Smallest Desk PC Yet!! - Vector Desk Mini Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,694 words · ~8 min read
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have you been itching for a computer desk upgrade but can't fit one in your
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studio apartment well first things first
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uh you should get that itch checked out buddy then when it turns out that it was
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just some uh you know jock itch or whatever second you should watch this
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video about the vector desk mini it's a
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small sexy desk PC case and we're going
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to show you guys how to cram a full
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custom water cooling setup
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it the master keys Pro keyboard lineup from Cooler Master is available in three
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sizes each in white or RGB flavors check
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them out at the link below when we first laid hands on the
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desk panels honestly they felt disappointingly flimsy compared to the
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premium expectations we we had but then
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we found out the price and given the $500 price tag this can be fairly easily
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forgiven instructions needed some work
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even after considering the price though the early version that we got was clear
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enough for us to Finish the build but for novice computer builders some more
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attention to the screw threading and the positioning of the motherboard mounts
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and small details like labels for the screws and documentation for the
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included storage mounting could smooth out the process once the vector desk
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mini actually reaches the market with
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the desk assembled it's time to cram a computer inside of it now this puppy is
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designed for air cooling or aiio liquid
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cooling but come on we weren't just going to put your dad's Dell in here and
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call it a day so we took aim at the more
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accessible end of the Enthusiast Market putting together the best mult
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multi-core gaming and content creation machine we could for a little over two
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grand without water cooling parts these
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days no budget high-end build it's kind
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of a new category here is complete without an AMD ryzen 7 CPU and their
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1800x 8 core 16 thread monster is the
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Beating Heart of ours on an ASUS Crosshair 6 hero motherboard that gives
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us solid overclocking and support for keych Technologies like SLI for multiple
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graphics cards m.2 storage for lightning
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fast NVMe ssds and of course systemwide
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RGB lighting to keep that heart pumping at all times we added a pump and lots of
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other water cooling stuff as well courtesy of our friends at EK and Alpha
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cool custom Loop water cooling as we mentioned before isn't officially
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supported by the vector desk mini but we couldn't resist another opportunity to
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use ek's see-through Supremacy Evo CPU
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block and full cover GPU block and
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thanks to the unique fitting configuration on this alphao
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xt45 there seemed to be enough space to
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do a really clean tidy setup in here and
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we wanted our desk to be as quiet as possible since it's like a foot and a
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half from your face when you're using it without compromising on cooling next we
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chose 32 gigs of Corsair's Vengeance lpx
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ddr4 memory its low profile prevents it
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from interfering with the tubing that we'll need to install later after
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removing these bizarre PCI covers we
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were able to mash in the sexy EK water
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block equipped GTX 1080 that we had kitted out earlier now the 1080 TI might
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be the king of the hill right now but the 1080 fits a little bit better into
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the budget that we're Target targeting we chose Corsair's RM 1000x power supply
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because while we did know that this was overkill for this project we wanted to
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make sure that the fan would never spin
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even while gaming ruining the Silence of the build up until this point basically
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everything had gone according to the air quotes
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plan but of course this is lonus Tech
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tips there wasn't really a plan was there and Jake presumably because he was
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busy daydreaming about whatever it is the Young's daydream about these days
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eventually realized that the GPU and
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radiator weren't going to work in their original positions so out came the
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Dremel and off came the PCIe screw cover
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then the GPU was put back into the lower
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PCI E slot the 8X Lane won't affect the
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performance as we demonstrated in this video here and the radiator was
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replaced our Samsung 850 Evo SSD was
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chosen for its clean understated looks and great price to Performance ratio and
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we mounted it using the included Hardware lining the reservoir and pump
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up with the SSD on the drive mounting bracket actually worked out nearly
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perfectly TM one issue with this
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approach was that the mounting didn't quite line up with the CPU causing the
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tube going from the CPU to the pump to not be quite you know parallel and we
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could have easily fixed this by drilling new holes and moving the pump over a
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little bit but Jake had a hot date in his imagination and didn't feel like
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redoing it so hashtag deal with it I
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guess power cabling was taken care of by a cable mod who supplied us with custom
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length of their sexy carbon custom cables that perfectly fit the black and
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gray aesthetic of our build and for tubing we went with Primo chill's
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primoflex soft tubing for its Clarity
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and just general awesomeness we
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installed almost $150 worth of EK fittings at this point
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in an effort to make sure that our runs were as straight as possible it's not
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quite Hardline Precision but we still
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think it looks pretty darn good and it's quite a bit less work to execute in the
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first place and to drain for maintenance in the future if such a thing should end
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up being necessary bringing us to the scariest part of any water cooled build
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filling it up and leak testing so paper
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towels in hand we carefully filled it
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watching for any leaks but fortunately
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miraculously it was all assembled correctly save for the fill Port which
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probably had something to do with Jake cross threading it we threw in some EK
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vardar fans to handle air flow while going perfectly with our monochromatic
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color scheme at which
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point we were definitely ready to disguise the ugly IO cables that were
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showing with some sleeving that was actually meant for a 24 pin power
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connector and some electrical tape because who needs correctly sized heat
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shrink anyway is that really what they did g then for the cherry on top we set
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up a cable mod magnetic rgbw strip that
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we use to make looking through the glass
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super nice on your eyeballs speaking of
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nice for your eyeballs we chose an LG Ultra wide monitor which actually came
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in 4 in wider than the desk itself and
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then we also used a Corsair 10 keyless keyboard since space is clearly out of
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premium and to complement it a g403
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mouse that is as long as you don't mind covering up your creation with a mouse
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pad an MX anywhere Mark 2 would be a
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great choice if you want something that tracks directly on the glass instead of
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needing that uh layer in between yourself and your PC's
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Beauty with all this set up now we think
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and we're very objective about these sort of things that it looks pretty darn
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good and it should be noted that with all the hardware installed the overall
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rigidity of the desk improved to the point where it's lightweight
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construction was no longer a concern but bottom line the vector desk
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Mini's greatest strength also ends up being its greatest weakness its size
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this desk is going to fit basically
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anywhere but at the same time it doesn't
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offer quite enough room for low sensitivity gaming even with a 10
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keyless keyboard and a typical desk pad
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ends up drooping fles ly over the sides
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and forget about using a keyboard with a number pad with that said the finished
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product looks and feels awesome the
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price is super reasonable considering what you'd pay for just a normal
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computer case with a tempered glass side panel and then just a normal desk to put
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it on and if you're super strapped for
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space this might just be the coolest
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damn PC desk on the Block but but if you
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want something that's a little bit more functional well you might want to wait a
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little bit because this won't be the last desk PC we are checking
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out Ting is the mobile carrier that provides more than just service for your
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cellular phone they provide someone to talk to if you are lonely and sad that's
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right my friends when you call customer service at Ting you will speak to a
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person not a robot with no automated
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phone tree and they don't even charge extra for that privilege you pay only
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for what you use with the average Ting bill being only 23 bucks a month per
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device if you're stuck in a contract and you switch to Ting they'll cover 25% of
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your cancellation fee up to 75 bucks and they have new lowered mobile data rates
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data is now just $10 per gig beyond the first Gigabyte so head over to Linus
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doing.com to try out the savings calculator and see if you'll save and
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when you use our link you'll also get $25 bucks in service credit or towards a
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new device so thanks for watching guys if
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this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link
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to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also down there is
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our merch store which has cool shirts like this one that one and our community Forum
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which you should totally join