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Streacom DB4 Fanless Mini-ITX Build


Joni_78
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I've been using MacOS on laptops and finally decided to build a desktop. Most of the parts have arrived, still waiting for memory which should arrive next week.

 

I wanted to build a completely passive cooling with i7-7700k and AMD RX 560 although i'll go with the integrated graphics for now until I'm sure what GPU would be best for MacOS.

 

I'll post pics later when I start to build this.

 

Components as of 12/2018:

 

Monitor: Dell UltraSharp U3417W Curved 3440x1440

Keyboard: Apple Magic Keyboard

Mouse: Apple Magic Mouse 2

Case: Streacom DB4

GPU: MSI Radeon RX 560 AERO ITX 4G OC

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z270N-WIFI

CPU: Intel i7-7700k

Additional heat pipes: Streacom LH6 CPU Heatpipe Kit for DB4

PSU: Streacom ZF240 Fanless ZeroFlex PSU

Memory: Kingston 16GB HyperX Fury DDR4 2133 MHz

Wifi/BT: Apple BCM943602CDP Bluetooth 4.2 + iMac internal antennas

SSD: Samsung 1TB 970 EVO M.2

Audio: Arctis Pro Steelseries Wireless + External speakers

Webcam: Logitech Brio Stream

 

Edited by Amble
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I finally got time to build this. GPU is still actively cooled as Streacom just released their GPU cooling kit and is not yet available. I'll post some pics of the cooling later if anyone is interested.

 

Also I bought MSI Radeon RX 560 Aero ITX 4G OC as I couldn't find RX 570 ITX anywhere. Maybe it was a better option considering the PSU.

 

On Cinebench R15 I get OpenGL 120 fps and CPU 962 cb, that seems about right I think.

 

All and all I'm really happy with this build as everything seems to work, even wakes from sleep with the bluetooth Magic Keyboard and Mouse.

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One problem I noticed with the RX 560.

 

After clean reboot I run Cinebench R15 and I get 120 fps on OpenGL. If I watch a youtube video on Safari, then close Safari and run Cinebench again I get about 43 fps. If I reboot or sleep and then wake I get 120 fps again. I wonder what causes this? Could it be because I have set dGPU only and disabled HD630?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Could you give us some more information on your system? Did you undervolt or even overclock it?

How does it perform during stress tests? Especially CPU and GPU simultaneously.

I'm really curious how the ZF240 PSU is handling the 7700k and RX 560, does the PSU side get hot?

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Could you give us some more information on your system? Did you undervolt or even overclock it?

How does it perform during stress tests? Especially CPU and GPU simultaneously.

I'm really curious how the ZF240 PSU is handling the 7700k and RX 560, does the PSU side get hot?

 

CPU is on stock settings. RX560 is still actively cooled. I have HDPlex passive GPU kit but I desided to wait for Streacom's GPU kit to save time required to get it installed.

 

i haven't yet had time to do proper testing or measure the actual temperatures on the CPU heatsink and side plates as i've had too much work to do.

 

For the CPU I have the standard DB4 heatpipes on one side plate and LH6 heatpipe kit on another. PSU is on one plate and one is waiting for the GPU heatpipes.

 

So far this has been what I expected. I wanted a nice looking, fast and quiet computer for everyday work and gaming.

 

On Prime95 it hits to 90C after 10 minutes or so. Cinebench r15 CPU test on loop goes on about 25 minutes until it hits 90C.

 

On real word situations and CPU intensive games CPU goes to 58C max after couple of hours of gaming. When CPU has been on 58C for a long time the two side plates are incredible hot. I haven't measured yet but I think they are close to the CPU temperature and there is nothing more that can be done to the CPU cooling. Side plates just can't dissipate heat any faster.

 

DB4 is definetely not suitable for 91W CPU if you are doing some heavy encoding but it's perfectly fine for gaming.

 

As for the PSU it has worked perfectly when stress testing GPU and CPU. Recommended actively cooled PSU is 450. Streacom claims ZF240 = 450 actively cooled PSU and it seems to deliver what they said. Side plate attached to the PSU is slightly warm after stress testing CPU and GPU same with the side plate that doesn't yet have any heatpipes.

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On real word situations and CPU intensive games CPU goes to 58C max after couple of hours of gaming.

