STEPBY-STEP GUIDE
Build this epic ITX VR-ready gaming PC!
THE CONCEPT
THERE’S NO QUESTION that we’ve long been big fans of the Phanteks Shift line-up of chassis. Over the last few years, it’s certainly featured in a number of our builds. It’s one of those cases that really sparks the imagination when considering the potential of a system. That eccentric monolithic design was perhaps the first case to reimagine what an ITX chassis could look like, and how it could function. It doesn’t look quite so distinctive nowadays, with the likes of the NZXT H1, Corsair One, and Xbox Series X all featuring a similar sort of look and feel, but there’s no denying that even today, the Shift still flaunts a certain amount of flair, even with the heavy competition it faces.
However, case designs like this do tend to suffer from one problem in particular: airflow. This is something Phanteks has addressed across the last two iterations of its Shift Air chassis, though—in fact, you can read more about that in our review this issue (pg. 82). With the announcement of the Shift 2 Air late last year, we knew we had to get one in for a build, and with our resident staffer Sam jumping into the world of the virtual this month (pg. 18), there was no better scenario in which to use it than an overkill VR rig. Building a small-form-factor PC for anyone looking to pop one in their living room or man-cave made a lot of sense.
When VR launched with the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift in 2016, system requirements were, at least for the majority of PC gamers, quite trivial compared to some of the things we’d seen prior in the realm of dedicated desktop monitors. In fact, you could get away with an AMD Radeon RX 480 for pretty much everything VRrelated—a card that was yours for only $240 or so back in the day. Let’s see how things have changed….
SPECS SPOT
FIVE YEARS ON, the minimum spec hasn’t changed as dramatically as you might think. In fact, it remains almost the same. For the Vive Cosmos Elite, that means a Core i5-4590 or AMD FX 8350 processor (yep, that old), at least 4GB of RAM, and any form of GPU higher than a GTX 970 4GB or Radeon R9 290 4GB. For some perspective, those GPUs score on average around 8,000–9,000 in 3DMark: Fire Strike (1080p); compare that to a GeForce RTX 3060 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT today (which should cost around $200-300 normally), which can score over three times that. But that’s not where the story ends; the games themselves have their own minimum specs. In the case of Half-Life:Alyx, that’s a Core i5-7500/Ryzen 5 1600, 12GB of DDR4, and a GTX 1060 or RX 580 with at least 6GB of VRAM. Of course, higher specs than that provide better performance, and less latency and lag.
With that in mind, we decided to throw caution to the wind, and see what we could fit in this wee new Air 2 chassis as an overkill build. We had intended to run an AMD setup (the Ryzen 7 5800X and Asus X570-I ROG Strix mobo), but the parts fell through at the last moment, and as the latest Intel parts still hadn’t arrived with us, we decided to give the Core i5-10600K one last outing.
We’ve coupled that with a few extra choice components, including the gargantuan MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X GPU, 16GB of DDR4, a ton of Be Quiet! cooling goodness, and a 600W SFX-L power supply. You’ll notice we’re running a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD, and although PCIe 4.0 isn’t supported on the Core i5-10600K, it will work at 3.0 speeds well enough until we upgrade to the Core i5-11600K and a newer motherboard.
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TEAR IT ALL DOWN
AS ALWAYS with our builds, we start things off by stripping the chassis down as far as it can go. This is actually incredibly useful from a journalistic perspective, because we can really get to grips with what’s changed compared to the last generation if we do this every single time. Fancy external panels are nice and all, but it’s the internal layout and frame that make or break a build. Here we have a redesigned power outlet/pass-through, better cable management options, removal of the fold-up Phanteks cable-tidy bar (now a separate addition that you can install later), better cable management at the rear of the case near the GPU and by the motherboard, plus substantially better airflow cutouts across the entire thing. All the panels are removed in a similar manner as the first Shift case: Pop open the lid at the top, and loosen the two thumbscrews holding each panel in place, then simply pull up, and each one pops off.
