The First Rumblings
The parts have been ordered! I wasn’t sure this was actually going to happen, but after discussing it over, running the numbers, and the. Getting a contract for a live event in March, I decided to pull the trigger. Because it’s going to spend 90% of the time in the house, it is a personal purchase, which also provides insurance, just in case anything happens to the business, and they come take all my camera, computers, and editing equipment. The parts are as follows:
AMD 5700G - I debated which one to get, but decided I’d rather have more power up front, especially with the possibility of video editing work, and needing more cores.
ASRock Fatal1ty B450 Gaming-ITX/AC - apparently most motherboard I/O shields won’t fit a standard 1U case. This one comes without a shield pre-installed, and because I don’t have/need PCIe 4.0, B450 works fine. The board has Ethernet, WiFi, 2 display outputs, and m.2, which is all I need.
G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB (2x8) 3600 CL16 - nothing fancy here, just matching the budget and getting some decent RAM that won’t cause a bottleneck.
iStarUSA D-1101-ITX 1U Chassis - Right out of the gate, I found pretty much the perfect chassis. It took a few minutes, but it checks all the boxes: 11” deep, expansion slot, front 5.25 bay, and it even comes with some 40mm fans! Don’t worry, I went ahead and ordered some Noctua fans instead, since this will be used at conferences, and noise is a concern.
Syba 5.25 bay adapter and HLDS 12.7 slim CD/DVD-RW - this fills the 5.25 bay, and converts it to a 2.5” hot-swap bay with a CD drive above it. Best of all, it has a couple USB 3.0 slots, which I’m sure will come in handy.
ID-COOLING IS-30 CPU cooler - normally, when buying a CPU cooler, I don’t mind paying for Corsair or Noctua, just because I’ve always had a great experience with them. Unfortunately, they don’t make a cooler that is small enough. A 1U chassis is just 44mm tall, which, when you account for the chassis walls, motherboard standoffs, and the CPU itself, you’re left with 30-35mm of space. The Noctua NH-L9i, the default for low profile coolers, comes in at 37mm thick, which even if it did fit, would probably be choked off. The IS-30 came up in a search, and looks almost identical, except they advertise only 30mm of height, and they claim to support up to 65W TDP, which the 5700G has.
Enhance Flex ENP-7660B PSU - This one took a little more research. I would have been lost without the r/sffpc subreddit, which has an extremely helpful shared spreadsheet with compatible motherboards, cases, and power supplies. 1U cases only work with FlexATX PSU, which are almost all noisy. This one had the best noise ratings, multiple recommendations, guides on how to swap to Noctua fans, and best of all, because it’s 600W, the odds of the fan ever kicking on are pretty low for an APU system.
With some shopping around, and 4 separate orders on Newegg, Amazon, and eBay, the total budget comes in at $980.69. The parts will be arriving over the next week, so stay tuned!