for years now you've been able to buy compact ITX motherboards with support
for all the latest features 16 core processors 64 gigabytes of memory even
things like high quality onboard audio and high-speed on-board networking but
one thing that has always been the bane of mini itx's existence has been the
lack of expandability that's right my friends that's it a single PCI Express
16x slot at best means that if you want
to run dedicated graphics you will not be throwing in any network cards
high-speed PCI Express ssds or storage
controllers at least that used to be true in today's build we are going to be
splitting this single PCI Express 16x slot into dual 8X slots for two
expansion cards on a Mini ITX build and
we're going to be doing it on a budget this thing's not even expensive
and it's brought to you by see Sonic see
Sonic makes high performance high quality power supplies in all kinds of
form factors like their focus gold sgx
650 650 watt power supply we're going to
be using for this build today it's got a 10 year warranty and 80 plus gold
efficiency you can check it out at the link below
we're going to blow through the rationale for a lot of our Hardware
choices today because I think they're pretty self-explanatory we went for a
ryzen 9 3900 XT it's a 12 core processor
that offers not just great multi-threaded performance but also
great single threaded performance for gaming we've gone with 32 gigs of
g-skill trident Z memory we're not going RGB today because this isn't going to be
as much of a flashy build it's going to be more of like a versatile high
performance rig and then for storage we've actually gone with a sabrin four
terabyte m.2 this is only PCI Express gen 3 even though technically we could
use Gen 4 but I was more into capacity
for the game library today than you know
the absolute fastest benchmark scores so
we're going to go ahead and pop this little heat shield off here get our
Drive inserted good take our thermal pad peel off then the whole thing goes back
in with the screws we use to take it off it is truly remarkable how much they can
pack onto these mini boards these days we've got not one but two RGB headers
supporting different standards so 12 volt and addressable we've got four SATA
ports we've got both the older style USB
3.0 front panel header as well as the newer type c one we've got USB 2
actually a couple usb2s front panel audio of course that PCI Express Gen 4
m.2 slot and check this out there's another gen 3 m.2 slot hiding on the
back one of the coolest things about this board is that we don't even have to
worry about putting high speed networking on unless we want to go 10
gig because it's actually got two and a half gig networking on board along with
a bunch of USB 3 Onboard video as well
as oh that's a pretty limited onboard audio selection but frankly most people
these days are probably using their HDMI audio out or in the case of what I would
use this for a head mounted display so I'm not going to take too many points
off for that it's also got ax so Wi-Fi 6
onboard wireless network look at it
not enough to just have a motherboard that's capable of splitting or
bifurcating the PCI Express slot though you need to also have a case that's
built with that functionality in mind or there's not going to be anywhere to put
the card so this right here is the SM
580 from sliger these guys are a very
Niche case manufacturer that I actually used recently for a personal rig update
for my VR setup because they've got kind
of a unique approach to small form factor and modularity that I really like
so check this out this case is designed to be used a number of different ways
you can either install a triple slot graphics card on your you know standard
ITX motherboard using these three PCI slots at the back or as we're obviously
going to be doing you can there we go
install a dual slot and a single slot
using this special Riser cable that's available as an option when you purchase
it now it does cost extras These are nice high quality shielded cables and
this is generally considered to be more of a server feature than a consumer
feature but I think in the grand scheme of things to be able to achieve this
kind of size with dual expansion slots
pretty compelling maybe the reason it impresses me so much even though it is
like an 80 Adder is that I know the alternative is way more expensive
because if the functionality is built into your motherboard all you need is
this relatively simple cable you see there's no actual chips on this PCB it's
just the 16 Lanes wired up to two 8X
slots by contrast if the motherboard didn't support bifurcation we'd be in a
situation where you have to put some kind of switch chip like a plx chip that
would yes allow each card to use all of the bandwidth individually if the other
one wasn't doing anything but also would add a ton of cost not to mention more
