Smallest Custom Gaming Rig Yet! - Dr Zaber Sentry Case
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,863 words · ~9 min read
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we don't generally review Hardware before mass production here for what I
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think are fairly obvious reasons so I'm
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going to begin this video with a warning that goes a little something like this
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understand the risks involved in backing crowdfunded or Indie projects before
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pre-ordering a Sentry because I can assure you that if you're a small form
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factor Enthusiast it's going to be pretty hard to resist the siren Call of
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Dr zaber creation over here let's get
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down to
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business Mass drop is featuring the sunjack light stick with a maximum
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output of 350 lumens a 5200 Mah internal
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battery as well as an ip68 water
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resistance rating check it out at the link in the video
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description all right so as disappointed
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as Steam OS ended up being the box that valve sent out to the press to demo it
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showed us that a console sized full fat
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gaming rig could be done and served as
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the inspiration for the case that I have in front of me at 7 L total volume the
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Sentry is still considerably larger than the PlayStation 4 is 4 1/2 lers but it
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is actually a little bit smaller than the original Xbox One's 7.22 l making it
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truly a console sized PC chassis that
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punches way above its size class and
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punch it does unlike other Grassroots
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tiny case projects that we've checked out the Dan Case A4 sfx and nase M1 come
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to mind which are both built in Le and Le's Factory out of anodized aluminum
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the Sentry is built out of 1 mm galvanized steel with structural Powder
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Coating in Black or white giving it
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substantial weight considering its diminutive size as well as an industrial
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look that I can personally appreciate but that might be a turnoff for some at
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the front is a pair of USB 3 ports and a power button with a colored LED ring the
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top is vented the bottom is vented with
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a couple extra holes here to secure the regrettably non-optional stand that
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allows the power supply and CPU heat sink to breathe when the Sentry is
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mounted vertically the left panel is vented over the graphics card and the
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right panel is similar with the openings over the power supply and CPU fan area
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round back is where folks not familiar with the size of the Xbox one will get
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their first real feel for how tiny this
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thing is that's your graphics card IO a
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pass through power cable and your motherboard IO this case couldn't really
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be any smaller without sacrificing over
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height video card compatibility let's get it open it really is quite similar
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to the steam machine prototype the ITX motherboard goes here CPU heat sink
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height is restricted to 47 mm or 37 mm
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depending on the layout of your motherboard the video card mounts using
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this clever pressure retention system for the PCIe slot extension that is both
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easy to align and user replaceable if you had another one that you liked
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better or you're stopped working very clever the power supply goes here you
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can choose sfx or sfx L depending on
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your 2 and a half inch Drive appetite and you know what I could cover every
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scenario but the Sentry's Hardware compatibility is much easier to
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represent with this awesome little configuration tool on their website that
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lets you try out your components ahead of time and see how well they will all
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fit together very cool the assembly instructions are surprisingly
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straightforward to follow and building in the Sentry only took me about 15
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minutes I do have some comments though the
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manual suggests flipping the grill on your power supply if it interferes with
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the side panel but I just removed mine outright just make sure to keep your
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fingers out of it after the fact or you could literally die it also suggests
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running cables after installing the power supply but if you're using a
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modular sfx L unit like I was you'll
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find that this is about as much fun as performing surgery with a butter knife
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and you'll risk damaging the wires connected to the front poweron button so
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I would suggest plugging in ahead of time and finally what is it with
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Europeans and hex screws why are we using hex screws particularly ones with
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such low steel content as to make them basically not
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magnetic I can live without Philips head but please at least fix the magnetism
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and the mass production units if possible anyway you can use the cables
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included with your power supply make sure they're long enough to route where
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needed and then bunch up the extra length near the end of the video card
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that worked pretty well but with that said I quickly swapped those out for
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custom length ones from cable mod which made my life and cable management a
