My SG03 Monza - Mini Review on Various Bits *56k Warning*
So for the past few months I have slowly been collecting hardware for my windows 7 system, my goals were to have an affordable small, quiet, powerful, energy efficient system - sounds easy, right?
Old parts I used are a 6 month old Samsung F1 Hard drive, and an LG DVD-+RW.
My first purchase was Windows 7 from Amazon for £45 - bargain tbh.
My second purchase was the Silverstone SG03 case from Scan for £80. I considered the Silverstone SG01 which is slightly smaller but after much research discovered it had awful air flow, meaning the system would run pretty hot, and when you combine that with 2 80mm fans, it's going to be noisy. The Lian Li V350b was also considered, I am a huge fan of Lian Li build quality, but it was just too big for me in the end, I wanted something significantly smaller. I also decided to spray paint the mesh with Halfords spray paint, grey primer with a Monza blue.
The Silverstone SG03 case supports two 120mm fans at the front, providing excellent air flow throughout the case. The case comes with 1 fan, which had I known how great it was, I probably wouldn't have bought two Noctua P12s for £30.
The 120mm Noctua P12 fans are not as quiet as I was led to believe by various sites and people on various forums. At full speed its anything from quiet but the airflow is fantastic - as you would probably expect for all that noise. Had I known this I would have actually bought a pair of Scythes instead.
I ended up buying an Akasa Fan Control JR which represents great value for money for £9, even though it doesnt match the same silver colour of my case. With the fan controller I managed to reduce the noise significantly to a point where it's still producing great airflow but at the same time almost silent.
I also bought a Coolermaster black aluminium bezel for £3, it's the type where you have to stick on, it was a little tricky and could have certainly been designed better, but it works.
The initial PSU was an Enermax 425w Modu82+ for £45. Such a small case needs a modular PSU, all the extra wires would block the airflow inside the case. This was a brilliant PSU, it was quieter than I expected. I own a Corsair HX series PSU, which is also quiet, but this thing didn't make a noise. The awesomeness was short lived as it blew up on me; Ebuyer didn't have any more in stock so they credited my account with £54, which was odd but I didn't complain, and I took a gamble on a Coolermaster 500w Silent Pro-M.
The gamble paid off, it's a little quieter than my Corsair, but not as quiet as the Enermax that blew up :( One of the downsides are the cables, they are all the same length with no variation of connectors on the same cable, i.e. one cable has all SATA connectors, one cable all 4-pin, annoying.
The motherboard, CPU and RAM combination was tricky, I didn't want a CPU which was rated higher than 95w, but I wanted something which could hold its own for a few years to come. I wanted DDR3 memory and wanted a CPU heatsink which could fit in my case (<75mm in height) and be quiet. In the end I had to decide between a Core i5 system with a Corsair H50 CPU cooler or an AM3 system with a Scythe Shuriken cooler. I finally decided on the AMD system as it was almost £100 cheaper.
I bought a 95w Phenom II X4 945 (£125), an ASUS 785G motherboard (£68) supporting 1.5v DDR3 memory, so my DDR3 choice was limited. I went for some non fancy 4GB DDR3 1333mhz memory from Crucial (£55) as the Scythe Shurikens (£24) heat pipes goes over the memory slots, had it had tall heat spreaders this would be a problem.
The most difficult thing for me to choose was a graphics card, a good 4890 with non-reference cooling was slightly out of my price range, while a 4870 was just too power hungry and ran too hot, the 4850s were looking to be my choice, but then I thought I may as well go for a 4770 as it produces less heat and uses less power and is not far off the 4850 performance. As I was preparing myself to order a 4770 news was out the ATI HD 5770 was being released in a few days, so I waited.
A few days later the HD 5770s were out I went to Ebuyer and they had some in stock for £121, but they also had the Sapphires on pre-order for £111, so I placed my order :)
The card is superb, its been able to hand everything I have thrown at it without any problems on my 22" monitor.
I also bought a Razer Deathadder mouse, my previous mouse was a Logitech G5, I cant choose between them, the Deathadder has a better scroll wheel with 2 side buttons instead of one but I do miss the ability to change the mouse speed on the go from my Logitech G5.
I bought a Razer Goliathus mouse pad, its something I can easily give 10/10, its was £10 and its so smooth and accurate, I love it, much better than my old Raptor pad, and it wont wear down your mouse feet.
My Razer Reclusa Keyboard is a bit of a hit and miss, Its better than my Microsoft Digital Media Pro keyboard, I love the backlight on the keys - but I can't turn them off during the day, surely I am missing something? It has plenty of customisable buttons and macro options, perfect for gamers, however one of the scrollable wheels is rather useless, or maybe it's me, but I haven't been able to change it to zoom, instead of scroll. Another let down is the big plastic thing at the top of the keyboard, it just doesn't do anything for me, its good thing its under my desk. Overall its a solid keyboard, well built, the wrist pad is very nice and soft, it oozes quality. 8/10
The Build/Impressions/Advice/Temps/Noise
Building the case took longer than I thought, overall the Silverstone SG03 was very easy to work with, it's very clever in the way it uses its space, the aluminium is thinner than I expected, and the side panel doesn't fit as snugly as its suppose to, leaving about a 2mm gap exposing the silver inside from an angle, maybe mine is faulty?
Where the Silverstone SG03 excels is the cooling, I just cannot believe how great it is. I have had my system for over a week now, and the highest temperature my CPU has recorded is 44c while it idles at 34c! I am sure the Scythe Shuriken and my Noctua P12s deserve some credit for pushing the air around, but the case is very well designed to maximise this.
