Completed Build, Usage Notes, and Conclusion
After sliding the top half back on and re-attaching the feet, the build is done and ready for an OS.
Looking at the completed system from the front and rear reinforces that there is pretty a minimal amount of I/O from mini-STX, and while competitor's boards do not fare any better, I would really like to see a couple of additional USB ports on the back at least. A USB hub of some kind is probably essential with a system like this.
I'll very briefly touch on the motherboard's UEFI BIOS, which features a simple but effective point-and-click interface.
After installing Windows on my Samsung SM961 (NVMe) drive without issue, I used the system exclusively for a few days. All of my PC-based work (photo editing, word processing, etc.) was done on the system without a problem, and considering the i5-6600K processor and fast SSD, this came as no surprise. Stability throughout was perfect, but I wanted to stress the system to see how it held up with my 91W processor and that ultra-low-profile CPU cooler.
Thermals and Noise
There are three basic fan presets available from the ECS system setup, along with the option of selecting custom settings. I ran benchmarks with the CPU fan at the normal, quiet, and silent presets, and recorded the temperature and noise results. Load temps were generated using the x264 benchmark, and temps were taken using HWMonitor.
The image above is the result of the x264 benchmark with the 'normal' fan setting, which had the CPU cooler's 80 mm fan spinning at over 3000 RPM. This generated pretty noticable noise, though not particularly high on the SPL meter, as you will see. Max load temps from the Core i5 CPU are still OK at 70 C (15.9 C ambient), and the system was stable through multiple benchmark runs. Moving down to the 'quiet' fan preset resulted in loads of 73 C (15.9 C ambient), but the 'silent' preset resulted in a failure to complete the benchmark as the CPU began to throttle a few minutes in. (A more typical workload never saw temps near 70 C with any fan setting.)
As to noise, the NT07-115X cooler produced less than I was expecting from its 80 mm fan. 'Silent' measured 33.4 dB (my noise floor), and was inaudible with anything else running in the room. 'Quiet' (my pick for best mix of performance and noise) was just 34.1 dB, and 'normal' reached 37 dB. These numbers were pretty constant, with little variance based on load.
Power
The power requirements will be familiar if you've looked into thin-mini-ITX at all (I opted for a 90W, 19v adapter), and while I thought I would be able to use the same power adapter from my last ultra low-profile PC build (way back in 2014), that was not the case. It turns out the laptop-style power supplies that worked for thin mini-ITX do not work with mini-STX. The reason? The outer/inner diameter of the plugs are different! (For reference, mSTX requires 5.5 mm OD/2.5 mm ID, while thin mini-ITX uses a larger 7.4 mm OD/5.0 mm ID.) The one I picked up was around $10, though I fear for its overall quality.
With my standard x264 CPU benchmark the peak power draw at the wall during any of the runs was 76.4 W, though power was typically much lower (in the 50 – 60 W range for the most part), and I measured idle power at 12.5 W. I think it is safe to assume that my $10 power supply might not be particularly efficient, and the overhead thus entailed surely resulted in lower numbers actually reaching the system. But I wasn't finished, deciding to risk it and test the full power of my i5-6600K by using the Prime95 torture test; a venture that filled me with anxiety as I really didn't want to blow up my PSU or exceed the 65W-rated power delivery of the motherboard.
After running Prime95 for a couple of minutes I reached this peak draw from the wall:
Yikes! Still, as I have no idea what the actual efficiency of the power supply is, I can only guess that fewer watts than the 95.4 W peak observed were actually reaching the motherboard. However, I did not experience any instability or errors from the Prime95 test, though the CPU began throttling down at intervals by about the 2 min mark of any Prime95 run (but I was using a 23 mm cooler!).
Conclusion
While the need for mini-STX as a form-factor might seem tenuous, consider that what it's really offering is not a replacement for mini-ITX systems, but an alternative to pre-built mini-PCs. The ability to select a desktop-class processor transforms mini-STX from what would be a mere novelty into a legitimate productivity platform. Other mini-PC platforms such as the Intel NUC and Apple's Mac mini use lower-powered mobile CPUs, and of course do not offer an LGA socket for an upgrade path.
Another aspect of mini-STX to consider is value, as a mini-STX motherboard sells for around $80 (though this ECS design is not available in the U.S. currently), and the featured SilverStone VT01 case is only $30. A low-profile CPU cooler adds $20, brings this initial investment to $130, which leaves a lot of room for CPU, RAM, and storage purchases before reaching, for example, the $499 level of the bottom-tier Apple Mac mini; and the mini would be woefully outmatched against a desktop-class build. (In this example, in a Geekbench 64-bit test my i5-6600K build scored 4810 single, 13261 multi, while the current base Mac mini is just 2796 single, 5354 multi.)
Overall I was very impressed with the quality of the components in this mini-STX build, with the ECS motherboard offering stable performance and the SilverStone case providing an attractive home for this tiny system build. This VT01 enclosure was very easy to work with and, while quite simple, was nonetheless very well constructed. I will point out that, while excellent for its size, the NT07-115X has some competition from SilverStone itself, who also offers a slightly larger (33 mm) mSTX-specific NT08-115XP, which would likely offer better cooling.
I was very impressed with the stability and overall quality of the ECS H110S-2P motherboard, and I find it an easy recommendation if it is available where you live. The SilverStone VT01 case is very well designed and built, and offers an attractive home for a mini-STX build with excellent ventilation, though it will need to be dusted out periodically as there is no screen filter. Overall I liked both of these products very much (and was very impressed by the ultra-low-profile NT07-115X cooler), though the actual need for mini-STX (other than an alternative to mini-PCs) has yet to be proven.
I gave both the ECS H110S-2P and SilverStone VT01 our silver award, and if you have interest in this new form-factor these products are a great place to start.
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.