2
AIRFLOW, AIRFLOW, AIRFLOW
THE PHOTOGRAPHER looked at us bemused when we asked him to take a photo of this, but this is such an epic update, we couldn’t let it go unnoticed. This is the rear panel of the chassis. The top (where your I/O plugs into the motherboard) is on the right, with that tiny oblong cutout, and the bottom (where your kettle lead plugs into the PSU pass-through) is situated on the left, with the hexagonal cutout. When installed on the chassis, your 120mm AIO can sit above the hexagon, and your 140mm exhaust fan near the motherboard can go further up. What’s so great about this? All those cutouts. You’ve still got mesh running along the sides, but the bulk of the cutouts are unfiltered, meaning minimal air resistance for those fans, which significantly improves airflow. It does mean more cleaning in the long run for the end user, but performance should be much better compared to having a mesh layer sitting on top.
3
AWKWARD BACKPLATES
MOVING ON to prepping our motherboard, and first thing on the agenda is to try to sort out as much as we can before we get the bulk of the hardware inside the case. But before that, someone needs to tell Be Quiet! how to make a decent CPU cooler backplate, because this thing is nothing if not frustrating. You have to thread these screws through the back of the Intel plate, then “secure” them with a rubber o-ring on the other side. Next, with your third hand, carefully insert it through the cooler mount holes on the board, while securing it in place with the other included thumbscrews on the other side of the mobo. It isn’t that complicated but, unlike most manufacturers’ backplates, the screws fall out, or don’t fit correctly, or decide to go for a walk if you so much as jiggle it ever so slightly. We saw better designs in 2013.
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PROBLEMATIC GPUS
NEXT UP, we installed the PCIe riser. This goes in easily, threaded through from the opposite side of the chassis. Install it as you would any other graphics card, and you’ll be on track. We’ve yet to have a bad experience with a graphics card running off a PCIe riser like this. However, this is a very small case, and graphics cards are getting ever larger. Technically, the Shift 2 supports cards up to a maximum length of 335mm/13.19 inches, a maximum width of 150mm/5.91 inches, and a depth of 59mm/2.32 inches (think 2.9-slot card). The SUPRIM X is 336mm/13.22 inches long, 140mm/5.51 inches wide, and 61mm/2.40 inches deep…. Yeah. And we knew this going in. So, out come the screws for the entire PCIe bracket.
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FINAL GOODBYE
HERE WE’VE TAKEN the liberty of installing the Core i510600K in its socket. To do this, lift the retention arm, raise the bracket, line the processor up with the notches/ golden triangle on the socket, carefully lower it into position, lower the bracket back down, making sure to sit it under the Torx screw, then lower the retention arm back in place, and it locks into position. You can leave the plastic cover on the socket; it pops off once the bracket locks down, and means you’re less likely to damage the socket. We’ve also removed the top heatsink off the audio componentry/M.2 installation location, ready for the 980 Pro. There are three small screws holding it in place and a tiny plastic bracket on the left to remove to do that.
8 CHILLED
IGNORING WHAT’S clearly going to be a problem later, we installed pretty much everything else apart from the graphics card. First, the fans. We’re running three: one for the CPU cooler, a 120mm high-RPM Silent Wings 3 from Be Quiet!, a 140mm installed here (see picture) as an exhaust, and an extra 140mm for additional intake, at the bottom. In hindsight, and due to the nature of the filtration, it may have been better to install this fan here as an intake, rather than an exhaust, as between it and the motherboard you need to install CPU power, three of your fans, plus any D-RGB components, making it easy to get a cable caught in a blade when powered on, which is less likely to happen if the rear fan guard is in the way.
5 ROOMY!
INSTALLING THE MOBO in the Shift 2 Air is fairly simple. Lay the chassis on its side, making sure any interior cables are out of the way. Place the motherboard in position and install with the screws from the Phanteks toolbox. You do need to be mindful about where your power cables are going with this case, particularly for the eight-pin CPU power. Some ITX motherboards do feature them top-left, like most modern ATX mobos, but other manufacturers have a habit of moving them around the board, which can be a problem for cable management. When it comes to ITX builds, always, always, always make sure you’ve got space to run your CPU power, and your motherboard and chassis support it with ease.
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AIO WOES
FOR THOSE who’ve been following our adventures with the Z490-I ROG Strix Gaming, you’ll remember we had trouble installing the EK-240mm AIO with it in our Razer Tomahawk build, and the same is true with the Be Quiet! Pure Loop. You can’t install it in what would be considered the correct orientation, as its mounting brackets make contact with the audio componentry/M.2 PCIe mounting area and VRM heatsink. So, we rotated the mounting brackets by 90 degrees, then secured the Be Quiet! pump block on top. What’s also curious about this AIO is it seems to house the pump at the bottom, next to the radiator, in its own selfcontained unit. And the CPU block and the radiator pump thing have their own PWM cables that need installing. We’ve also installed our Silent Wings 3 120mm high-RPM fan, so it’s pulling cool air in through the rad. The Pure Loop comes with a Pure Wings 2 fan, but we wanted something with a little more grunt.
