expect to see them mounted vertically with a shitty 19" square monitor covering their vents.

I'll be building a new rig in the next couple of months. I'm waiting on a fairly sizable bonus from work.. pretty sure I'm gonna hold out for Haswell-E too. So about all I can do at the moment is look at cases. I want a mid size tower that's understated. Something like the Fractal Design Define R4.. but could easily go Corsair C70 for the better cooling and pseudo industrial look.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > JGrabowMSt 08/27/2014 at 08:09

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ITX board in a full-tower case, because fuck logic.

JGrabowMSt > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard 08/27/2014 at 09:35

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Well, as a system builder, I think aiming to use an R4 or even the C70 cases today is a little silly.

They're big cases, full ATX sized. In contrast, I think it's important to think about what will be going into the computer, and what it will be doing. For example, what's going into the ATX case that can justify an ATX build. Like I mentioned in my original post, 95% of my customers never make any changes to their computer. Whether they're into computers or not. That said, my desktop is a full ATX build, and I have a graphics card and two other PCI-e cards, along with an eSATA rear bracket, and a rear bracket with a hole for a power cable going out. The graphics card will be replaced probably next year if I feel it's no longer got the power I need, but the USB3 and firewire card were absolutely necessary in my build. I would add a Blackmagic Design Intensity Pro, but I actually can't fit it in anywhere, the build is just too tight, but if I were to gain the room, it's an important addition I could use. The machine is for bluray video editing, something a lot more intense than even casual gaming and web browsing. No normal gaming rig would ever come close to the amount of power the machine has.

Lets say you go for a mATX build. You have plenty of space for a full sized graphics card that will play plenty of games, and you wont have to deal with the wasted space a full ATX case will take up.

Cooling often comes into the question, but honestly, CPUs today run so cool, it's just not an issue today. Have you see the coolers some CPUs come with? New Pentium and i3 coolers are barely 1/4" thick. The i5 and i7 coolers are maybe 1/2" thick. The stock coolers are nothing impressive, but they are more than capable of handling the CPUs in even moderate loads. If you swap to an aftermarket tower based air cooler, many are capable of running fanless if they have a a slight breeze from an exhaust fan with perfectly acceptable temps. Even with that, you can get really nice, really quiet fans that work incredibly well. I never run intake fans because they're just a great way to introduce dust into the system, and they're too close to vents that are closest to me and make noise. It's a computer, not an appliance, I don't want any noise. I have spent close to $30 for some individual fans because the quality is that high. It's not something I'll skimp on.

Half of my design work with builds is the cooling system, because I design every one of my builds to make as little noise as possible. In my dual Xeon machine, there are no intake fans. There's two CPU fans (one for each), a rear exhaust and a top exhaust. The GPU came with a larger, cooler running heatsink with two larger fans. The machine is ridiculously powerful, but most people would never be able to tell if it was on or not if they couldn't see the monitors.

I think going mATX or ITX for most people is far more efficient. I've talked many customers down to even mATX builds because they just don't need anything bigger. I used to build larger machines, but now I will avoid it, and I'll give customers reasons to go for smaller ones instead. There are plenty of very clean case options for mATX if you shop around. Lian Li and Silverstone are my top choices, but I'll use Antec often because I used to review a lot of their gear. Often, the case is the last thing I shop for, because I'll use coolers and aim for a specific components, and squeeze them into a case. Tolerances are almost always tight, but it makes for an impressive build when it's done.

With modular power supplies today, it's easier to hide cables because you can simply just leave the ones you don't need out. For my own personal builds, I usually take about two weeks to really decide what parts to use, just like this build, because I want to reach my end goal using the least amount of individual parts, and make it as condensed as possible.

So for you, I'd look at some of the mATX options, because it'll still have room for plenty of extra hardware, probably more than you'll ever end up using, and still be able to look super clean in the process, as well as house some very fast components. Heat wont be an issue if you have the right coolers. For CPUs, big tower coolers, for a graphics card, avoid the reference coolers, and go for the big heatpipe ones. For the fans, splurge a little, it will make a huge difference.

