[SOLVED] New Build: Mini Tower RGB Gaming Rig (I need help)

[bobertthethird]

Hi Folks, the build bug hit me something awful recently and I've decided I'd like to modernize my PC.

Approximate Purchase Date: Holidays 2018

Budget Range: $1000-$3000

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming -> Netflix -> Image Manipulation -> Web Surfing -> Office Use

Are you buying a monitor: Not for phase 1

Parts to Upgrade: CASE, CPU, MOBO, RAM, CPU Cooler, & Fans **Powered by EVGA Supernova P2 850W**

Do you need to buy OS: Yes

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg & Amazon

Location: Boise, ID, USA

Parts Preferences: Intel CPU

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080 + 1360x768

Additional Comments: I want to build in a Mini Tower or Cube, I really like the exterior of the Coolermaster Q300L, but the interior is crap, and I've fallen victim to flimsy doors from CM far too many times, so thus far the Fractal Design Meshify C Mini best exemplifies what I'd like: Mesh Front Panel, Window Side Panel, No hard-drive cage or bays to obstruct air-flow, PSU shroud, grommets, Cable ties, hard drives mount to tray, ample space behind tray, and high quality materials; though it suffers in 2 categories: insufficient space above MOBO, and lack of a handle, if you can find better, I'm game. I'm aiming to make a powerful Intel build with a single video card (I keep saying I'll buy 2 for SLI and I never do), ridiculous cooling performance, as much RGB as possible (preferably addressable, compatible with the MOBO header, and able to display more than one color simultaneously). On board Wifi is a must as there won't be enough expansion slots to add a Wifi chip and the landlord would frown at me if I started drilling holes through the walls for lan cables. I'm still on the fence between an AIO and an Air Cooler, the AIOs I looked at seem to have high DOA rates, and a top mounted configuration would conflict with most RGB RAM, Leaving only the front mounted configuration, which would necessitate removing the hard drive bays to install the bottom mounted intake fan (which still likely wouldn't be enough to create positive pressure in the case). Meanwhile I hate working with bulky air coolers, they are a pain to install, I'm well aware of the extra stress they are causing the Mobo, not to mention they come with their own RAM restrictions. In both instances though, I'm willing to replace the stock fans for better cooling performance/RGB enhancements. I'm also aiming for good cable management this time, If I need to purchase custom cables, so be it.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: I recently saw a super tidy mini build and it kicked off the builder bug in me. Not to mention I've suffered a host of problems recently that even required me to do a clean install. Most of it is driver issues (and most of that is Asus's fault for not supplying up to date/working drivers) Lately I've found myself searching more and more obscure corners of the internet for my drivers and it is getting exhausting (especially finding the up to date intel sata controller driver for my fiance's build, that was a nightmare) Speaking of Asus, I'm on the fence about jumping from the ROG ship, I like most of the features on ASUS boards and I've never had one outright fail (Gigabyte I'm looking at you), but their driver support is terrible, and they seem to cut corners in the most illogical places (USB controllers not implementing the full USB 3.0 Standard) So I'm open to suggestions

Here's my current build

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - FX-8350 4GHz 8-Core Processor (Purchased For $199.99)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - Nepton 240M 76.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (Purchased For $124.38)
Motherboard: Asus - Crosshair V Formula-Z ATX AM3+ Motherboard (Purchased For $254.01)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident X 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (Purchased For $139.99)
Storage: Samsung - 850 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $116.97)
Storage: Western Digital - VelociRaptor 1TB 3.5" 10000RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $199.99)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB FTW ACX 2.0+ Video Card (Purchased For $649.99)
Case: Cooler Master - HAF X ATX Full Tower Case (Purchased For $179.99)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA P2 850W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $139.99)
Optical Drive: LG - BH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (Purchased For $99.99)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (Purchased For $0.00)
Wireless Network Adapter: Asus - PCE-AC68 PCI-Express x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter (Purchased For $97.99)
Case Fan: Cooler Master - Megaflow 110.0 CFM 200mm Fan (Purchased For $16.99)
Keyboard: Razer - Ornata Chroma Wired Gaming Keyboard (Purchased For $88.99)
Mouse: Razer - DeathAdder Chroma Wired Optical Mouse (Purchased For $69.99)
Headphones: Logitech - G633 Artemis Spectrum 7.1 Channel Headset (Purchased For $95.99)
Other: VIZIO E-Series 42” Theater 3D™ LCD HDTV with VIZIO Internet Apps® (Purchased For $529.99)
Total: $3005.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-10 02:45 EDT-0400

