Brother Sihai, I haven't helped someone install an ITX computer for a long time, and it's rare that someone asked me for help this time, so let's see how to choose the configuration of the current small-sized ITX chassis. It's not easy to choose a good-looking ITX case, so I just installed an ITX host that can lie down and stand upright, so I took this opportunity to share it.
Considering that the small size of the ITX chassis is generally more picky for the graphics card, the size of the graphics card will be controlled within 180mm as much as possible, if the graphics card is a knife card, it is absolutely fine. With this installation experience, I also want to talk about how to choose an ITX chassis with a reasonable hardware configuration, and I can also give a little inspiration to friends who want to build ITX computers. Thank you for reading in front of the screen, welcome everyone to support me a lot, friends who like this article are also welcome to like and collect, thank you
Let's take a look at the key points of this set:
The ITX case has chosen the Mechanic Master E24 Energy Box as a tabletop-level mini case that can lie down and stand (69L small volume) is a very rare product. The ability to support SFX SFX-SL power supplies, 65mm down-pressure air-cooled coolers, and 180mm discrete graphics cards shows that the compatibility inside the case is very good.
The Mechanic Master E24 energy box uses a pull-out matrixos matrix design, which is quite easy for users to get started, which is mainly to facilitate the wiring of the internal hardware.
The Mechanic Master E24 energy box has metal switches and a front-mounted Type-C, which are rare configurations in ITX cases at this price.
The South China Gold B660M-ITX motherboard is also very cost-effective, and can fully support the 12th and 13th generation Core i5 processors.
Apacer DDR4-3600 NOX series Dark Goddess memory supports XMP-3600, but 3200 MHz is still recommended for non-K processors.
Considering the budget, the graphics card directly chose the Blue Halberd A380 knife card with a single card slot, and the performance is close to GTX1650, which can also have good game entertainment performance for non-game party games.
Please ignore my messy cable routing, for ITX cases, if you want beautiful and beautiful cables, you can use custom cables in one step is the best way to manage cables.
Sihai Ge chose the white version of the mechanical master E24 energy box ITX chassis, and it also took a fancy to the 6The small size of 9 litres and the dual-purpose arrangement that can be placed both in the lying and standing position.
Because I thought about the core graphics without a processor before placing an order, since I chose a processor with the F suffix, then I had to buy another graphics card PCIe extension cable for the independent graphics solution.
I have to say that the ITX chassis of the Mechanical Master E24 energy box is really good-looking in appearance, and there are accessories as follows after taking out the chassis from the box: a manual, a customized Phillips screwdriver, a magnetic dust net, a set of screws and accessories box, and a graphics card extension cable.
Sihai Brother must separately say that this customized graphics card extension cable of the mechanical master actually supports PCIe 40 specifications, for those who want to get on the old Huangjia 40 series graphics cards, Intel ARC series graphics cards and AMD RX series graphics cards, you don't have to worry too much about PCIe 4There will be a loss of 0 performance, and it is definitely better than PCIe 3 in the data exchange of the graphics card0 graphics extension cable has higher bandwidth.
This decorative cover on the front panel of the case can be a snap structure, and you can just pull it out.
Looking at the IO area of the motherboard of the case, there are obviously two slots in the graphics card area, which means that as long as the length and size of the dual graphics card slots are controlled at 180mm, there is no pressure at all.
The power supply is SFX-750M, the power supply uses imported Japanese capacitors, and the power supply is also a power supply manufacturer brand that has passed the 80PLUS platinum certification.
The SFX power supply uses a fully modular interface, which can only be used when installing the machine, which greatly reduces the organization of cables inside the chassis. The whole series of power supplies use LLC resonant topology and DC-DC circuit design scheme, which has high conversion efficiency.
Considering the pressure on the heat dissipation of the small ITX chassis, the 13th generation Core i5-13400F processor was selected in order to balance the installation cost.
In terms of the 13th generation Core i5 processor, the 13400F is definitely a very high choice in terms of performance and **. And now there are often coupons on Douyin and Pinduoduo, and it is very powerful to encounter event superimposed coupons.
The motherboard is selected South China Gold B660M-ITX, mainly to be able to use PCIe 40 SSDs. It is important to know that the H610 motherboard is currently limited by the chipset and can only use PCIe 30 SSDs. Moreover, there are not many motherboards with white PCBs in this price range, which is a good choice considering the ease of use of the South China Gold BIOS graphical interface.
The biggest advantage of the South China Gold B660M-ITX motherboard is that it has dual HDMI interfaces, a separate DP interface, and a VGA interface. At this price, South China Gold also has a Wi-Fi box, you only need to buy a suitable wireless network card and antenna to use, Brother Sihai, I recommend Intel AX200NGW This Wi-Fi 6 wireless network card.