These temps seem to good to be true. 58C on an 7700k after hours of playing a CPU intensive game?

 

I haven't measured yet but I think they are close to the CPU temperature and there is nothing more that can be done to the CPU cooling. Side plates just can't dissipate heat any faster.

Maybe an undervolt and delid could still show improvements

 

 

Well I'm planning on building with the DB4 and I'm still not sure if I should take the ZF240 or the Corsair SF450/600 route.

I expected the ZF240 to struggle with an i7 and RX560 as it should deliver about 170W to CPU and GPU.

 

In real situations the ZF240 will probably be enough, but I wouldn't feel comfortable if the PSU is at max (advertised) load while gaming/editing.

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  • 3 months later...

Finally got the Streacom DB4 Passive GPU kit. It's rated at 75W max and Radeon RX 560 Aero ITX is 80W. I previously thought that the CPU side panels were hot, but the GPU side panel is something else. After leaving game running for an hour or so the side panel gets really hot, it's not even possible to keep hand on it for two seconds. Maybe about 70-80 C. I have no idea what the GPU temperature was, but I have a feeling that the GPU won't last long with this. I'll install Windows this weekend to check GPU temps (if the GPU survives).

Edited by Amble
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I installed Windows today and got some temperature readings. Actually I think that RX 560 will be fine with DB4 GPU kit. While gaming I get slightly over 70 °C maximum, with Furmark slightly over 80 °C. I think that 70 °C is fine as these should handle 95 °C according to overclockers.

 

While the GPU reading shows 71 °C in HW monitor, I get about the same on the back of the board with infrared laser thermometer. VRM's are around 50 °C from the back of the board, DB4 GPU heat pipes are about 66 °C and the side plate is about 55 °C where the heatpipes touch the side plate. Right beside that area the side plate is about 40 °C and cools down towards the edges, so I think that the DB4 GPU kit and the side plate actually transfer heat pretty well. If heat wouldn't dissipate from the side plate, I think that the whole plate should be pretty even temperature.

Edited by Amble
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  • 2 months later...
On 1/6/2018 at 8:56 PM, Amble said:

I've been using MacOS on laptops and finally decided to build a desktop. Most of the parts have arrived, still waiting for memory which should arrive next week.

 

I wanted to build a completely passive cooling with i7-7700k and AMD RX 580 although i'll go with the integrated graphics for now until I'm sure what GPU would be best for MacOS.

 

I'll post pics later when I start to build this.

 

Components:

 

Monitor: Dell UltraSharp U3417W Curved 3440x1440

Keyboard: Apple Magic Keyboard

Mouse: Apple Magic Mouse 2

Case: Streacom DB4

GPU: MSI Radeon RX 560 AERO ITX 4G OC

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z270N-WIFI

CPU: Intel i7-7700k

Additional heat pipes: Streacom LH6 CPU Heatpipe Kit for DB4

PSU: Streacom ZF240 Fanless ZeroFlex PSU

Memory: Kingston 16GB HyperX Fury DDR4 2133 MHz

Wifi/BT: Broadcom BCM943602BAED

SSD: Intel SSD 520 Series 180GB (Already owned)

Wow.

I'd like to try the DB4 RX580 build, but not sure about cooling. Currently I've got 560, 570 and 580 GPUs and there's a thread on the sff  describing 570 build. Streacom support told me that DB4 is not able to dissolve RX580's 180W but I'd try :)
I have a question regarding your build - I've got the build with the same mobo and gpu, only the cpu is ordinary 7700 - with locked multiplier. I use dsdt built for me by MaLd0n (thank you, man!) but it only wakes by power button, bt keyboard, mouse and touchpad aint working (they do work in bios setup though, thanks to native apple wifi/bt module). Also I have an issue with sleep - it wakes very often, no matter what darkwake settings I use in the clover's config.
Could you share your efi please? I'd like to compare our configurations and try yours. And could you also tell please, what bios settings do you use?
Thank you!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's a quick pic of the setup, zero fans :)

 

Everything works fine, PSU is enough for CPU and GPU and thermals are fine, also haven't seen any throttling. Benchmarks better (GPU/CPU) than best iMac with same prosessor and Pro 580.