And here's what I've chosen thus far (subject to change by suggestion):

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor ($346.96 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - MasterLiquid ML240R RGB 66.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($117.62 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus - ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard ($179.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($463.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo 1.0TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($399.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB FTW ACX 2.0+ Video Card (Purchased For $649.99)
Case: Fractal Design - Meshify C Mini Dark TG MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA P2 850W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $139.99)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home Full 32/64-bit ($119.99 @ B&H)
Case Fan: Corsair - LL120 RGB LED 43.2 CFM 120mm Fan ($32.66 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: Corsair - LL120RGB LED (Three Fans With Lighting Node PRO) 43.2 CFM 120mm Fans ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $2651.15
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-10 02:35 EDT-0400

In this build the cpu cooler would be mounted on the front in a push configuration exhausting into the case, dual top and rear fans exhaust, and bottom fan intake. But I think this configuration is in dire need of improvement, I believe there are some AIOs with fans that would not run into the RAM in a top-mounted configuration due to a ring shaped rather than square design, but that would largely depend on where the fans sit relative to the RAM, If the RAM is sitting at the apex of the curve of the fan, then the fan might as well be square. Another problem with this build is that it requires me to immediately purchase an expensive M2 SSD that I would prefer to save for phase 2, as it necessitates the removal of the Hard drive cage and thus my existing 1TB HD drive, leaving my 256 GB SSD which is insufficient for a full system, I also have no desire to buy intermediate components that would immediately be replaced in the next phase of the build. This along with the many reports of failing AIOs is causing me to consider an air cooler despite the loss in peak performance.

Final Build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor ($329.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: NZXT - Kraken X62 Rev 2 98.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($146.89 @ OutletPC)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver - 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste ($5.45 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus - ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard ($189.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($463.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo 1.0TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($399.99 @ Samsung)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB FTW ACX 2.0+ Video Card (Purchased For $649.99)
Case: Fractal Design - Meshify C Mini Dark TG MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA P2 850W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $139.99)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home Full 32/64-bit ($109.99 @ B&H)
Case Fan: Noctua - NF-F12 industrialPPC-3000 PWM 109.9 CFM 120mm Fan ($22.99 @ Newegg)
Case Fan: Corsair - LL120RGB LED (Three Fans With Lighting Node PRO) 43.2 CFM 120mm Fans ($98.21 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: Corsair - ML140 PRO RGB (2 pack w/Lighting Node PRO) 55.4 CFM 140mm Fans ($80.61 @ Amazon)
Keyboard: Razer - Ornata Chroma Wired Gaming Keyboard (Purchased For $88.95)
Mouse: Razer - DeathAdder Chroma Wired Optical Mouse (Purchased For $69.99)
Headphones: Logitech - G633 Artemis Spectrum 7.1 Channel Headset (Purchased For $94.99)
Other: NZXT Internal USB Hub ($19.97 @ Amazon)
Other: Noctua NA-FC1 4-pin PWM Fan Controller ($19.95 @ Amazon)
Other: CORSAIR RGB LED Lighting PRO Expansion Kit ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $3051.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-14 03:58 EDT-0400

Front mounted Kraken with ML140RGB fans. LL120RGBs as top and rear exhaust. And the Noctua as the bottom intake. Not included in the above list will be a set of individually braided PSU cables.

As near as I can tell through much research this is about the best way to build with a Mini-ITX board (though there are many other choices for individual components with similar performance). Many of the Micro ATX boards were lackluster, and while they generally performed better, they were lacking in several key features. I considered giving up on the Mini case and jumping up to the mid-sized case with a Strix Z370-F which would perform better and present less of a build challenge, but decided for aesthetics and portability reasons to keep it in the mini case.

In my research on Motherboards I learned MSI has much, much better RGB support, they even include headers for corsair components, their overclocking performs on par with Asus as well, However, they rarely even attempt to cool the M2 drives, and when they do (with heat shields) they actually end up heating rather than cooling, so if you're not using an M2 drive definitely pick up an MSI. If I were going all out I'd probably pick up the MSI Godlike. Gigabyte is also an excellent overclocker, but as I myself have experienced and many reviewers commented on, you usually end up RMAing 2-3 boards before getting a working one.

If anyone has questions about the configuration of the many components (I know I did) and are working on their own builds please IM me.

I'll post pictures after build.

