Hello I'm looking at building a new gaming & streaming PC, to hook up in my living room to our Sony 4k TV. I would like to be able to game in 4K if possible, so I'm looking at getting the 2080 Ti graphics card. Dimensions wise, I've got 19cm in height, 36.5cm in depth, 55cm wide. This is the first HTPC gaming PC I've built, always wanted to do it but there was never really the right case to do it with, so I've always used the standard tower cases. I was initially going with the Phanteks Evolv Shift Mini ITX Case as I love the design of it, but having read the reviews and build guides, it seems to be a very tricky build, have issues with the riser card, as well as requiring water cooled CPU & GPU which ramps up the price. I also have a lot less time these days due to family & work for messing around with PCs & trying to work out why things aren't working, I just want to come home & know most of the time it'll be ok! My thoughts now are the Silverstone GD10, but I'm a bit concerned whether the cooling will be adequate in it, or the FTZ01, but again I'm a bit concerned that the build will be overly complicated or have ongoing issues due to size/riser/cooling. Obviously the case is going to determine which components I go with internally, I could go with a AIO water-cooled 1080 ti for the Phanteks case, but I'm thinking it would be best to go with the 2080 ti now for longevity. Any help is much appreciated!!
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/silverstone-sugo-sg13b-mini-itx-chassis-black-ca-403-sv.html Supports GPUs up to 10.5" while also being only 18cm tall without resorting to risers. Crucially the founders edition 2080TI is 10.5" long, so should just about fit and with the basically open side GPU cooling should be fine, although it could end up with some noise issues when the GPU is under load due to that relatively open nature.
Thanks, I hadn't seen that case. I'm a little worried that the card will be too long mind you, its seems like it'll be a very snug fit! Whats the difference between the founders edition & the other brands? I usually go with EVGA for graphics cards. Does anyone have any experience with the GD10 Silverstone case? - https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=489&area=en I think this is still my favoured option due to it more standard parts, and the concealed power buttons etc on the front will be useful, just concerned about the cooling ability of it for high-end gaming parts. Thanks
Yeah that would certainly be tight as its right up to the length limit. The difference is that the design of the PCB and cooler is done by Nvidia for the Founders Edition, while EVGA, ASUS etc use their own cooler designs and when it comes to the PCB some use the same design as the Founders Edition while others use their own. The big problem is that a lot of the cards from the likes of EVGA, MSI and so on are often a bit bigger and while you have some room to spare length wise if you went with the GD10 up to 12.2" (309mm) long, width restriction-5.25" (133mm) while the Founders is 10.5” (266.74mm) x 4.556” (115.7mm), those cards from board partners often also are taller which would then make it impossible to connect the power cable. So in short, the selection of cards that would fit in a case less than 19cm tall like the GD10 is simply going be restricted to cards like the Founders Edition (or ones from Gigabutt, Zotac, Asus etc that fit in the same footprint). Cooling would likely be a concern with something as toasty as a 2080Ti in a GD10, but no matter what case you go with, within the space limitations those cooling concerns are unlikely to go away. That said, unlike the one I had brought up or the Phanteks the GD10 should at least be easy to build in, so the GD10 is probably the obvious choice.
If you want to go all fancy-looking the NCase M1 (https://www.sfflab.com/products/ncase_m1) is always good, but it is on the expensive side. Given the GPU you are looking at though, it doesn't seem price is a big problem!
Ah ok, thanks, I hadn't really considered the height as an issue! Would you say the founders edition from nvidia is a better option than the Gigabyte etc versions? For 4K gaming, is it worth going for the 2080ti over the 1080ti? Only there are a few aio 1080ti's still available on Amazon which I think would fit in the Phanteks case, although there's still the issue of the riser card I guess. Thanks, that does look a nice case but I need one to sit horizontal in my TV stand
It is kind of complicated... For example the Gigabyte one reviewed here does cool a bit better than the Founder Edition, but... £100 extra? Not even to mention that availability is on Valve time. I'd say yes, for 4K you should be looking at the best GPU only as performance in 4K is still a struggle, of course if that justifies over £1K on a GPU is up to you, but personally I'd rather play at a lower resolution instead of trying to squeeze 4K out of an inferior GPU.
