Mini Cube — H110MSTX-HD3 — i7-7700T — RX 560

[craighazan]

I would recommend starting with PLA, it's the easiest for beginners. It's a bit more brittle but will be plenty for your application. ABS is very strong but it's a pain in the a$$ to print.

Thanks for the tip @Charlee78!. The printer takes 1.75mm filament so I'll check out that info before purchasing. Expecting the motherboard next week, I got an email confirming that it's been shipped from GA's warehouse. I'm assuming it will have the latest BIOS F20 which is good for a Kaby lake processor. I purchased GA H370M D3H GSM recently and that came with the latest BIOS F13. Narrowed down my processor choice to an i3-7100 which has low power consumption, or an i5-7500, apparently it can game at 1080p and 1440p.

 

[phunguss]

View attachment 462611
In a follow up to post #39, I'm considering these items for an external GPU setup. My work around is to use a
A+E key A key M.2 NGFF wireless module to MINI PCIE adapter and then connect the External Independent Video Card Graphics Dock NGFF M.2 A/E key. Am I mad?, is it possible?.

Which motherboard did you get? Do you have it in hand? The last time I checked, all Mini-STX had only M.2 connectors, NOT mPCIE. The converter you have pictured goes into a mPCIE slot to provide M.2 functionality, where you will need the reverse of that or something different.

Also, the GigaByte H110 series Mini-STX motherboards only support M.2 SATA, not M.2 PCIE. The video card risers all require M.2 PCIE to work (I bought about 4 different ones, none worked even with windows). Read the Kingston FAQ on the difference. I think the H310/H110 by Asrock will support M.2 NVMe and M.2 PCIE, which will support the M.2 GPU risers.

 

[craighazan]

Which motherboard did you get? Do you have it in hand? The last time I checked, all Mini-STX had only M.2 connectors, NOT mPCIE. The converter you have pictured goes into a mPCIE slot to provide M.2 functionality, where you will need the reverse of that or something different.

Also, the H110 series Mini-STX motherboards only support M.2 SATA, not M.2 PCIE. The video card risers all require M.2 PCIE to work (I bought about 4 different ones, none worked even with windows). Read the Kingston FAQ on the difference. I think the H310 by Asrock will support M.2 NVMe and M.2 PCIE, which will support the M.2 GPU risers.

I purchased the GA-H110MSTX-HD3 (rev. 1.0), it's arriving next week some time. I'm aware that I can't use NVMe, the connection is for M.2 SATA SSD. The M.2 Wifi slot though, from what I read at least, is it mini PCIe?. Did I read that wrong?.

 

[phunguss]

The M.2 Wifi slot though, from what I read at least, is it mini PCIe?. Did I read the wrong info?.

Good catch. Yes, the M.2 WiFi slot should be 1x PCIE. Hopefully you can find a short adapter that will still fit under the SSD drive.

 

[craighazan]

Good catch. Yes, the M.2 WiFi slot should be 1x PCIE. Hopefully you can find a short adapter that will still fit under the SSD drive.

Thanks phunguss. The white box below shows where the adapter will go, the image below that shows the Mini PCIe adapter from the product page. It's not easy to see, but its length looks shorter the the width.

 

[phunguss]

Thanks phunguss. The white box below shows where the adapter will go, the image below that shows the Mini PCIe adapter from the product page. It's not easy to see, but its length looks shorter the the width.

View attachment 463122​

@craighazan please verify the adapter you are ordering... It appears to allow an M.2 card in an existing mPCIE slot, not the reverse. The illustration you show is for mPCIE installation, not M.2. Looking on eBay, you probably want something more like these:

These are existing M.2 slot to PCIE 1x size.

I have several of these, but they are too long for the WiFi slot, and don't work in the SSD slot.


Or these other options on eBay:

but it looks like the card may be too long to fit into the wifi slot, even with the breakoff at 2230?

 

[phunguss]

This option would give you the PCIE x1 slot and a USB so that if you did want internal wifi, you could add a USB dongle on there...

 

[phunguss]

@craighazan Here is another look at some adapters and cards.

From the left: mPCI-E full length wifi, PCIEx1 and USB, same on ribbon cable, short mPCI-E wifi, M.2 wifi, M.2 to PCI-E x2 (x4?), M.2 to USB, M.2 SSD. The two M.2 adapters are for M-Key, while M.2 wifi uses A+E key, and SSD uses M+B Key.

 

[craighazan]

Looking at these phunguss it would seem I made a mistake. The M.2 wifi card would fit into the slot on the motherboard. But the product I purchased isn't going to fit because it comes with a short mPCIe adapter. Wow this is twisting my melons, what a bewildering amount of connections.

 

[craighazan]

I went for the i3-7100!, I read through reviews and it was mostly positive, someone OC'd it and claimed it wasn't much slower than a i7 7700k, they didn't state if that was OC'd. Reviews from other sites mentioned that it ran cooler than other I3s, and low power consumption too with a TDP of 51W. So I've ticked low power and cool on my list of 'Things this will achieve'. With a resolution of 4096 x 2304, I'm excited about plugging it into the 42" TV.