The Ultimate Compact PC (2019) -#Helpful Post

et's face it most small cases make some

big compromises whether it's noise

cooling or expandability and those tend

to scare a lot of people off but not

today it's like having a space heater

the craziest thing to me about all of

this you can't even hear it

so streak on set out to build a case

that uses a unique modular rail system

to allow high-performance components to

fit comfortably in a small form-factor

and we're gonna find out just how

comfortably that can be done

thanks to see sonic who sponsored this

third installment of our compact

powerhouse build series your PSU is the

heart of your system and see sonic is a

leader in the category offering

efficient power supplies with

outstanding features and performance for

your next build or upgrade check out see

Sonic's products at the link in the

video description

starting on the outside the da2 is the

perfect case for the minimalist Mac user

who has a PC at home because gaming on

Mac OS is a subpar experience at best in

typical street comm fashion the entire

case is beautifully finished in either

black or silver brushed aluminum and in

keeping with the minimalistic design

there's no RGB anywhere honestly the

things kind of a breath of fresh air in

a market that's crowded with rainbow

unicorn bonnet on the front the only i/o

you get is a power button with an

integrated power LED and a single USB

3.2 gen one five gigabit port now this

is something I was a little torn on

because I'm all for switching literally

all the things over to USB type-c but

the thing is most desktop peripherals

still use type-a so not having at least

one regular port and audio it might have

been nice to is a significant compromise

that is unless you've got an external

USB sound card and a USB hub on your

desk or built into your monitor which I

do in which case I guess you probably

won't care the stock side panels don't

come with a window but rather are nicely

perforated for airflow so if you're not

much into cable management then that's a

plus for you but if you do like to strut

your stuff Street comm has you covered

there as well with their tempered glass

side panel kit with that said that side

panel will limit your cooling options

more on that later at the back the i/o

situation is pretty solid with a 90

millimeter fan slot and full access to

both the motherboard and GPUs i/o and

the only shortcoming here is the

positioning of the power supply

pass-through it's right above the GPU

which means it's basically impossible to

cleanly route it in case you have the

glass side panel it will probably get

covered by your CPU cooler but your

mileage may vary now removing the side

panel is a bit unique it's actually just

held on by the friction of these little

rubber mounts which is both confusing at

first and a blessing in the future

because you'll probably be pleased but

you don't

to go find a screwdriver huh here's one

to get inside and inside is where the

da2 starts to get really interesting

like don't get me wrong

brushed aluminum definitely gets the

juices flowing but modularity that would

be my kryptonite and conveniently it's

where the DA two shines so the inside of

this case is essentially just a metal

frame

there's no motherboard tray no front

panel and no power supply mount these

features instead get screwed into the

base chassis so in much the same way

that a car company can build multiple

different cars on the same basic frame

you could technically build multiple

different configurations in the same

case so their first party accessories

allow for a vertical GPU mount the

tempered glass panels we mentioned

earlier and even an inverted motherboard

layout but if you're a bit handy the

possibilities go even further than that

so let's take a look at the rail system

you pretty much just slide the mounting

rails wherever you want to mount

something and then screw them in you can

use them for a pump hard drive fan maybe

even a secret place to store that

Nickelback CD that you don't want anyone

knowing about it's okay

we don't judge so to start with we

wanted to see how the da2 would handle a

pretty normal but clearly enthusiast

level gaming rig overall the build

process was fairly smooth thanks to the

modularity of the case you can take off

all the external panels allowing for 360

degree access making the usual ITX build

headache a lot more manageable you can

use a regular ATX size power supply in

the da2 but you'll lose most of the

space on the storage bracket as well as

most of your GPU space so instead we

went for a 650 watt SFX power supply

from c sonic with all of that installed

we've got to try out the rail system and

it's actually super easy to use all of

the components are nice and rigid just

screw a rail onto each side of whatever

you're mounting slide the rails onto the

mounting screws and tighten we did

notice that more premium all-in-ones

like the course RH 100 Ivy to that we're

using can be tricky to mount because

of how thick and rigid the tubing is so

we'd recommend something with thinner

tubing if you plan to do this yourself

so just button it all up and well BAM

finished sexy rig so we've got Metro

Exodus running RTX is enabled and this

is at 1440p should be pushing our 20/80

pretty hard I guess we should check the

temps right yeah I guess so

you can definitely hear it yeah it's

gonna say the the fans pretty apparent I

mean I wouldn't describe it as loud but

yeah from like a seated distance it's

not too bad it's noticeable it's

noticeable and especially when you

consider that it's not that small yeah

but it's also not that big and you know

if you have a regular Founders card it

seems to be kind of the noise level

you're going to get I mean this

obviously doesn't have the same level of

sound deadening as like a and our six or

something like that but I think it's

it's good enough I mean every time you

die it's just gonna screw it up a little

bit you should probably just stay in

this room for a couple minutes haryana

stay in the room you know I'm not gonna

die this time that's fine we just need

to check what we're boosting to anyway

okay yeah I'm we're boosting anywhere

from around 1830 to 1860 and tubs not

bad well stamps are gonna be 82 right

because they are always there 80 excuse

me yeah quite there but yes but they

always are and CPU just over 50 okay so

we're getting honestly about what we'd