 

 

thumbnail_IMG_20180811_194251.jpg

Edited by Amble
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On 8/1/2018 at 12:34 AM, viktr said:

Wow.

I'd like to try the DB4 RX580 build, but not sure about cooling. Currently I've got 560, 570 and 580 GPUs and there's a thread on the sff  describing 570 build. Streacom support told me that DB4 is not able to dissolve RX580's 180W but I'd try :)
I have a question regarding your build - I've got the build with the same mobo and gpu, only the cpu is ordinary 7700 - with locked multiplier. I use dsdt built for me by MaLd0n (thank you, man!) but it only wakes by power button, bt keyboard, mouse and touchpad aint working (they do work in bios setup though, thanks to native apple wifi/bt module). Also I have an issue with sleep - it wakes very often, no matter what darkwake settings I use in the clover's config.
Could you share your efi please? I'd like to compare our configurations and try yours. And could you also tell please, what bios settings do you use?
Thank you!

 

I doubt it can handle RX580, maybe with HDplex GPU heatpipes also you would need more powerful PSU than the passive ZF240 from Streacom.

 

everything seems to for fine. Sleeps and wakes, wakes also by pressing a button on apple mouse/keyboard, handoff, both GPU's, iMessage I created new account and it also worked OOTB without calling them, iTunes video playback.

 

Mine also waked from sleep quite often, but disabling Power Nap from power settings fixed that.

 

I have "-disablegfxfirmware" on my boot arguments, nothing else.

 

One thing that doesn't work is Apple mouse/keyboard in BIOS. I guess it's because I use different Wifi/BT card. I'll check my bios settings.

Edited by Amble
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On 8/11/2018 at 8:08 PM, Amble said:

 

I doubt it can handle RX580, maybe with HDplex GPU heatpipes also you would need more powerful PSU than the passive ZF240 from Streacom.

 

everything seems to for fine. Sleeps and wakes, wakes also by pressing a button on apple mouse/keyboard, handoff, both GPU's, iMessage I created new account and it also worked OOTB without calling them, iTunes video playback.

 

Mine also waked from sleep quite often, but disabling Power Nap from power settings fixed that.

 

I have "-disablegfxfirmware" on my boot arguments, nothing else.

 

One thing that doesn't work is Apple mouse/keyboard in BIOS. I guess it's because I use different Wifi/BT card. I'll check my bios settings.

 

Sure, I do have hdplex gpu cooling kit and hdplex 400w with external dell 330w psu. Will try )

This is my power setting, nothing special. I've installed apple native m.2 wifi/bt module and kb, touchpad and mouse are working in bios ok.

Do I understand correctly that you do not have any dsdts etc? Could you share your efi clover folder pls? Without serials etc. have no idea how to prevent it from waking. Thank you!

 

 

image.thumb.png.af51bdb2c2866d80eb45b55dabd450d9.png

 

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On 8/13/2018 at 1:57 PM, viktr said:

 

Sure, I do have hdplex gpu cooling kit and hdplex 400w with external dell 330w psu. Will try )

This is my power setting, nothing special. I've installed apple native m.2 wifi/bt module and kb, touchpad and mouse are working in bios ok.

Do I understand correctly that you do not have any dsdts etc? Could you share your efi clover folder pls? Without serials etc. have no idea how to prevent it from waking. Thank you!

 

 

image.thumb.png.af51bdb2c2866d80eb45b55dabd450d9.png

 

 

EFI attached. I removed the SMBIOS section from config plist, I use iMac18,3. Only thing missing is some of the kexts that are on S/L/E.

 

I used to use DTDT's but I decided to do everything in the config.plist now.

 

Config is for dual GPU's HD 630 and RX 560 to enable Hardware Encoding & HVEC, so this config doesn't work without setting the GPU's properly in BIOS.

 

iHack.zip

 

 

 

 

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On 8/18/2018 at 7:50 PM, Amble said:

 

EFI attached. I removed the SMBIOS section from config plist, I use iMac18,3. Only thing missing is some of the kexts that are on S/L/E.

 

I used to use DTDT's but I decided to do everything in the config.plist now.

 

Config is for dual GPU's HD 630 and RX 560 to enable Hardware Encoding & HVEC, so this config doesn't work without setting the GPU's properly in BIOS.

 

iHack.zip

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you!

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