Assembling the System
To begin, we need to open the VT01 enclosure, and this is done by removing the four rubber feet on the base.
With the feet (and a pair of additional screws) removed the case simply slides apart.
I'll pause briefly here to talk about the support bar at the front of the case's lower panel, and this will need to be removed (with a pair of screws on each side) to allow for easy component installation.
If you are going to use a SATA drive, that will need to be installed first, and this simply screws into the bottom of the case. The standoffs on the case floor keep the motherboard clear of your drive.
The cutout on the bottom of the case prevents stress on the drive's SATA connection.
This cooler is very easy to mount, with four threaded pins on the heat sink that screw down into an included plastic backplate.
Next up is the memory installation, which is rather novel as the SO-DIMMs are installed upright like desktop memory on a mini-STX motherboard.
I added an M.2 drive for the OS install, and the ECS H110S-2P offers support for PCIe SSDs such as my Samsung SM961 NVMe drive, though it is limited to PCIe Gen 2.
Just below the memory is the SATA port, and there is also a small power connector to power the 2.5-inch hard drive or SSD with the included cable.
The final step was my least favorite part, as I was able to experience attaching case leads to the smallest front panel jumpers I've ever encountered.
Use the manual! There are no markings on the board's front panel connectors.
With everything in place and connected, the completed build is pretty tightly packed, but there is still plenty of space around the CPU. The most crowded area is up front, where the support bar (once it is replaced after board installation) just clears the memory.
A look from the sides shows that there is still some vertical room to spare, and a slightly larger CPU cooler could be used (the SilverStone NT07-115X used here is just 23 mm tall). However, a cooler such as the popular Noctua NH-L9i would not fit, as this 37 mm tall model exceeds the 34 mm height restriction.
With the system assembled it was time to test it out!
hi does it have tb3? oh it
hi does it have tb3? oh it does does it support video through tb3?
None of the mini-STX boards
None of the mini-STX boards on the market currently offer TB3 (that I'm aware of).
I like this case a lot. It is
I like this case a lot. It is cheap and well-designed. I would prefer if it was made of alu, but can’t complain at this price.
I’d like to see more STX boards on the market, preferably some options with higher-end chipsets like H170 or Z270.
I’m with you. And I want to
I'm with you. And I want to see more socketed Intel CPUs with Iris graphics. The few out there are very expensive. (Still hoping a next-gen AMD APU will make it to a form-factor like this as well.)
Yes AMD’s Ryzen/Vega APUs
Yes AMD’s Ryzen/Vega APUs with at least a single stack of HBM2(4GB or 8GB) acting like a last level cache to a larger amount of DDR4 based DRAM. AMD should really have made an amended JEDEC standard with HBM2 having a 2048 bit bus to each HBM2 stack instead of 1024(Current standard) and just gone higher with the DRAM stacks for larger memory capacities!
Not really seeing a use for
Not really seeing a use for this, although it is cheap
For HTPC it has a fan so a fail for me (my old i3 NUC is in a fanless case for that)
Cannot be used as a cheap NAS as not enough SATA ports
Not enough power for anything other than light gaming
Only thing I can think of is office use, use the VESA mount to hide it on back of monitor. Very neat but you can get cheaper.
This would be a nice little
This would be a nice little build if intel cpus had better integrated gpus. Lack of graphics upgradability is huge concern for me. I would rather put the money into mini ITX build with pci express and much higher power delivery.
I saw a pic of an Asrock
I saw a pic of an Asrock miniSTX board with an MXM slot so you could slap a notebook GPU in there
Gecube made a RX480 – a full Polaris 10 – in MXM format – but it used too much power for OEM notebook cooling solutions and they didn’t make it compatible with Clevos (which are the most upgradeable and have the most robust overspecced cooling of all laptop manufacturers) so nobody bothered seeing if it worked.
