this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025

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SFF PC

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Water cooled Fractal Terra with sound card and 3d printed breakout module (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by alleycat to c/sffpc

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi! Here is my "cheater" build for the Fractal Terra case:

Components 
Case: Fractal Design Terra
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800x3d
GPU: RTX4080SUPER with Bykski water block
PSU: Corsair SF1000, 1kW
Mainboard: Asus Rog Strix B650E-I Gaming Wifi
Sound Card: ESI MAYA44ex
External Cooler: Mo-Ra IV 400

I designed and 3d printed a carrier for the sound card, which is now piggybacking on the water block of the GPU. It is connected to the Mainboard via a M.2 breakout cable and M.2 to PCIe-adapter. I get 1ms latency in Guitar Rig 7.

The water cooler is controlled and powered by the mainboard via a breakout module, which connects to the PSU and the pwm outputs of the cpu fan and aio connectors on the mainboard.

The whole setup is entirely inaudible even under full load (like rendering in Blender3d).

Edit: corrected a typo: it's a 4080Super, not a 5080

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[–] subtext 7 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Looks beautiful! Shocked that you’re able to fit a 5080 in there so cleanly!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

It has to be a typo, there is no RTX 5080 Super and Bykski has yet to offer 5080 waterblocks.

[–] alleycat 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I wish. It's sadly a typo. But I'm happy with the 4080 so far - maybe I'll upgrade the CPU to one of the new 9000 series Ryzens...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

To be fair the rtx 5080 is just the rtx 4080 super duper

[–] BatrickPateman 4 points 2 days ago

I am shocked he got one in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

That's wild! What a beautiful case. I want to do a small form factor build one day.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How well do those external fittings work? Do the air bubbles filter out relatively quickly? The highest point looks like it's your video card so I guess if it's last in the loop any air bubbles should get pushed out/stuck in the hump.

[–] alleycat 2 points 2 days ago

The fittings work reasonably well. There are always a few drops of coolant when I disconnect them, so I wouldn't use them with colored coolant and keep a paper towel nearby, but otherwise they're leak-proof.

It's usually enough to let the pump run at 100% for a few seconds to drive out any bubbles. It's pretty strong, I normally run it 40-50%.

[–] MeatsOfRage 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Curious what you're doing with the sound card. I had one for a while but with HDMI passing a digital connection I haven't really found a use for it anymore.

[–] alleycat 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It has a high-z input. Now I can directly plug my guitar into my computer and use an amp simulation with extremely low latency.

[–] MeatsOfRage 2 points 2 days ago

Ah cool

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

What are you using on the other end of the HDMI? I found that most monitors have some pretty mediocre DACs. The only things that have good DACs are AV receivers which I don't really feel like needing to power up just to run some headphones/desk speakers.

I've been using a USB DAC and more recently a dedicated AMP for a while now and that works great for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I like it! Do you play guitar as a hobby or professionally?

[–] alleycat 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't play it professionally, but I make instruments as a hobby.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Neat! Novel instruments (as in, unique inventions), or more traditional instrument crafting, like electric guitars?

[–] alleycat 3 points 2 days ago

I do reproductions of medieval string instruments, but I'm also working on electric instruments like an electric violin and an electric guitar (both still in the design stage). Nothing fancy, but I want to improve some things.

[–] Thcdenton 2 points 2 days ago

Beautiful

[–] Cris_Color 2 points 2 days ago

Man, what a cool build! Love the personalization to your needs