Considering that the ITX chassis is limited by the height of the air-cooled radiator of 67mm, it is recommended to choose 12400 12400F, 12490F, 13400F, 13400F, 13490F, 14490F, 14400F, 14400F 14490F, and 14490F.
South China Gold has a metal heat dissipation vest covering the upper and lower side MOS power supply areas of the VRM of the motherboard, which is still very necessary for the MOS that works for a long time.
South China Gold is also rare to do metal reinforcement for PCI-E graphics card slots at this price, which also means an increase in cost. However, South China Gold is still a very cost-effective "Zhaiban" brand, and it is hoped that greater development will be achieved in 2024 and more high-quality and low-cost products will be brought to the entry-level motherboard market.
DDR4 memory chooses the rare Samsung particles on the market, you must know that now DDR4 memory particles are mainly Changxin and Hynix in China (Samsung memory particles cost higher), and the performance of the memory module is good to be able to reach 3600 MHz in gear 1 mode.
Considering the limitations of the ITX chassis, the hard condition of the graphics card is that it can only choose a discrete graphics card within the size of 180mm. This Blue Halberd A380 knife card was also obtained through offline channels in the local computer city, and it should not be sold online yet. You can see it sold on the small yellow croaker, which is for reference only.
This Blue Halberd A380 knife card comes with a narrow version of the PCB bezel inside the box, which is suitable for smaller chassis.
The A380 knife card of the Blue Halberd is limited, and the core size and volume of the GPU can only be a combination of a single fan + aluminum heat sink.
Because the A380 of the Blue Halberd is a knife card, there is no PCI-E power supply interface, and it purely relies on the PCI-E slot of the motherboard for power supply.
After taking a look at the aluminum heat sink, the materials used for the aluminum heatsink have not been compressed due to the cost, and there is no need to worry about the heat dissipation system compared to the chip cards of NVIDIA and AMD.
It can be seen that the Blue Halberd A380 knife card only has two ** output interfaces, which are HDMI 20 interface and dp 14 interfaces.
Because the ITX chassis of the Master Mechanic E24 energy box has a limited height for the downward pressure air-cooled radiator, this radiator within the height of 67mm was chosen.
With the push-down air-cooled heatsink, PCIe 4 is installed in the motherboard position0 SSDs can also enjoy the convenience of heat dissipation.
Remember that the CPU power supply 8 pin wiring and the motherboard 24 pin wiring are strung out of the case holes in advance, don't ask me why I did this, I just didn't pay attention to the pit and disassemble the motherboard again.
After some tossing, the installation is basically completed.
After the installation is completed, check whether the wires are all stored.
Remember to check whether the graphics card on the back is installed in place, and whether the buckle is plugged in and locked to prevent it from loosening.
Finally, check whether the IO ports of the motherboard and graphics card are installed in place.
After assembling, install the lid back, remember that the tempered glass should also be screwed to fix it.
The only pity is that the mechanical master E24 energy box would be better if it made an acrylic area in the mesh dust filter area, so that users who want to install RGB light strips can also feel the beauty of the light bar, although through the gap in the hollow position of the case, you can still faintly see the sparkling light bar.
You can view the hardware configuration information through Geekbench 6 software, and the memory is replaced with Guangwei DDR4-3200 for testing.
After the South China Gold B660M-ITX motherboard enables XMP for Apacer DDR4-36000 memory, the memory can reach DDR4-3600 (18-22-22-38), and it is recommended to choose DDR4-3200 for stability.
Check the hardware parameters of this Blue Halberd A380 knife card through AIDA64 software.
Obtain the hardware information of the processor, memory, and graphics card through the CPU-Z software.
In the GPU-Z software, you can view the hardware information of the Blue Halberd A380 knife card.
You can also use the hwinfo64 software to view the relevant information about the hardware.
Master Lu is also able to detect all the hardware information normally, and the memory is replaced with Guangwei DDR4-3200 for testing.
The hardware dog can also view the relevant hardware information, among which the memory is replaced with Guangwei DDR4-3200 for testing.
Use Geekbench 62.2] Software test, single-core performance score: 1858, multi-core performance score: 10466, opencl score: 35316, vulkan score: 37068.
13th Gen Core i5-13400F processor single-core performance: 5474. Multi-core performance: 56801。
Relative performance multiplier measured with Fritz chess benchmarking software: 5837, 1,000 steps per second: 28016.
The performance of the South China Gold B660M-ITX motherboard at 3600 MHz (18-22-22-38) memory frequency was measured by [AIDA64] software, read speed: 51647 MB s, write speed: 51201 MB s, copy speed: 49371 MB s, latency: 728 ns。
Tested with Cinebenchr 15 software, CPU: 2064 CB, OpenGL: 16794 fps。
Tested with Cinebenchr 20 software, CPU: 5130 CB.