 

[Lucky_SLS]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor ($346.96 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - DARK ROCK TF 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler ($84.80 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - Z370M GAMING PRO AC Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($134.00 @ B&H)
Memory: Team - T-Force Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($173.98 @ Newegg Business)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB FTW ACX 2.0+ Video Card (Purchased For $0.00)
Case: Fractal Design - Meshify C Mini Dark TG MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA P2 850W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $0.00)
Case Fan: Corsair - LL120RGB LED (Three Fans With Lighting Node PRO) 43.2 CFM 120mm Fans ($118.61 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: Corsair - LL120RGB LED (Three Fans With Lighting Node PRO) 43.2 CFM 120mm Fans ($118.61 @ Amazon)
Other: CORSAIR RGB LED Lighting PRO Expansion Kit ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1096.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-10 04:54 EDT-0400

Front 3 fans, top and rear 3 fans, stock fan in the bottom. Will be lit AF with those led strips.

 

[bobertthethird]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor ($346.96 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - DARK ROCK TF 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler ($84.80 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - Z370M GAMING PRO AC Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($134.00 @ B&H)
Memory: Team - T-Force Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($173.98 @ Newegg Business)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB FTW ACX 2.0+ Video Card (Purchased For $0.00)
Case: Fractal Design - Meshify C Mini Dark TG MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA P2 850W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $0.00)
Case Fan: Corsair - LL120RGB LED (Three Fans With Lighting Node PRO) 43.2 CFM 120mm Fans ($118.61 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: Corsair - LL120RGB LED (Three Fans With Lighting Node PRO) 43.2 CFM 120mm Fans ($118.61 @ Amazon)
Other: CORSAIR RGB LED Lighting PRO Expansion Kit ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1096.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-10 04:54 EDT-0400

Front 3 fans, top and rear 3 fans, stock fan in the bottom. Will be lit AF with those led strips.

I love the lighting strips, have any recommended diffusers for those?
3x120 on front instead of 2x140?
What is the reasoning for switching to lower performing memory? (CAS latency that is, I understand dropping the capacity, though on a side note I play modded minecraft as well, and that is a memory hog)

I was initially hesitant on the top-down cooling design on the Dark Rock as those generally perform worse, but I liked the looks and did some digging. One review was promising. And then I read Tom's Hardware review (which is dated btw) which completely slaughtered it. Sadly, even if I were to opt for the lowest performing cooler in his roundup, the review points out it would only be further hampered in a tight case with no side air intake (which describes my chosen case to a T)

 

[Lucky_SLS]

Not much difference with the trident z and Vulcan. Chose Vulcan cuz dark rock tf covers ram and won't be visible and you need to low profile ram.

Haven't used diffusers. So no idea. With 7 fans, it's gonna be positive air pressure, plenty of air flow. Or you can have front and bottom as intakes and top and rear as exhaust.

U can also have a evga clc 280/kraken x62 in the the front and and a bottom intake to offset the hot air of the aio for the gpu. This will get you those rgb rams as well.

 

[bobertthethird]

I'm noticing an annoying trend on these 8th gen Intel Mobos. The 7th Gen Mobos were far better across all manufacturers. That and the MINI-ITX boards seem to be better far engineered than the the Micro-ATX boards, again across all manufacturers, but the former suffers from a lack of fan headers. I laughed when I looked at MSI's MINI-ITX board, it claimed to have more than enough fan headers, turns out more than enough is 2. All of the Micro-ATX boards suffer from poor placement of the M2 slot (right in the midst of the PCIE slots, and therefore right up against the magma-like GPU) MSI and ASUS both solve for that problem on the MINI-ITX by throwing on a heatsink, but not on their micro-atx boards. The one saving grace on the Asus Micro-ATX board is that there is one vertical slot near the RAM. So I am going to need to solve for the lack of fan headers problem. The third front mounted 120 fan blows uselessly into the PSU shroud. 2x140 fans on front with one bottom mounted 120 (a removable plate allows it to blow into the case proper) seems to be the better solution for either an Air CPU cooler or top mounted AIO (if the RAM height problem can be solved), with a front mounted 240 mm rad it may be possible to squeeze a 3rd 120 mm fan on front in addition to the 120 on bottom, which would probably be worth it in that configuration. None of the 280mm AIOs, that I found, sport RGB Fans, and I very much want the RGB to bleed through the front of the case, which would then necessitate getting separate and potentially poor performing fans, as it turns out that nearly every AIO manufacturer only makes the fans in the first place, they all rely on Asetek for the pump and radiator. For an air tower style cooler I'm thinking of the Cooler Master MA410M TUF http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/cpu-air-cooler/masterair-ma410m-tuf-gaming-edition/ for the mixture of the aesthetics and performance. I'm well aware that it is nowhere as near as good as an aio and that there are better tower solutions that fit in the chosen case (heck I've yet to come across one that wouldn't fit), but I still think it will perform better than the Dark Rock in this case, and it cares about looks in ways that Noctua never will XD, the Be Quiet brand produce seem sleek stuff though, sadly not RGB, but potentially workable, but as you already pointed out, most would block the RGB RAM from sight. The Coolermaster will also be easier to work with than the bulkier designs out there.

