Couple of quick shots, not opening the case, the cable octopus will escape and need recontaining! iPad mini for scale
It is, Ill do some stripped down photos at the weekend when I swap out the cooler. Build wise the case is very easy to construct once you've realised which corner piece is which as its not 100% clear to start with. The wood is very nice and tactile almost want more wood panels the top or the intake fan panel would be great. Being mainly plastic the case is very light. so the bulk of the system weight is from the CPU cooler and PSU. The drive storage solution is quite novel, you can mount one or two 2.5" drives on their own panel behind the wooden one and both have helpful cutouts for cabling. Cooling, surprisingly good considering the absolute mess of cables going on in there, likely owing to the lovely nigh on unrestricted opening, you are limited on fans as it can only mount a slimline 120/140mm fan, I would suggest a 140 as it means it cools from quite low on the board, plus you dont seen the fan chassis. Cooling principle is very simple, big fan in blows over the board and onto the back of the GPU then you have slot gaps on all four sides to exhaust the heat. The GPU has its own dedicated intake in my case I opted for the same setup as the other side a dirty great hole so literally no restrictions. The PSU, you can see from the photo the entire roof is ventilated, you can specify a less open top which has a cutout for the PSU and slot gaps to match the wood side panel for the exhaust. Temps are great I ran some games last night nothing extreme just my usual's world of tanks/warships, threw Fallout 4 and a recent Deus Ex at it, not problems, considering how compact it is, how messy the cabling and and the fact about 1/3 of the CPU cooler is being obscured it shows great potential. The CPU cooler is tight, the existing one runs about a millimetre from the base of the PSU, a replacement low profile cooler is on order which will solve this, they recommend a couple of coolers on the site, the one of order being one of those, annoyingly some of the other options simply wont fit purely down to the CPU location on FM2 boards running oddly close to the the GPU socket so very much doubt it would be a problem on other sockets but wit ha 70mm clearance you are a little limited on options. Last bit to touch on is cabling. I refereed to the cabling octopus previously, it is pretty much that, Corsair in their wisdom supply the SFX PSU with fairly rigid and overly long cables. for example a 40cm 24pin pin, which kind of counters the whole SFX idea to me. All the cables are overly long you end up folding them to wedge the case shut, I need to measure them off to see but to give you an idea I'd imagine the 24pin will be 15cm maybe a touch more. Not only would it look rather nice inside with the shorter cabling but, I would suspect the cooling may be a little better as its less restricted. So, Better photos at the weekend ill grab the SLR and take them on the to be fancy. List of jobs 1. New cooler (Cryorig C7) 2. Shorter PSU cables 3. maybe some lighting of some kind?
Yeah, this is a criticism of the Corsair SFX PSUs that I've read a fair amount. Apparently their short cable kits are a lot more flexible, but it feels like a bit of a piss-take buying a SFX PSU and then having to shell out extra for more suitable cables. One of the problems with these tiny cases is that there's nowhere to hide the rat's nest of cabling. Even in my M1, which is a fair bit bigger than your Lazer, there's not a lot of cable-stashing room. It's one reason why I've been eyeing up a 1050Ti (or next-gen equivalent when it arrives) - I'd love to be able to ditch the PCIE power cable, and eventually the Sata power and data wires too.
Can confirm it is real wood. It doesnt surprise me on the Corsair cables they are horrible. It is a bit of a joke you pay out for the PSU then have to pay extra to get the nicer cables. Can see why they do it, its a captive market almost
Silverstone do the same with their SFF PSUs iirc, they include full-length cables and sell the short cables separately.
But not captive cables, amirite? Sorry, couldn't resist Indeed, although at least the bundled Silverstone cables are quite malleable, unlike Corsair's bundled efforts.
Terrible pun, but very true, I saw one captive cable build, utter mess. If I hadn't got the PSU already I would likely look at a DC adaptor kit, he sells a mounting plate for those an that would really open up the cooling options (Towers and AIOs) But yes these cables are are like overly thick IDE ribbons who ever's idea it was to use them needs shooting.
The HT5 is the one to look at for those, or his prototype longer LZ7. Behold the cable octopus! Literally the only cables that are close to the right length are, one sata cable and the 4 pin to the motherboard. You can see just how far the need to actually go. Fitted the new cooler, had to bin off the heat spreaders from the RAM, its out of warranty and more a for show thing anywho Dat clearance... Insulation tape on the CPU cooler to prevent grounding. Seems to be a common thing on FM2 sockets from what I can see. New much much lower cooler, considering the previous was just about on that underside of the PSU it makes me happier if anything. Sorry for the huge sate lead upper front it just escaped. Some er, cables, get a nice idea just how long the are over what the need to be, and a nice shot of the storage. Interesting thing I noticed, you can actually remove it clean from the case just by taking the top panel off as its not bolted down. An finally a scale against the old ITX case
That's a great build, I've been following this case on SFFN, and it's an inspired design. The wood option takes to to a new level, as do the 3D printed corners. Brilliant to have another UK nice manufacturer in the market. Dat Corsair Cable Octopus....they really give me anxiety! I can't bring myself to revisit my recent NCase build because of the SF600 cabling for that reason. I just crammed them in with as much care as I could and clipped on the case sides! There's a couple of 2.5" drives 'cradled' by the octopus in mine somewhere. I think the idea of a compact 'brickless' (all internal) AC-DC + DC-DC solution is quite appealing, but I can't get my head round how to do it with a GPU/
Haha, I know exactly what you mean! I just redid some of the cabling inside my M1 yesterday and it wasn't too bad, but the Silverstone SFX PSU cables are a lot more flexible than the Corsair equivalents. I managed to eliminate a bit of excess cabling by rotating the case fans so that any slack was taken up, and that's actually made a decent difference, but it's still not great, especially compared to my previous case which was a MASSIVE Fractal R2 with tons of space behind the motherboard tray and loads of cable-tidying cutouts and grommets. Makes me glad that the M1 doesn't have a window!
Aye, I know, and I'm still glad mine doesn't have one As an aside, I really don't like the windowed version of the M1 - worse cooling due to no airflow from the side, and the window itself doesn't match the design language of the rest of the case (which is terrific - the M1 looks great in its original form). Imho.