The hard drive bays on the SG03 are cleverly designed, but beware, it's a little tricky to fit them in without the cables getting in the way of the steel plate that fits across the case, ideally a normal 3.5" drive on the left and a 2.5" with a bay converter on the right would be best IMO.
My graphics card idles at 50c with the fan speed at 35%, the highest I have seen it go is 55c, with the fan speed at 45%. The Sapphire HD 5770 is very very quiet when under 40% which is the majority of the time, and when I am playing games it can reach 45% which is noticeable, but doesn't bother me at all, as the in game sound drowns it out.
If you guys have any questions let me know, here are some more shots of my system.
Re: My SG03 Monza - Mini Review on Various Bits *56k Warning*
While building my system, I was also building another system for a friend, he was on a tighter budget but he wanted something small. I was very surprised when this Antec NSK3480 came through my door.
It's almost the same size as my SG03, it's a lot heavier, comes with a PSU and quiet fans, it's made from steel, trickier to work with but represents absolutely outstanding value for money as it comes with a rather solid 350w PSU.
Re: My SG03 Monza - Mini Review on Various Bits *56k Warning*
Thanks for the reviews!! Even though I am a fan of cube cases like the P2 Shuttle I currently use I might consider going for one of the cases you have bought when I do my next upgrade. Shuttles are nice but are a bit on the expensive side and the SG03 looks a good compromise between size,weight and expandability. It would also mean I could re-use some of my existing components too and it would to have an additional slot free for sound card after using a dual slot graphics card. I also like the fact that the SG03 has stealthed doors!! :)
Re: My SG03 Monza - Mini Review on Various Bits *56k Warning*
Nice build, I still haven't found the time to finish my SG03B build, although it would have nowhere near the power you've put in my friend!
BTW, where did you get a hold of the Enermax Modu82+ 425W for £45? Thanks!
Re: My SG03 Monza - Mini Review on Various Bits *56k Warning*
What a coincidence; I've just built my SG03 system for Windows 7, and I went for the alternative of the i5 and H5O. I kept my 4870 (for the time being) and the Zalman 600W PSU. I also bought an 80Gb Intel X25 SSD with a 1Tb Samsung HDD.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a 3.5" to 2.5" adaptor (lack of the cheap ones at Scan), so I've left the side off and have my SSD sort of hanging outside at the moment! It also doesn't help that I've lost one of the modular cables for SATA connectors, so I'm having to use adaptors which is adding a lot more cable around at the moment.
I have to agree with on the thin aluminium. The H5O tubes are being pressed by the PSU (for a while I didn't I was going to get it to fit at all!), which in turn is then pressing against the back of the case. This meant the graphics card couldn't be screwed in properly without pushing it all back. It's obviously better with side of the case on.
I used my 2 Noctua fans from my old case for the intakes as well, although I think I have the quieter, lower CFM versions. I haven't stressed my system too far yet, but the H5O is performing very well, with idle temps being reported at around 25, and load not too much higher. However, the first time I turned power on, the temp was increasing at 1-2 degrees second! Turned out that one of my motherboard power headers wasn't on, and the pump was therefore not working! System temp is more of problem. I've got a big Accelero heatsink with fans on it for the 4870, but it doesn't help it's not moving the air out of the case. Apart from the PSU, the only way air is getting out is from positive pressure caused by the two intake fans. It won't help that one of those will be blowing warm air in from the radiator. As such, I'll probably go the same way as you did with the 5770. It'll be similiar performance but a lot cooler.
So it looks like another order this week for the bracket, graphics card and I'll probably get the Sugo Pack bag as well since I'll be going to the LAN with it this month. I'll also look at modding the PSU cables to make them shorter and to fit and route them better.
Re: My SG03 Monza - Mini Review on Various Bits *56k Warning*
Quote:
Originally Posted by
UseItNow
Nice build, I still haven't found the time to finish my SG03B build, although it would have nowhere near the power you've put in my friend!
BTW, where did you get a hold of the Enermax Modu82+ 425W for £45? Thanks!
ebuyer, however they have no more in stock, which is why I had to get the coolermaster psu after it blew up.
Re: My SG03 Monza - Mini Review on Various Bits *56k Warning*
Nice post and pictures. The coloured mesh looks really tempting.
I was considering that Akasa fan controller for my SG-03 too, as it resembled the old Vantec Nexus that I saw fitted in a SG-03 on Hard forum.
If I could of found the answer I would of gone with a Scythe Kaze,/Master but I wasn't sure if the dial height would fit and allow the case flap to close fully. So in the end I opted to not use a fan controller and use the Noctua U.L.N.A. cable adaptors instead. With hindsight I would of gone for S12 fans instead as I've not needed the cooling ability of the P12's.
Edit: As you have an active CPU fan do you have PSU fan facing outside?
Re: My SG03 Monza - Mini Review on Various Bits *56k Warning*
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Antagram
Nice post and pictures. The coloured mesh looks really tempting.
I was considering that Akasa fan controller for my SG-03 too, as it resembled the old Vantec Nexus that I saw fitted in a SG-03 on Hard forum.
If I could of found the answer I would of gone with a Scythe Kaze,/Master but I wasn't sure if the dial height would fit and allow the case flap to close fully. So in the end I opted to not use a fan controller and use the Noctua U.L.N.A. cable adaptors instead. With hindsight I would of gone for S12 fans instead as I've not needed the cooling ability of the P12's.
Edit: As you have an active CPU fan do you have PSU fan facing outside?
Yup, I have the PSU fan facing outside, the case temps are pretty good, even when the P12 fans are at about 10%, which is why I would also have gone for the S12s or the scythe ones.
Re: My SG03 Monza - Mini Review on Various Bits *56k Warning*
it has been a while now I know. :) Very thought through build, impressive. Thanks for posting.