expect from a decent mid Tower yeah I'm

not really surprised at all but I mean

it's smaller probably half the size of a

regular mid Tower it's not less

all right let's pop this thing off so

that doesn't mean there's not room for

improvement though so the motherboard

area actually does get a fair amount of

cool air drawn over it and we could even

improve that by throwing a 92 millimeter

fan here at the back because we've got

our a i/o drawing air from sort of the

filters at the top and the bottom and

then pushing it out the side but our GPU

we actually found the ambient air just

around it was quite hot and it's just

kind of sitting in its own recycled

exhaust I think if we put a fan of the

front that maybe

better but you can't really it's right

completely flat you know I was thinking

maybe if they had sort of to expand on

the modularity a panel in the front that

you could remove and if you didn't want

a fan up front you could just put a flat

piece or another option if you've got

room for a dual rad then you've got room

for two single Brad's what if we

water-cooled the GPU what if we just

custom water cooled the whole thing okay

so confession time this is Linus tech

tips and we never really intended for

this to be just a regular case review

because one of the first things that

stood out to us about the da2

is that while it's not that small for a

super compact case as long as you stick

with the perforated side panel it

supports a two hundred and eighty

millimeter AIO liquid cooler and where

you can fit in a i/o you can fit a

custom loop if you're determined enough

of course we weren't just gonna water

cool the 9700 K and 2080

that wasn't gonna cut it rather we

wanted to go with something a little

more extreme Edition like the core I 999

ATX see it fits perfectly onto as rocks

x2 9090 ITX motherboard which is pretty

much the most badass ITX platform to

ever exist

and we slapped on a bits power mono

block to keep the VRMs nice and cool

then after mounting one of EJ's gorgeous

blocks onto our Titan r-tx

and installing it things started to get

a bit tricky now we didn't intend to

mount just one radiator rather we

figured with a small amount of

modification we could put a second ultra

slim excess PC radiator under the GPU

now that it was only a single slot with

some slim scythe fans mounted to the

bottom

thanks to performance pcs for sending

that over by the way we mounted that

through the bottom filter and it wasn't

all that difficult but it was becoming

clear but even with the super small

power supply and DD c-- pump there was

no way we were fitting a reservoir in

here that wasn't gonna stop us though

even if we needed to use a vacuum pump

to fill the darn loop thankfully using a

tee fitting to fill combined

with a bit of patience we were able to

get it juiced up the last challenge then

was Kayla management with the DA - I

don't think they really put a ton of

effort into this but you do have just

enough room to tuck away all the excess

cable from a stock SFX power supply with

lots of mounting points coincidentally

on the rail system if you had custom

cables you'd be an even better shape so

it's done I gotta say this is an

absolutely incredible amount of raw

power for the size like it's smooth yeah

any move we might not get a better

gaming experience than the previous set

up because it's obviously not optimized

for gaming you know an 18 core but what

holy crap and the craziest thing to me

about all of this you can't even hear it

like I can feel it yeah yeah yeah like

it's like having a space heater next to

you like do you have do you have a

stress test running in the background

right now this is just the game oh wow

like the metal of the case is like warm

to the touch I left it for a couple

hours earlier and it's like the whole

case it's just like burning hot but

these fans are barely running yeah the

parts like the actual CPU and GPU it's

themselves are at a very reasonable

temperature silent yeah so there's two

Noctua fans on here that are each

running at a thousand rpm and then you

got the slim scythe ones that they're

not PDM controllable so I just put them

to like 30% duty thank you you can't

even see them at a normal angle either

like it's absolutely crazy alright so

for a final torture test I've gone ahead

and fired up 32 threads of prime95 so

that leaves 4 threads for our game still

running good and we're still running

Metro Exodus and at least to my eye this

is too pretty turns I mean this is like

400 to 500 watts in a box this size so

no guarantees it's actually still

running particularly well and yeah if we

check out afterburner our boost clock on

our GPU is down to like 1600 megahertz

and change that that's a little on the

low side our CPU still looks good though

around 60 70 degrees so yeah don't do

stupid things like this but other than

that this is a pretty freakin incredible

machine thanks good job oh that was

really rough so in conclusion for all

its beauty

the da2 does require a little bit of

extra work to truly shine like you don't

necessarily have to go as far as we did

with full custom liquid cooling maybe

you could make you could modify an a IO

to run both your CPU and GPU or run to

single 140 millimeters one for each or

something like that it's just that

without that it still does force you to

compromise a little bit whether on

cooling or on acoustics though in

fairness I guess that does make sense it

is just 17.5 litres and if you're

willing to dial back your crazy specs or

get creative it's got a lot else going

for it it's incredibly modular with a

stunning mentalistic design that would

make even Jony ive proud I think the

only thing really missing here is a rose

gold color option it's making of options

if you do end up buying a da2 for your

next build or really any case you should

pair it up with a power supply from see

sonic they've got tons of options

see how that's getting it for super

efficient and high quality power

supplies with excellent performance at

all ranges of different price points and

wattages they've got bottles that are

perfect for small and compact builds

like this one all the way up to full

sized ATX power supplies for your epic

battle station like in our gaming lounge

pcs so check them out at the link in the

video description for your next build so

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