complexity before we proceed with the build let's go ahead and install some of
our optional accessories like this carrying handle it's actually secured
with this bracing on the inside seems like it should hold up reasonably well
and for installation of the pass-through power cable I'm going to use this blank
plate here because while you can use one that just kind of passes through the
cable and leaves this dangling outside the case if you have a tall graphics
card I don't I'm going to be using a Founders Edition RTX 2080 super and it
should fit just fine even with ah see
this this potential clearance issue here oh shoot I can't have the handle in when
I want to take out the radiator bracket hey there it is so it's just the two
screws on this side the corresponding two on the other side and make sure you don't have your handle installed now the
orientation of this is apparently important you want the bumps here facing
toward the front of the case so I got to make sure I remember that I also need to give a little bit of thought
to how I want to orient my AIO that's
right my friends you can put a massive dual 140 millimeter AIO in this thing
wait is this even gonna fit no no there's your problem you got to
take the top of this puppy completely off in order to get the radiator in
lower the whole thing in as an assembly
cases like this it sort of raises the question for me why even bother shipping
it assembled let's have a look here how are we
supposed to get that block to that CPU
I don't know if this h159 is going to fit we might have to go with something
with thinner tubes I think we're good now I pulled this h115i Pro RGB out of
the stock room and I think this should
fit fine yep let's go ahead and pop this
power supply bracket yeah we're going deeper and deeper and deeper at every
stage here okay maybe
through here no it's not gonna go like that I might have to go like that and be
upside down shoot I was hoping to have the fans on the top for easier dust
removal from the radiator fins but it looks like I'm gonna have to go the other way around because it doesn't
go in deep enough here from the mounts for the side panels
the fans loaded in here this is an unbelievable amount of airflow in this
case like check this out dual 140 millimeters that take up the entire
bottom of the chassis then that's going to run across our motherboard across our
graphics card and we've got dual 140s that are going to pull it out the top
I'm I'm jazzed let's get this motherboard installed here it is this is
like the big moment I just have to like not break it while it's a really tight
fit now it's coming together now that I'm done taking it apart the whole time
ah power supply oh yeah right sponsor the video can't
forget that yeah we're done the computer no way to turn it on
in terms of orientation we're going to put our sgx 650 in with the fan up so
this is an sfxl power supply which means you get that nice 120 millimeter fan
instead of the little tiny 92 mil and we're gonna pop it right there just do a
quick little test fit oh yeah an action
oh that looks great so we're gonna have just enough clearance between this fan
and our power supply for our modular cables there I'm a little worried about
this power run going right next to the PCI Express cable so I'm gonna I don't
know I might just leave it hanging over here this is one thing they did not
really account for once I plug this 24 pin connector into my motherboard
unless I've got a real real short cable kit I don't know where I'm putting this
I think I got it so I tucked it if you
know what I mean give it the old tuck just wrapped it right here and it looks
like both my fans spin so I'm just going to run this up to the graphics card and
we're in pretty good shape here it actually doesn't even look that bad so
David what do you want to see in here we've got a secondary slot that we could
use for maybe uh dual input capture card
RAID controller high-speed SSD I mean we already got a
high speed SSDI pretty cool we're doing
the capture card aren't we let's do the capture card all right cool for those of
you who don't know why you would want a dual input capture card this thing is
pretty cool it's called the live gamer Duo it's got 4K pass-through or 240
hertz 1080p pass through so you can actually game at a higher resolution or
higher frame rate than what you're broadcasting but what it allows you to
do is have one with pass-through for your display so that's what you'd use
for an external device like an Xbox or Playstation or whatever the case may be
another PC and then you've got a second one that's just an input no pass-through
for your uh camera so you would have instead of like a webcam you'd have like
a mirrorless or a DSLR or something like that plugged into your capture card so
you can do the whole thing with just one card let's go ahead and throw our RTX