JGrabowMSt > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 08/27/2014 at 09:37

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I've seen it, and I just don't get it.

Yes, I want all of my desk space taken up by this loud and massive plastic and metal box!

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > JGrabowMSt 08/27/2014 at 10:38

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I put a raspberry pi in a full-tower case once as a joke.

JGrabowMSt > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 08/27/2014 at 10:59

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My raspberry pi is in the standard acrylic case, but it runs RaspBMC right now. Only downside is in the past few months, a lot of support has been dropped for really good streaming services.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > JGrabowMSt 08/27/2014 at 20:56

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Space isn't an issue where the PC will be sitting.. I like the idea of SLI two GTX 780's but it's difficult to justify the extra ~$600 for anything other than bragging rights.

so we'll see, I still might be swayed on an mATX. depending on what X99's are available when I'm ready to buy.

I'll keep your advice in mind about the intake fans. I was already sure I was going to spend an extra $150-200 on quiet fans alone.. so if I avoid getting intake fans I should save a bit of money.

I need to stop thinking about it, it's not long until the Haswell-E and X99's come out. I should wait until then.

JGrabowMSt > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard 08/27/2014 at 22:27

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I crammed a 12x10" dual socket board into an NZXT Source 210 Elite, and easily fit my Gigabyte GTX660 Ti OC 2Gb with no trouble at all. The case was $49 when I bought it. My sole complaint is that the matte white paint finish chips very easily if you're not careful with it.

For kicks and giggles, I'd run an Intel NUC with an external GPU in a housing, connected via Thunderbolt to mess with people. Huge power, unsuspecting size.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > JGrabowMSt 08/28/2014 at 00:35

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That NZXT case looks all-right.. but to get one down to Australia I'd be looking at closer to $80.. which is about the same price as a Nanoxia Deep Silver Silence 4... which, looks like everything I want.. provided it fits everything I want.

Has there been any decent eGPU housings made? or is it still all DIY? I remember ASUS had a vapourware one a couple of years ago.

JGrabowMSt > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard 08/28/2014 at 02:37

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It's not really specific to any devices at this point. Because Thunderbolt has managed to take off as a professional interface, the enclosures and devices have assumed the price tags.

I have a thunderbolt capture unit for my MacBook Pro, and it does work great. For a graphics card, you'd just get a thunderbolt enclosure and stuffing it in. I think the catch is that you can't do hot swap with a graphics card still. If you had a NUC with Thunderbolt and you wanted to use an nVidia card, you'd have to plug in the thunderbolt connector before starting it, and to switch to the Intel graphics, you'd have turn the machine off and unplug it. Not convenient, but it would work, and I've seen it being used a couple of times.

In extreme situations, I've seen beefy GPUs plugged in and used with graphics sharing for the render capabilities, so the GPU isn't even plugged into a display, it just sits on the desk whirring away providing the power for whatever needs to be done.

For the Nanoxia, It should fit a whole lot of stuff in there. I'd say it would be possible to do dual graphics if you get a motherboard with the right layout, but my concern would be that a pair of dual slot GPUs will effectively starve the top card of cool air. I wouldn't be concerned in the least bit with a single card though. The case is long, so it should fit any GPU in there no problem. A good tower cooler on the CPU, a good MSI Twin Frozr, Gigabyte Windforce or Asus DirectCU graphics card, and you'd be set.

I say those three brands because you can get just about any graphics card you want in any of those options, and they'll come OOTB with better cooling than reference cards by a huge amount. Worth the extra money, because the cards will last a lot longer.

Add a couple NoiseBlocker E-Loop fans, and I'd say you're set to go. The case looks nice, just pull the middle hard drive cage unless you really need it, leave out all the intake fans, run a rear exhaust fan like an E-Loop or a Scythe Slip Stream PWM (if you can even find one still), run an E-Loop on the CPU, and just buy a couple packs of zip ties for extreme cable management. Best part is, the build wont even break the bank if you're reasonable with it. A good i5 paired with the GTX780 and backed by about 8gb of RAM, with a 240gb SSD with a 1TB HDD for extra storage, and you're good to go. Power it with a 450-500W PSU and you're set to go. You wont need to go any higher than that unless you're set on using two graphics cards, but in a mATX case, the motherboard layout will be the determining factor, and I can't really think of any that would allow it.