Ahhh theres so many options & combinations!! So the GD10 case specs says: Dimesions - 442mm (W) x 171mm (H) x 362mm (D), Card - Compatible up to 12.2" (309mm) long , width restriction-5.25" (133mm) I usually go with EVGA cards, never had an issue with them. So looking at their 2080ti range, for example the ftw3 ultra has dimensions: Height: 5.48in - 139.3mm Length: 11.89in - 301.925mm Width: 2.75 Slots I'm not sure what 2.75 slots equates to in inches or mm, but length is ok, height is probably a tight fit with the power on top, but would these solve that issue? - https://www.moddiy.com/products/PCI...%2dPin-6%2dPin-Connector-Extension-Cable.html Or is it limited it to something like RTX 2080 Ti XC GAMING Height: 4.5in - 114.3mm Length: 10.6in - 269.2mm Width: Dual Slot The FTZ01 case specs says 376mm (W) x 107mm (H) x 351mm (D) Support graphics card up to 13" (330mm), width restriction – 5.88" (149mm) But it only has 2 expansion card slots on the back? So it can take a wider card but it can only be a dual slot one? The FTZ case can take a AIO cooler for the CPU, so will this case be better overall for the cooling? Although it looks like a right pain to build in. Would the higher FTW3 card make much difference? Does using a PCI-E Riser Card cause a problem? The issues that people have had with the Phanteks case has put me off, but I'm not sure if Silverstone have similar problems. Thanks for all the help!
With the GD10 the problem for the FTW3 Ultra is height / width: Card - width restriction-5.25" (133mm), because what they mean by width is height... so the 5.48 inches rule out the possibility of the FTW3 fitting, the RTX 2080 Ti XC GAMING however would fit, 0.75 inches spare for power connectors is perfectly fine. In the FTZ01 you would also be limited to cards like the RTX 2080 Ti XC GAMING, last picture at the bottom here shows why, the case would get in the way of any cards that are fatter than 2 slots. In other words, the XC gaming fits in both, the FTW3 in neither. Squeezing an AIO in the FTZ01 would be a tough ask, possible? Yes, but might not be the best idea: First of all you'd have serious restrictions in regards to radiator and fan thickness, basically the manual says no more than a 38mm rad and 14.5mm fans (and you don't really want to use such slim fans on a radiator, but if you fit thicker ones it would eat into rad space and going below 38mm really limits the options), plus there is the problem that the radiator would blow its hot air straight into the GPU fans... So an AIO in the FTZ01 doesn't make too much sense if you use a dedicated GPU, a low profile Noctua cooler (thinking NH-L9x65 to be specific) would make the most sense for CPU cooling. I don't know much about problems with pci-e risers, but obviously adding any part adds a potential point of failure, so I'd avoid them just for that alone. There is also something else to consider between the FTZ01 and the GD10: The FTZ01 is strictly ITX, while the GD10 can fit bigger mainboards (MATX and ATX) so you'd have a far bigger selection of mainboards to choose from with the GD10.
Ahhhh its starting to make a bit more sense now! Thats really not helpful changing width & height round! Ok, so by the sounds of things, the GD10 will be the simplest build in terms of fitting everything in & range of parts available. Hopefully it will all be cool enough in there, I only tend to game a couple of hours at a time so it wont be getting hammered. Could you recommend a decent PSU & CPU cooler? I'm probably going with an i7 9700K as I believe that is better for gaming than the i9? Would the NH-L9x65 still be the cooler to go for? I won't be using an optical drive in it, I believe that makes it easier to get a larger cooler in there. Thanks!
In gaming on average the i5-8600K, i5-9600K, i7-7700K, i7-8700K, i7-8086K, i7-9700K, i9-9900K are all basically within 5% of each other. For future proofing purposes I'd knock out the 4 and 6 cores, leaving you with the i7-9700K and i9-9900K 8 cores. Technically speaking the i9-9900K is the better CPU, but the margin in gaming is so paper thin the price premium is extremely hard to justify, so the i7-9700K becomes the prime choice. As you won't be using an optical drive I'd go with the NH-U9S: https://www.quietpc.com/nh-u9s
