SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project

[ZombiPL]

[Information for ADMINS]In the links i've posted, there is no information about stores, selling or even prices. We still didn't end prototyping stage and we're looking for support from the community. *EDIT: Thanks aigomorla

Hello Guys,

I'm new here, and i don't even know if i'm writing in a proper section, so please don't roast me too much

Together with my little brother, in our free time we've designed a small form factor, console-sized pc case. We were fans of 1st steam-box design, but when it didn't happen, then we decided we will design our own pc case. The project name is "SENTRY".

The case is almost as small as actual and past generation of consoles (<7L), can be carried in many 17'' laptop bags or backpacks and you can use it with high-end components available on the market (for example GPU's with up to 305mm length).

Right now we are prepering to send our case for the reviews. And this is a moment, where we need your help. We need to know what do you think about this case. All good and bad things you will notice. We didn't start preordering and production stage, so we need to know if we're really ready. Maybe You will find something we can improve? We need as many informations and questions as possible.

Thank You for Your help!


Here are some photos, link to the website of our small project and a video of assembling our test PC (more information you can find on our website):

www.zaber.com.pl/sentry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hji_kuBnZsE

 

[aigomorla]

Hi i just want to welcome you guys to Anandtech.

I will approve of this thread despite you guys being vendors because there is no sale / store page on the links you gave.

As long as you keep to the rules, it will be allowed.

The moment i see a store front or a sales page i will remove the thread.

Otherwise again welcome to Anandtech.

Moderator Aigomorla

 

[DigDog]

it's a nice case, and i'm sure many people will like it, but not my thing. i like a big, spacious tower.
also, these things tend to cost a lot, more so when they come from a brand new company, who has low volume of production, and has to recoup R&D costs.
case building is also a marked dominated by reputation ...


btw, i thought that, a good move would be to send one case to each of Hardware Canucks and Linus Techtips. guaranteed to get you exposure.

 

[ZombiPL]

btw, i thought that, a good move would be to send one case to each of Hardware Canucks and Linus Techtips. guaranteed to get you exposure.

We are going to send 1st of the preproduction prototypes to Linus, maybe later we will send some cases to other reviewers

 

[DigDog]

bump.
come on guys, give some input.

 

[aigomorla]

ok i'll chime in...

I dont feel its that great of a case.
Sure its compact and slim, but to label it a gaming case is well sort of meh.

First off, judging from the height it seems to only support a very slim amount of heat sinks. That being heat that are less then 4 heat pipes and only support slim fans.

Well there is a lot of problem with that.
Slim fans like the ones shown in your picture lack the sufficent static pressure to move air though the outside grill and then inside the heat sink fins. I guess its stock heat sink friendly, but most gamers tend to overclock, or like to overclock, and this is definitely not a overclocking friendly case.
(but again, i understand because you guys wanted to keep it slim. )

Another problem is with the PCI-E riser.
A lot of issues can develop with that riser and sufficient power to GPU's which are power hungry. This is actually a very heated debate in the bitcoin mining rigs.

Lastly, i think you guys should toss out the full sized ATX power supply and have it accept a flex atx psu... because any pc builder will tell you this picture alone will cause most of us to cringe at how meticulous wire management is going to be.

and most like requires a fully modular PSU so you can remove all the excess wires out and using shorter modular cables like the ones silverstone has for there SFF builds.

 

[DigDog]

*nods silently*

 

[ZombiPL]

First off, judging from the height it seems to only support a very slim amount of heat sinks. That being heat that are less then 4 heat pipes and only support slim fans.

Well there is a lot of problem with that.
Slim fans like the ones shown in your picture lack the sufficent static pressure to move air though the outside grill and then inside the heat sink fins. I guess its stock heat sink friendly, but most gamers tend to overclock, or like to overclock, and this is definitely not a overclocking friendly case.
(but again, i understand because you guys wanted to keep it slim. )

Yeah, using only low-profile coolers are the bad side of SFF. If you go lower with the internal volume, then overclocking isn't the best idea. We are aware of that.

Another problem is with the PCI-E riser.
A lot of issues can develop with that riser and sufficient power to GPU's which are power hungry. This is actually a very heated debate in the bitcoin mining rigs.

And at this point You are right as well. We had problems with PCI-E risers. We had simple, long, cheap riser which cause stuttering, glitches and system instability during games. Then we bought shorter, better quality riser, and we got improvement, but still sometimes we saw some instability. Finally we got a bit expensive, high quality shielded riser with better soldering and that was the one. My brother has it in his SENTRY Rig for about a year or so, and he doesn't have problems at all (and tbh he's a hardcore gamer).