I have some Gigabyte H55 motherboard where the top most and bottom most expansion slots are PCI-e. If I use single slot GPUs, I can have two in a mATX case. If I want dual slot GPUs, I can only fit one. I think many motherboards started putting the extra space in because they realized keeping things so tight just wouldn't last. Best example is how often you see triple or quad SLI systems at this point. There are motherboards with 7 PCI-e x16 slots as the only option, but I hardly ever see anyone drop the coin on a triple or quad SLI system. Maybe people have come to the realization that games don't benefit from it after two cards. Only justifiable reason for it is folding@home in my opinion. Sure, some people want to leave their computer bitcoin mining and GPUs are way faster at it than CPUs, but the cost of the system takes a long time to make back up, so it often isn't worth it.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > JGrabowMSt 08/28/2014 at 04:13

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looks like I can't get Noiseblocker CPU fans from either of my suppliers, but case fans are a go. How do you rate the Noctua fans?

Going off the MSI and EVGA mATX teasers there might be enough space for two dual-slot GPU's as they fit the M.2 slot in between the top two 16x PCIe slots. but like you said, the top card has less space for cooling.. so I might just stick with the one GPU to start with but plan enough space to fit a second in if I'm not happy with the speed.

as far as not braking the bank? I think I'll set my build limit at $3k and that will get me something stupidly fast that I don't need to touch for another 3 years. I could spend more but I feel it's diminishing returns after that. Better to spend the rest of my bonus money on a holiday and new rims for the MR2

Also, multiple GPU's are a waste of money even for bitcoining.. everyone who's serious has moved onto ASIC machines.

JGrabowMSt > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard 08/28/2014 at 09:12

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Noctua fans are really nice. The engineering aspect behind those is pretty crazy if you've ever gone through some of their whitepapers. I will say, it is important to use the right one for your build, as different Noctua fans actually perform very differently depending on where they're used. Some of their fans work great for higher static pressures, and others work great in lower static pressure situations.

The static pressure would be related to the restriction of the airflow, whether it's against a poorly designed exhaust fan grill, or sitting open on the desk unrestricted. Inside your computer, it would be important to use the appropriate fans based on your coolers or case grills. If you think back a little to products like the Scythe Ninja cooler (these were among my favorite when they came out), they had a very wide fin spacing, so you could use a lower static pressure fan with great results. Many newer CPU coolers have very tight fin spacing comparatively, so you'd want to use a higher static pressure fan, because it will work way more efficiently, and quieter.

So, the difference comes down to fans like the NF-F12, which would work very well on a tower heatsink with really tight fin spacing, and the NF-S12, which really needs to be in far less restrictive places like an intake/exhaust location. The blade designs are incredibly different, so it's important to use them where they were meant to go. Considering how much Noctua puts into their development, it makes sense to go along with it.

Now, in a lot of my personal builds, I break out the tin snips and cut out fan grills to make them less restrictive, so that's always going to help an exhaust fan. For a CPU fan, there isn't much to do other than making sure it's pointing in the right direction.

Looking at the currency difference, AUD and USD aren't very far apart, so I'll say that my dual Xeon machine was roughly $3k in parts. Given you're looking at building something a lot lower end than that, I'd say if your budget was even $1.5-$2k to save more for the MR2, you're not going to be "missing" much. That Asrock motherboard has a pretty good layout too, might even be perfect for what you're looking to do, still manage to be ridiculously clean, quiet, and capable of expanding later on, easily. If you were spending the same kind of money I spent, I would expect something comparable, not some lowly i7 CPU, so I'd just shop around, and keep in mind that even the Core i3 CPUs are really fast for what they are. A lot of people don't realize just how fast CPUs have gotten these days, they're so used to buying the top model, when realistically, they don't really need anything close to it.