Meanwhile I may need to upgrade sooner than I thought. The random freezes I thought I solved with a clean install are back. I'm starting to think it is only the USBs freezing up. The system responds to the restart button with no hesitance, and I know Netflix freezes when a USB headset is disconnected whether or not I'm having other problems. Meanwhile any other systems I'm using are hard to test the responsiveness of when both my USB keyboard and Mouse are unresponsive. The Back-lit keyboard and mouse stay lit when frozen, but they stop color cycling. There is one hijinky thing that happened with the drivers. I initially installed the drivers provided by the ASUS website, a 3rd party driver updater stated the drivers were out-of-date, I couldn't find the drivers manually from anything other than 3rd party sites and online forums generally agreed my drivers were out-of-date, so I let the driver updater perform the update (which I usually don't, turns out for good reason) One of the USB ports ended up being entirely disabled (but I didn't notice because I hadn't used my headset in a while) I then replaced that driver with the correct version of the driver (from ASUS, but in the support section of a slightly newer mobo Asus was still attempting to keep up to date, unlike mine) The first freeze occurred today, approximately 2 days after downloading the drivers from Asus, I'm thinking that may not be coincidental. I did just disable Windows power management, but given that the system had been stable for months prior to the driver hick-up, I'm not expecting that to fix the issue (as it didn't when this issue previously reared its head). Which either means one of two things, I've corrupted my drivers and may need to rollback to the older ones (despite the older ones specifically have this very issue reported on many forums) or that my Mobo is beginning to fail (it is at this point several years old) I'll post this issue in a separate thread.

So back to the build, I know I'll need some sort of solution to the lack of fan headers (splitters or plugging directly into power supply), some sort of RGB management, I don't think the one header is going to cut it there either, also pretty sure corsair fans are incompatible with Asus Aura anywho though they may be compatible with MSI's RGB (yes I know it comes with an rgb controller, but I think the strips plus fans will end up taking more slots than it has) and hopefully some way I can keep my current storage drives instead of upgrading this iteration. Also since I won't be using the lower expansion slots (even if I go micro ATX) have any recommendations for GPU support brackets? I've also seen some RGB fan plates that can be added on to nearly any fan, not sure they would work with radiator fans though as they may be too bulky, also seem to work better with clear fans, most non-RGB choose black (or in the case of Noctua: Brown)

 

[Lucky_SLS]

the corsair LL 3 pack fans come with nighting node pro and fan hub for connection. all you need is a usb 2.00 header. get a nzxt internal usb hub. both the fans and leds can be connected to the lighting node pro.

that CM TUF cooler is a 4 heatpipe cooler. a little less for the 8700K.

the rgb fan frames is the phanteks halos. but then again, lots of cabling will be required. and this doesnt come with a hub for rgb controlling. u can use the LL fans, the rads in these aio are slim ones.

 

[bobertthethird]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor ($346.96 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: NZXT - Kraken X62 Rev 2 98.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($146.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus - ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard ($179.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($463.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo 1.0TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($399.99 @ Samsung)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB FTW ACX 2.0+ Video Card (Purchased For $649.99)
Case: Fractal Design - Meshify C Mini Dark TG MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA P2 850W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $139.99)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home Full 32/64-bit ($119.99 @ B&H)
Case Fan: Noctua - NF-F12 industrialPPC-2000 IP67 PWM 71.7 CFM 120mm Fan ($25.85 @ OutletPC)
Case Fan: Corsair - LL120RGB LED (Three Fans With Lighting Node PRO) 43.2 CFM 120mm Fans ($98.21 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: Corsair - ML140 PRO RGB (2 pack w/Lighting Node PRO) 55.4 CFM 140mm Fans ($80.61 @ Amazon)
Other: NZXT Internal USB Hub ($19.97 @ Amazon)
Other: DeepCool FAN HUB CPU Cooler Powers up to 4 Fans ($7.99 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Other: CORSAIR RGB LED Lighting PRO Expansion Kit ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $2800.49
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-11 01:56 EDT-0400