2080 super up in this Biz oh yeah
remember when this used to be sexy you know these are still going on eBay for
like 600 bucks I mean you can't buy a 3000 Series so if you like actually need
to play video games today I guess I can
see why you might buy one of these but uh just wait a little bit just wait a
little bit yeah don't enable the scalpers let their inventory rot so
check this out because at least in this
configuration with the bifurcated slot the graphics card is not right up
against another board tray you might actually be able to get away with a
Founder's Edition card and you could certainly do like a double or or triple
card here there's enough airflow coming over this I think it would be okay
it's freaking sick now I feel bad having a 2080 super in here should I change it
out should I put a 3080 in here yeah yeah found one this is like actually a
blast getting all of this to go together in goes the 12 pin connector let's just
throw a little cable tie tie across here
keep this out of our fan blades and now
final piece
holy crap why is this not fitting in here I love small form factor cases I
hate getting stuff to fit in them I can't even move it back far enough to
not interfere
I have an idea
oh it's in
well it doesn't actually affect anything like it's not it's not even it doesn't
do anything it's just and it's not even aesthetic you can't even see it
here we go boys
um oh I see it I see it
oh my gosh is it in
this dance that's right that's how
confident I am I'm using a thermal pad it's like a good one though
this is really not my finest cable management work but
there's nothing in any of the fans shoot
these won't close I need to hammer the radiator some more I don't even think I
can get the front panel all the way on with how the radiator is right behind
the uh the plate behind it I mean David
can we just say it's like PS5 inspired now yeah I mean off camera I would
definitely feel like I have to fix this but like can we test it yeah okay so
you'll have to use you'll have to use an AIO that doesn't
have like a really really Square profile but let's let's give it a shot come on
3900 XT 32 gigs RAM detected everything
detected very nice what do you think XMP
just gonna work for me ddr4 3200 cl14
shoot I kind of wish I had a 4k monitor this is 1440p we're gonna run the game
at Ultra nightmare but like I'm not expecting 3080 to even break a sweat I'm
starting my min max average values timer
let's jump in game here I want to see what my Max temps look like on CPU and
GPU should I go get a 4k monitor
I I might have to this is running at 220
FPS it's do maternal holy crap you know
what I just noticed David what's that I noticed something I didn't notice
it's not even loud GPU maximum 75 CPU maximum 73.
all we can do now is try and push it harder let's step the game up to 4K actually
this is a really great visualization of how many more pixels 4K is compared to
1440p oh I wanted to land on him that sucked
this is amazing we are gaming at 4K
120 FPS Rock Solid here all right I mean
if this doesn't drive up our temps then I don't know what's going to do it let's
all Tab out and have a look here CPU Max 77 so we did hit it a bit harder there
and GPU 75.
where we're maxing out our turbo and the GPU fans are running at 1800 RPM it's
still quiet oh wow it's heavy I was like and look
how portable with this great handle
it's a lot of Hardware in there look at that it's all fan only fans
it's great I was expecting to have clearance problems with the GPU pulling
air through the side panel and then not really having anywhere to put it but these bottom fans make it like I can
really feel the heat moving away like here's hot
here's not and fortunately the radiator is still getting access to a decent
amount of not like superheated air from
the other side
let's have power supply fans definitely working still quiet though so not only
does this mini ITX case have better cooling than most of the other cases
I've seen in this size class it manages to have an expansion card in it I mean I
think this thing's a big win but I'll let you guys be the judge of that just
like I'll let you guys be the judge of my Segways to our sponsors see Sonic is
the Beating Heart of our system and you guys can check them out at the link in
the video description no matter what your PC building project is whether it's
a small form factor machine like this one or a gigantic RTX 3090 equipped
monster see Sonic has got the product for you they've got units going up to 80
plus titanium efficiency and warranties that are so long your power supply is
probably going to live longer than your dog so check them out again at the link
in the video description thanks for watching and we will see you again on
the next video If you guys enjoyed this video and you love RTX 3000 content
maybe check out our 8K gaming experience with the RTX
3090 crazy