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little bit easier something that's particularly important for cases like
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this one that have no built-in fans whatsoever I mean where would they even
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put them I actually wouldn't mind spacing of the vent holes on the right
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panel to allow me to squeeze a 40 mm fan
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in wherever I wanted like if they just change the spacing so that it kind of
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always lined up wherever you go that would be kind of cool but that's about
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it I can't find anywhere else and besides does it need them well to find
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out I loaded up the entry with a 22 core
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145 wat TDP xon CPU 64 gigs of RAM a GTX
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Titan XP a 1 TB 850 Pro SSD and a 700
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wat sfx L power supply this is about as
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fully loaded worst case scenario a configur figuration as you can possibly
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get and to be very clear we will not be representative of what most people will
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be running though I do plan to follow this up with a more realistic
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configuration compared to some other small form factor cases in the future
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but let's start with a baseline reading here for our torture configuration so
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with the chassis mounted vertically and the panels off to represent how this
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Hardware should behave on an Open Bench
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the CPU throttles already it was pretty hot that day but but GPU boost clocks
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look pretty good with the panels on GPU
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clock speeds do fall and Chassis temperatures are very toasty especially
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around back where the GPU exhaust is located bear in mind that this is all on
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auto with independent synthetic tests running on the CPU and GPU so under a
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more gaming like realistic load and with
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some tuning of the GPU's fan profile allowing it to ramp poop higher than
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default I was actually able to generate these results pretty darn impressive if
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you can control CPU heat dump and you don't mind a little bit of noise it's
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actually not that bad the Sentry can handle pretty much Whatever video card
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you can throw at it flipping the chassis
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horizontally does hamper its abilities somewhat making the GPU fan work a
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little over 10% harder right off the bed
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and I would strongly recommend the vertical orientation with the stand with
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high-end Hardware which is all fine and good for
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components that have fans but what about the system components that don't have
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their own active cooling well here the story gets a little bit less happy
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though not impossible to solve my SSD ran at 62° on the surface of the drive
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mounted near the video card so I'd strongly recommend using the alternate
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Mount that's next to the GPU intake that was pointed out to me by the doctor
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abber guys but more alarming than that my RAM chips
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and motherboard chipset were well over 70° each this isn't instant death
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territory but it's hotter than I think a lot of people would be comfortable with
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so bottom line I wouldn't recommend my configuration in here but a more
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sensible config with a flower style CPU Cooler like Intel's box cooler would
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absolutely Rock in this baby because it would help the RAM and the motherboard
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stay quite a bit cooler I mean as long as you're not running multiple synthetic
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loads you may still be okay anyway even an open air style ACX 2.0 cooler 980ti
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generated better gaming results surprisingly than a blower style
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reference card at the cost of CPU temps however and when not using the GPU and a
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6950x 10 core managed to stay turboed up
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en coding video full bore in adobi media encoder if I wasn't doing anything with
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the GPU I think they're going to sell a lot of these although remains to be seen
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what exactly the small production run
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pricing is going to look like speaking
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of outlandish prices have you ever looked at your cell phone bill and gone
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I mean yeah there's a lot of stuff included with this but I'm paying a lot
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of money and I don't actually use half of it well if you have then maybe check
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out Ting the mobile carrier that's focused on customer service and customer
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satisfaction first you will not speak to a robot if you call Ting and the best
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part about it is that you pay only for what you use with the average Ting Bill
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coming in at only 23 bucks a month per
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device but don't take my word for it head over to Linus doing.com and check
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out their savings calculator you enter your last couple of bills you enter how
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much you're paying and it spits out how much you would save by switching to Ting
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and if you're stuck in a contract they'll actually cover 25% of your
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cancellation fee up to $75 and they've got new lower mobile
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data rates across the board with data at now only $10 per Gigabyte beyond the
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first gig so try it out and if you sign up using our link you'll also get 25
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bucks in service credit or towards a new device we've got that link in the video
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description all right so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you
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