Hey all, I've got a spare 5930k sitting around (long story after RMA's, horrible Asus customer support, etc.) and was thinking that I could finally put my Server 2012 license I obtained from school to use by building a home server that can act as a NAS and whatever else I can think of (maybe Plex server at some point), and I'm having a hard time finding the right combination of case and cooling as I'm wanting to do this in a Mini-ITX form factor to conserve space. I've been eyeing cases like the Silverstone DS380B which support Mini-ITX and 8 hot-swap bays, however cases like this seem to be pretty restrictive on CPU cooler height with this one being 57mm tall.
The other component to this is that there's basically only one Mini-ITX x99 motherboard: the ASRock X99E-ITX/ac. This motherboard uses a Narrow ILM for the CPU mount, meaning the options for a cooler are even more limited. I found that Noctua sells a cooler that natively supports 2011-3 narrow ILM however it's 125mm tall, which I can't find a case that would fit that tall of a cooler. The motherboard does come with a cooler specifically for it, however I've read that it sounds like a jet engine and doesn't perform all that well, so that's the main reason I was hoping for a 3rd party option.
I won't be overclocking and at most the PCI-E slot will see a RAID card of some sorts, so no need to worry about powering a video card. Would anybody have any input for where I can look for case and CPU cooler that would fit what I'm looking? Thanks in advance!
Bumping this thread as I'm still figuring out what I'd like to do here
What about a Fractal Design Node 304? It's small, but it still supports standard sized parts. Alternatively, a small AIO would also fit in the case pretty easily. It doesn't have hot swap, but would you really ever need that in a home environment?
If you really want hot swap bays, you can buy a separate drive cage to install in 5.25" bays. That opens up a few more options.
A quick browse makes the iStarUSA S-917 look like a good candidate for that. Combined with the drive cage(s) though it is rather expensive by comparison.
My apologies; I didn't see your thread until you bumped it. I think that the DS380B will work out fine. As @anon59440203 suggested, use an AIO instead of an air cooler and clearance shouldn't be a problem. ASRock recommends the CM Seidon 120, but most recent Corsair AIOs work. Linus used an H80i on his X99E-ITX build here. He had to replace one of the socket screws with a lower-profile screw (looks like a 10 mm M4) to accommodate the bent hoses, but it works fine. I'm eyeballing it, but it looks like if you put an H80i or something similar on the rear 120mm mount in exhaust, it should work.
As an aside, only a few of Noctua's coolers officially work with Narrow-ILM, but in reality, almost all of them can be adapted with the NM-XFB4 Narrow-ILM Adapter Bracket Kit. I myself used the kit to adapt a large NH-C14 cooler to use on this board. Now, the larger coolers can occlude the bracket and make reaching the screws a bit of a challenge, but it is certainly doable. So, if you did find a case with more clearance and wanted to use a larger Noctua cooler (even something like a D15), it's entirely possible. When you place your order with Noctua, simply send them an e-mail and request the bracket. They provided mine free of charge.
Finally, I'm sure you're aware of this, but the 5930K is such a fantastic chip, it would be a shame to let both its overclocking capabilities and its PCIe lanes go to waste. If it's a NAS / Plex machine you're after, you could sell the 5930K and save quite a bit of money on the machine by going with a less-powerful chip. Even a 5820K would give you everything you need and save you ~200 bucks. I'm sure you've considered this, but just giving you my two cents.
I appreciate all of the replies, however it appears a slight hiccup in my initial plans may change what I'm going to end up doing; the Asrock x99 ITX board which was going to be the whole center of how I can make such a compact and powerful server does not support Windows Server 2012, more specifically the network adapter used in this board seems to be a huge pain if not impossible to get a working driver going in Server 2012. I may end up going with a mATX build instead, which would open up my case and cooler options substantially.
But here's another idea I had; I currently have a HTPC using my older i7 2700k, 8GB DDR3, and GTX 680. If I were to replace the cpu/ram/motherboard with the 5930k I have, the Asrock x99 ITX board, and some DDR4, I could have the absolute most ridiculously overpowered HTPC out there lol. I could even throw in one of the 2x GTX 980s I have in my main rig if I'm able to upgrade my main rig to Pascal when it launches (I do do some gaming on my HTPC with Steam installed, would be nice to play games like GTA5 or Witcher 3 on the big screen natively without having to rely on In Home Streaming). I could then put the 2700k and accompanying mobo/ram to use in a server/nas build that I guess would be a bit more reasonable...
Otherwise, I'd really like to put this powerful chip to use somehow if anyone else has any project recommendations instead of simply selling it.