6 FORGETFUL!
THERE’S AN IRONY in the fact that we forgot to install the storage until now, but it’s easy to do at a later date. With the RGB heatsink removed, align the M.2 drive with the notch in the socket, and the notch in the drive, then slot it in position. Our Samsung drive features a copper-laced thermal sticker to help dissipate heat, but if your drive doesn’t have a thermal sticker, the M.2 SSD controller chip should face toward the heatsink. The controller acts like a mini-processor, so the cooler it is, the longer the drive can run before it throttles. Controller chips are usually taller than their NAND flash counterparts, so more of the controller makes contact with the thermal pad/heatsink; NAND chips tend to prefer hotter temps.
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MORE INTAKE
WITH THE AIO INSTALLED, we removed the feet panel and popped in the bottom 140mm fan. This is a neat shot as you can see where the two USB 3.1 ports are housed to the left, with their rubber grommets. This is a departure from the original Shift, which had them on the side of the tower, lacking rubber plugs. If you wanted to go minimal, the section is held on by Phillips screws, so you could remove the lot, and reduce the number of cables needed—ideal for liquid cooling or more cable-management-focused setups. With the fan in place, and secured from inside with the relevant screws, it’s simply a case of popping the feet back into place, making sure to line up the correct end with the PSU cable pass-through location. This is one of the few areas of the chassis with a removable mesh filter.
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A TIGHT SQUEEZE
THIS IS WHERE things get trickier. We’ve loosened the PCIe graphics card cage from the rear of the chassis, there are only two screws holding the PSU in place, and cables are everywhere. This is because we’ve been pushing things back and forth trying to see what fits where. The 120mm Be Quiet! AIO is pushing up against the PSU, so we had to install the cables first, then route them, then secure the PSU in position, bending the pump and its tubes away from the PSU and closer to the radiator in a 90-degree angle. We’ve also had a go at fitting the GPU, and came to the conclusion that the cables need prerouting for the PCIe connectors before we even get close to installing the card in the machine. All of this could have been avoided if we’d have gone with a slimmer SFX PSU.
13 OVERKILL
IS THIS TIGHT? Yes. Does it fit? Also yes. OK, so it’s admittedly very, very, very snug, but we did manage to get the card in the build without too much of a problem. The bracket itself is secured by two screws at this point, one on the side that you can see below, and one in the rear, tying it to the center motherboard tray. The card does bulge out a little at the rightmost end here, but the mesh panel that’s situated on top of it actually features a slight extrusion in the mesh anyway, before it makes contact with the panel, so it never actually touches the card, and the fans spin perfectly. Not too shabby, huh? But, yes, in hindsight, we’d definitely use a slimmer card, time permitting. We’ve also managed to tidy up the bulk of that cable mess fairly well here.
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GPU TIME
IT TOOK US three test-fits to get the graphics card sorted; this shot is after test-fit number two, when we realized we needed to remove the bracket. Because the dimensions are so tight, we can only install the card if the bracket is situated at a 45-degree angle outside the case, then we can plug the power cables in, secure it to the bracket using the included screws, then carefully slide it back in. It’s still a bit of a fumble to get right, but it fits. Another interesting tidbit is the fact the Pure Loop’s two fan headers can be powered by an included SATA cable. One of the fan headers we believe is for the white LED in the CPU block, and the other powers the pump at a fixed RPM. Which saves us running anything directly to the board, and gives us more space to install the cables for our three fans.
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ALL WRAPPED UP
AND THERE YOU HAVE IT: one complete super-smallform-factor overkill VR/gaming build that you can pop in your man-cave or take on the road. Done and dusted. Usually, we’d show you how to install an OS or go over some software elements of the build here, but this time we’ve decided to pick out some highlights. The rear I/O design has always been an epic addition to the Shift series; this panel pops up at the top, and you feed all your peripherals in via the cutout to the right. There’s also plenty of room to run interior cables around there. As you can just about see, we have one of the case fan cables running from one side of the graphics card to the CPU header on the mobo. If you do this, make sure you don’t catch it and rip it out by accident when plugging in other peripherals.