Re: Left: ECS H110S-2P
Re: Left: ECS H110S-2P (mini-STX)
There is a SODIMM socket from Lotes
that allows the sockets to be
placed much closer to each other:
http://supremelaw.org/patents/lotes/AAA-DDR-131.JPG
Normally I detest external
Normally I detest external power but in this scenario it makes sense. It’s so small there’s no room to be putting extra wires in there.
I’m glad I coerced Sebastian
I’m glad I coerced Sebastian into doing the Prime95 run, very intersting results
🙂
🙂
Very nice! Would love to use
Very nice! Would love to use a setup like this to run a freeNAS server, although I would couple ASUS H110S1/CSM motherboard ($75) with Pentium G4560 3.5GHz with Hyper Threading ($65).
Any chance you could post PassMark benchmark score?
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-6600K+%40+3.50GHz
I didn’t run PassMark, just
I didn't run PassMark, just Geekbench 4. If I have time to re-assemble the system I'll check it out (already on to another mini system).
How fast is M.2 slot and can
How fast is M.2 slot and can you boot Windows 7 from it?
I saw up to 1800 MB/s reads
I saw up to 1800 MB/s reads and 1500 MB/s writes benchmarking my Samsung SM961 NVMe SSD in the M.2 slot. I am not sure about Win7 compatibility, but I assume it is possible with a driver during installation. Seems like a murky subject when I look around for info on Windows 7 NVMe installs…
The rail voltages on
The rail voltages on HWMonitor are way lower than they should be. Maybe you need a better power adapter.
I 100% agree. The lack of
I 100% agree. The lack of high-quality adapters specific to the form-factor is a negative at present.
How does WiFi work? I didn’t
How does WiFi work? I didn’t see any mention of sockets for antennas as part of the back IO?
There are punch-outs for a
There are punch-outs for a Wi-Fi antenna on the back of the case, and the board has an M.2 Wi-Fi card slot in addition to the standard PCIe SSD slot. While a lot of mini-ITX board come with Wi-Fi solutions I haven't seen mini-STX with that bundled in yet.
It would add about $34 to the total build cost to implement a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth solution, including external antennas if you used an Intel 7265 M.2 card (~$24) and an antenna kit (~$10), for example.
(I should have mentioned this in the review, and I updated it with this info).
I noticed the info about the
I noticed the info about the slots but was mainly concerned about how you’d mount the antennas. Thanks. Good review.
Don’t cheap out on the power
Don’t cheap out on the power brick.
What is that a computer for
What is that a computer for ants?
Dear viewers,
Could you
Dear viewers,
Could you suggest good thin mini ATX case with support for one 3.5 or 2.5 HDD, SFX PSU but without space for dedicated GPU?
Hi Sebastian, I’m also using
Hi Sebastian, I’m also using ECS H110S-2P MB and VT01 case. My CPU is G4560 and 8G DDR4 RAM was installed. The BIOS was updated to the latest version (Feb 2017). The power adapter is a 90W model for ASUS laptop. It is strange that when I use this PC, it reboot automatically from time to time. There’s no blue screens or error prompts, the system just loses power and reboot, just like the reset button is pressed. It happens when I surfing the internet, watch videos, even during the Windows 10 loading. I don’t think it’s a DC adapter or CPU issue, because I ran Aida64 for 15 minutes with full CPU/FPU/MEM load, the system seems stable. I also tested RAM with MemTest64 for 10 loops, no error was detected. Do you have any suggestion to locate or solve this issue? Thank you.
Hi – Please can you suggest
Hi – Please can you suggest what is the source of power for this build? If you can provide a link that would be really greatful. This is really an awesome review… I am pretty sure I will be doing it now for my PC as I am already thinking of upgrading my processor/MB so wy not this one as it fills in all the checkboxes me… 🙂 Thanks Sebastian…
can we fit mSATA (using mSATA
can we fit mSATA (using mSATA to M.2 adapter) on this board? i have mSATA spare and don’t wish to buy M.2.