This is what I've come up with now. The Kraken would be front mounted, I'd replace the Kraken fans with the ML140s, the RGB isn't as good, but it doesn't matter as much as they will only be visible through the mesh. The LL120s will be rear and top exhaust. The Noctua will be bottom mounted and provide ridiculous amounts of intake (might even aid in cooling the radiator as it will be immediately below). The LL120s' and Noctua's PWM cables will be plugged into the pwm splitter hub which will be plugged into the system fan header on the board (The provided corsair components control lighting only not pwm, you might thinking of the Commander Pro which Corsair sells separately and uses corsair software instead of the mobo to control pwm) The ML140s will be plugged into the Kraken's fan splitter contraption which will be plugged into the cpu header, pump and sata. For lighting the LL120s will be plugged into their RGB hub and the ML120s into their RGB hub, the hubs and one end of the daisy chained RGB strips will be plugged into the 2 lighting nodes. The lighting nodes and the Kraken pump will be plugged into the internal USB Hub which will be plugged into the 2.0 USB header. Cable management will be hell, but it should work. I was thinking of the 3000 rpm Noctua, but I think that would actually decrease performance as air would then attempt to escape every hole in the case rather than go out the exhausts. In this configuration I could even get another 4 rgb strips if desired.

Any suggestions on Thermal Paste or should I use the preapplied paste on the Kraken?

 

[Lucky_SLS]

go for the m-atx mobo. not the itx version https://pcpartpicker.com/product/GPbkcf/asus-rog-strix-z370-g-gaming-wi-fi-ac-micro-atx-lga1151-motherboard-strix-z370-g-gaming-wi-fi-ac . the preapplied paste would be enough if u r aiming for a 5ghz oc. if u want to go beyond, a thermal grizzly kryonaut would do. also, y 32gb ram? 16 gb is more than enough imo https://pcpartpicker.com/product/PBPKHx/team-t-force-delta-rgb-16gb-2-x-8gb-ddr4-3000-memory-tf3d416g3000hc16cdc01 .

the ML fans would go the kraken fan hub and the rgb connection can go directly to the lighting node which comes with it. LL fans can go to the hub that comes bundled with it. noctua can go to the mobo header. so u wont need the deepcool hub.

 

[bobertthethird]

The included hubs for corsair fans are for RGB only. The corsair fans are also incompatible with Asus Aura (and every other motherboard RGB; Corsair is doing their own RGB and doesn't want to play with others) which then necessitates the use of nzxt usb hub (1 usb 2.0 from the kraken and 2 from the corsair lighting nodes, only 1 header on board) there are 3 fan headers on board. The kraken and the MLs will be plugged into the pump header via Kraken's provided cables as you stated. That leaves the cpu header and system header for the 4 other fans. I think the corsairs come with y splitters, but they don't play well with pwm on other fans (most users report fans running at 100% if corsair fans are mixed with others on a splitter) Meaning the Noctua can't be on a splitter with one of the corsairs. Which means a 3+ splitter is required, but again most users report 100% fan speed (no pwm) on an unpowered splitter which is why I'm now ditching the deepcool in favor of a powered splitter.

I've already started why I'm going with the mini. The micro has poor M2 cooling. Also the micros seem completely neglected by both the manufacturers and enthusiasts. The Minis are more feature rich than the micros and there are literally no in-depth analysis on the micro boards, the few I've found are basically "I'm a <insert brand> fanboy, and I endorse this board." No overclocking analysis, no comparison, no benchmarks, no critiques on obvious design flaws, just an overview of the features you can find on the manufacturers website and an endorsement. The Minis had tons of in-depth reviews and it came down to asus vs msi vs gigabyte; the asrock had serious issues. So I then narrowed it by features. Probably would've gone msi if it had 3 fan headers.

 

[Lucky_SLS]

OK, this is the advantage with m atx : ASUS offers five fan headers, all of them can operate in PWM or DC mode and reference multiple temperature sensors. The four headers circled in blue offer up to 1A of current, while the header circled in red supports up to 3A (designed for pumps).

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/8533/asus-rog-strix-z370-gaming-wi-fi-ac-intel-review/index2.html

So 1 for noctua and the other 2 for the corsair. Ur rgb is already taken care by the rgb hub and lighting node pro.

Cooling potential is also good cuz the heatsink here are pretty big. Had good reviews for overclocking too.