Could You post me a link to the thread You were talking about? I mean about those bitcoin mining rigs. Maybe we'll learn something new

Lastly, i think you guys should toss out the full sized ATX power supply and have it accept a flex atx psu... because any pc builder will tell you this picture alone will cause most of us to cringe at how meticulous wire management is going to be.

and most like requires a fully modular PSU so you can remove all the excess wires out and using shorter modular cables like the ones silverstone has for there SFF builds.

We do not use full size ATX PSU but SFX and SFX-L. It's a bit smaller format.
And about flex atx psu: Those power supplies are quite noisy and they mostly don't have modular cables, while there is no problem with finding modular SFX/SFX-L PSUs.
And Yes, cable management is a bit tricki, but this is a very small form factor. We have an internal volume similar to XBOX ONE, and you can still use components off the shelf. Tricky cable management is a compromise which i don't think we can improve. Or maybe we can? Any ideas?

 

[ZombiPL]

*** Little update ***

While we are still waiting for some papers from our administration, we've managed to send SENTRY to YetAnotherTechChannel for the 3rd and last professional external video review before the start of the campaign. It was made in a climate of more realistic typical gamer scenarios, so if you still had some questions after watching Linus and Dmitry's reviews, we hope You will find answers in this video:

 

[Valantar]

Hm, I wish I had seen this thread earlier, but at least I can offer some feedback for any follow-up cases?

Mainly, I'm thinking about directing air flow:

In terms of cooler support, I'd greatly appreciate the ability to mount the CPU cooler's fan (if it has a removable one) to the case side panel, or having some sort of ducting included to make sure the cooler takes in air from outside of the case instead of recycling warm air from inside. With the depicted Cryorig C7 (47mm tall according to specs), how much space is left between the cooler and the case side panel? Could this be solved with some form of stick-on rubber/silicone grommet?

I have similar thoughts about the PSU - given that it vents its exhaust into the case rather than outside, there should be some way of preventing this air from getting into the motherboard area. From the pictures, the USB wires prevent installing an effective baffle here, so perhaps moving the USB to the top of the case would be an idea for the next iteration? This way, you'd only have the power cable to contend with, and could quite easily seal off the PSU's exhaust from the rest of the case. And again, perhaps add some sort of sealing rubber between the case side panel and the PSU, around its intake? Not much of a gap there, but in a case like this, all airflow matters.

Also, for the next go around, maybe make a "widebody" version supporting slightly taller CPU coolers? This would also allow for a HDD/SSD mounting plate behind the GPU (or humongous triple-slot GPUs, I guess). I get that this would drastically increase the volume and hurt the styling somewhat, but why not make it as an option (if this one is successful)?

And lastly, what made you decide on a flexible PCIe riser rather than a rigid PCB one? One would think a rigid one would be both cheaper and more stable, but installation might be tricky?

 

[SaperPL]

We have thought about all those things. I'll answer point by point:

1) For both C7 and 47mm intel BOX there's ~1mm distance from the cover. Some kind of ducting may improve the airflow, but at the same time it would need to be something that would fit all sizes, and finally there's the problem with installing the cover, which is actually sliding a bit from the rear to the front to lock in the middle of the front. Installation of something like that would become really complicated, while if you have a 47mm tall cooler then it's getting fresh air from the outside anyway.

As for attaching the fan to the cover -it's the same thing with not really easy installation of such contraption.

2) As for the PSU, we thought about it, but once again, we actually didn't have any problems with heat there during 2 years of testing, and If You still believe that really hot air is coming out from PSU and going back inside while the cpu fan is pulling a lot more air from the outside, then we probably cannot change Your mind anyway

3) We have some ideas about what to do next, but definitely it's not going to be a thicker version of Sentry.

4) Flexible riser lets us adjust the position of the GPU ideally and squeeze the power supply connector on the back between the motherboard and GPU while saving space. If You take a look at our configuration tool on the website, You'll see that every distance adds up there - space between PSU and center wall with 2.5" drive width, the drive width and location of CPU etc etc... We really thought about this a lot before even making first prototype.

If we were to go with PCB riser then we'd have to go with what can be done on existing risers or we couldn't prototype at all hence you'd have to get quite a big initial order to get those custom built.

 

[whm1974]

What about a handle to carry this around? I'm looking at the Siverstone Milo ML08B-H case with the handle with the thought of building an 8c/16t Zen SFF rig in a few years.

 

[SaperPL]

Do You really need a handle? Having an option to carry it inside a laptop bag isn't enough?

 

[ZombiPL]

I'll add my 2 cents:
Review no.3 shows this possibility. Link: 6:05