Tested with Cinebenchr 23 software, single-core performance: 1308 pts, multi-core performance: 13883 pts, MP ratio: 1062 x。
Tested with Cinebenchr 2024 software, single-core performance: 81 pts, multi-core performance: 808 pts, MP ratio: 1000 x。
V-Ray performance tested with V-Ray Benchmark software: 9494.
V-RayGPU CUDA performance tested with V-Ray Benchmark software: 248.
Tested with Antutu PC, the comprehensive performance score: 10120,000 points, of which the memory is replaced with Guangwei DDR4-3200 to test.
Tested by Master Lu, the computer's comprehensive performance score: 11770,000 points, of which the processor score: 5530,000 points, graphics card score: 2120,000 points, memory score (memory is replaced by Guangwei DDR4-3200 to test): 1830,000 points, SSD score: 2280,000 points.
Tested with a hardware dog, the core hardware score: 3750,000 points, of which the memory is replaced with Guangwei DDR4-3200 to test.
Data measured with txbench software, continuous reading: 6806872 MB s, sequential write: 4874467 mb/s。
Tested with PCMark 10, score: 8842.
You can use 3DMark to query the hardware configuration information of the whole machine.
The overall performance of the 13th Gen Core i5-13400F processor is still acceptable for single-core threads and multi-core threads.
Tested with Samsung PM9A1 500GB on the South China Gold B660M-ITX motherboard, it scored 2634 in the 3DMark 11 storage benchmark score.
Tested with 3DMark 11 Night RAID score: 32463, graphics score: 43688, CPU score: 13219, 1440p Ultra gaming performance: 40+ FPS.
Tested with 3DMark 11 Fire Strike score: 9172, graphics score: 9863, physics score: 23881, overall score: 3745, performance at 1440p Ultra: 35+FPS.
Tested with 3DMark 11 Fire Strike Extreme score: 4522, graphics score: 4509, physics score: 24207, overall score: 2058, and performance at 1440p Ultra: 35+ FPS.
Tested with 3DMark 11 Fire Strike Ultra score: 2232, graphics score: 2082, physics score: 24008, overall score: 1227, and performance at 1440p Ultra: 35+ FPS.
Tested with 3DMark 11 Time Spy score: 4048, graphics score: 3644, CPU score: 10898, performance at 1440p Ultra: 40+ FPS.
Tested with 3DMark 11 Time Spy Extreme score: 1861, graphics score: 1684, CPU score: 4622, 1440p Ultra gaming performance: 40+ FPS.
Tested with 3DMark 11 Wild Life score: 23567, graphics score: 23567, performance at 1440p Ultra: 35+ FPS.
Tested with 3DMark 11 Wild Life Extreme score: 7008, Graphics score: 7008, 1440p Ultra gaming performance: 35+ FPS.
Tested with 3DMark 11 Solar Bay Score: 13444, Graphics Score: 13444.
Tested with 3DMark 11 Port Royal Score: 1242, Graphics Score: 1242.
Tested with 3DMark 11Speed Way Score: 583, Graphics Score: 583.
Direct X ray tracing test with 3DMark 11, average frame rate: 796 fps。
Grid shader functional test score with 3DMark 11, mesh shader off frames: 5973 fps, mesh shader on frames: 10867 fps, difference: 819%。
Sampler feedback function test score with 3DMark 11, Sampler Feedback Off Frames: 6653 fps, Sampler Feedback on frames: 10501 fps, difference: 578%。
Intel Xess functional test score with 3DMarc 11, tested at 1080p resolution, Intel Xess off frames: 1293 fps, Intel Xess on frames: 1881 fps, performance difference: 454%。
Intel Xess functional test score with 3DMarc 11, tested at 2K resolution, Intel Xess off frames: 523 fps, Intel Xess on frames: 1096 fps, performance difference: 1096%。
Intel Xess functional test score with 3DMark 11, tested at 4K resolution, Intel Xess off frames: 169 fps, Intel Xess on frames: 327 fps, performance difference: 938%。
The transmission bandwidth test of the Blue Halberd A380 knife card was carried out with 3DMark 11: 1080 gb/s。
This is the end of the experience, and I will summarize the friends who have pulled to the end:
The mechanical master E24 energy box chassis has good internal compatibility, and the 67mm height push-down air-cooled radiator and the 180mm size dual-slot graphics card can be used.
The Mechanic Master E24 comes with an RGB light strip in the front panel area of the case, and if the motherboard does not have a 5V ARGB header, it will not work properly with the controller.
The performance of the blue halberd A380 knife card independent display is normal, and it can meet the needs of games at 1080P resolution and 2K resolution, and the common DX11 games and DX12 games can run normally, and the frame rate will be improved to a certain extent after Intel Xess technology is turned on.
There is still room for improvement in the XMP optimization of DDR4-3600 memory on the South China Gold B660M-ITX motherboard, and DDR4-3200 memory is still more recommended for gamers who don't like overclocking.
The above is this sharing, thanks**.
Enjoy the New Year