But the main reason y I suggest u going for m atx is, the case is m atx. If you install an itx it just doesn't look so good.

 

[bobertthethird]

Still going on looks though. The micro has no rgb on the back. Only the logo on the heatsink, no rgb header (and no included rgb strip) with 4 ram channels I'm going to have the staggered ram which doesn't look as good as the ram adjacent to each other. There is going to be a decent amount of black case exposed either way. Wiring will look horrendous on the bottom if pulled from the psu shroud, but not if ran under the ssd tray, under the mobo and curved to their slot (only an inch will be exposed that way). Also the m2 slot to be used would need to the vertical mounted m2 slot for cooling, which would be an eyesore, I also don't feel good about having such a fragile piece of the board sticking out 80 mm in such a busy area of the board (to be honest I'm about as fat and butter fingered as they come, I'd 100% break the m2 chip 5 seconds after mounting)

I do like that the micro performs better as shown by the review you linked, and of course the fan headers, I just don't think it's the right board for me. If Asus had plopped a heatsink down on the lower m2 slot, put more rgb on the board (they had plenty of room) and intermixed the ram channels so ram could be placed adjacent, I'd probably prefer the micro. And of course this goes back to my primary complaint of the z370 boards, for z270 Asus had multiple maximus and Strix options in the micro and mini formats, the more premium of which were far better than the z370s they're offering now. I know it's not entirely their fault, Intel pushed up the timetables on coffee lake because of the amd ryzen series and so everything was rushed to production way before it was ready, just highly annoying.

 

[smorizio]

when you go and build the new pc....sell the old video card use the money for when nvidia drops there next desktop gpu. it run cooler and faster then your old 980. if you can wait till end of the year be care full of intel builds. intel like to change the pin counts/mb needed for there new cpu. (300 chipset and coffee lake). 1if you buy the inte lcpu that out now you may be stuck with just one chipset and one mb.

 

[bobertthethird]

when you go and build the new pc....sell the old video card use the money for when nvidia drops there next desktop gpu. it run cooler and faster then your old 980. if you can wait till end of the year be care full of intel builds. intel like to change the pin counts/mb needed for there new cpu. (300 chipset and coffee lake). 1if you buy the inte lcpu that out now you may be stuck with just one chipset and one mb.

By the time I build this there probably will be new products out there, and I'll definitely double check before building. Since most manufacturers (minus Nvidia) just released their most recent products though (and Intel interrupted their own fabrication process to release coffee lake before they were ready) I think most of the components will still be the same.

Not upgrading the video card this round as A) the miners have destroyed the market making them too expensive (thankfully a lot of banks have stopped interacting with crypto currency which should help bring prices back to normal) and B) I know the next gen is just around the corner.

As far future upgrades go, I tend to have 5+ years between upgrades, even if I upgraded the second after they released a new chipset, I'd probably be needing to upgrade the mobo again on the next build. Aside from that, later gen chips on a chipset tend to have the bugs worked out of them. I mean look at my current build: I bought AMD FX8350 when it was brand new. AMD had just begun using the FX series on the AM3+ chipset. Now they have 2 new chipsets (admittedly one is for the high performance threadripper) In that same time Intel released Skylake, the first on the 1151 chipset (when I upgraded it wasn't even being rumored about yet) Kabylake, and Coffeelake. And Coffeelake was put on a modified 1151 chipset. There's also the i9 which has its own chipset. Intel will probably completely rework the chipset on the next gen, but by the time I upgrade again, they will have gone through at least one and probably 3 chipsets. So there is really no point in holding off until they design a new chipset on the grounds of future upgradability. Unless there were rumors swirling around of a quantum computing based architecture or similar leap for their next architecture there is no point in holding off. There really have been very few performance gains in the last several years, for evidence of that you need simply look at Tom's Hierarchy of CPUs in which every Intel cpu for the last 4 generations are sitting on the top tier, If advancement had been made the newer gens would be in separate tiers. Mostly they've been improving efficiency rather than performance.

I'd be much more worried if they were planning on changing memory to DDR5 or developing a new storage interface beyond M2, which is what has really been making this build so expensive. The things I NEED to upgrade on this build: Mobo, RAM, CPU, and Cooler (it's old) ring in at $1150 all by themselves. Add on that I SHOULD upgrade the storage, that's another $400. When you consider that, the roughly $450 that's being dumped into what I WANT to upgrade: Case, fans, and lighting is mere chump change. If all I needed to upgrade was a Mobo and a CPU ($470) I would've already done it.