@GreiverBlade You know, I hate being wrong, but I think I'm gonna have to admit that you're a lot smarter than I in picking the Alpha over something like I am doing. It truly is a travel-portable desktop.
At the end of the day, this thing is
heavy. "Oh, but it has such a thick front aluminium panel that it must be like carrying around a lead weight." Alright then, I'll swap that D9L for a L9i and move the thing to a smaller and lighter SG05, and I can kiss goodbye to my 4790K in the process. Why? Because without severe undervolting and underclocking, and between it and the ST45SF-G fighting for air, there's no way a 4790K is going to stay under 80 degrees at 90%+ load, and definitely not with a high-end video card dumping heat into the case. Why not an AIO, then, if a L9i can't cut it? Because not everyone at CATSA, TSA and Border Force knows what a liquid cooler is (and has the patience to hear you out on what it is), and it probably isn't in the slightest bit smart in the face of tightening regulations regarding carry-on liquids. While we're on the topic of high-end video cards, all these open cooler designs just dump heat straight into the case. What about blowers, you ask? Blowers are air-starved no less than other coolers, pressed up against those side panels, and if you don't believe me, take temperatures with the case top on/off on the SG05 and SG08 and you'll soon see what I mean. It'll work, but it's going to howl like a banshee.
While we're on the topic of blowers, blowers also tend to be very long cards. What's the issue here? Well, if you have a really long card, sure it "fits" when you're comparing it to the case dimensions on paper, but you're going to be using a non-modular PSU in order to fit the card. What does this mean? This means that the end of the card likely butts up against the mass of cables coming out of the PSU. That's a problem. Furthermore, a long card might fit but if it has a backplate, you either have to ditch the backplate or tape up the PSU using electrical tape and hope that jamming the card in there doesn't bend the PCB of the card/short it. So you manage to fit it all in. The case is horizontally oriented, so has the weight of the card caused severe sag in the PCIe slot area of the motherboard? Does it need a little round rubber pad in there to support the motherboard? And if you value your very expensive video card and most likely very expensive motherboard, you're going to want to remove that card and store it somewhere else for the trip, where it might be subject to horrid forces parallel to the motherboard. "Well just use an SG05". That case has its own limitations and drawbacks and in all likelihood your very long card won't even fit in the SG05. "Buy an NCase M1 then". In all likelihood, that thing is probably even heavier than the SG08 with its all-aluminium construction, it's not widely available, and it is ridiculously expensive. It's also so wide when placed on its side in the 1510 that I don't think pluck foam can even accommodate it. "Buy something like the SG08 but larger like the Cougar QBX". Good luck trying to fit that thing into a protective carry-on piece of luggage when the SG08 sits at the absolute maximum.
I don't even know how much longer I'm going to be able to take this rig on trips. Virtually every airline in the world has jumped to the new "standard", comprising the FAA standard carry-on and a ridiculous weight limit of between 5kg and 10kg. Are you joking me? What are we all nowadays, starved and unable to lift 15kg over our heads and into the overhead bin, over the course of 5 seconds? As some miserly airline counter staff would say, "you can't have such heavy items up there because it would cause serious injury if it fell down". By that reasoning, we wouldn't be able to fit anything in the overhead bin with the exception of purses and tiny backpacks because anything heavier could potentially break someone's neck or cause some other upper body serious injury. Tell that to BA and their 51lb (23kg) weight limit on
each of your carry-on items. I'm guessing that one of those luggage items would flatten someone into a pancake?
I love my 1510 because it's tough, secure, reliable and works for many other purposes such as securing my photography equipment, but it requires way too much modification in order for me to feel reassured of my PC's safety. Why's that, you ask? With a D9L and video card dangling off the motherboard, even with the protection of the 1510's pluck foam, it's not pleasant to roll around on those wheels of the 1510. They're ball-bearing wheels but they feel as if they're made of rock. They offer no cushioning whatsoever, and the unholy loudness of these wheels on any uneven hard surface is a testament to this. Those vibrations are horribly bad for everything inside the PC, so I end up carrying the case by the large handle, and it sucks. It sucks to have to carry 28lb in one hand, through the airport (which probably involves over a kilometre or a couple of kilometres of walking from the check-in counter to the gate). The only options here are to find something like the RucPac (which is a ripoff and will never earn my money) or a B&W backpack system (which, through a bit of creative thinking, does hold a 1510 just fine) or find another similarly-sized suitcase. But with that kind of suitcase, you're sacrificing a ton of protection that the 1510 + foam affords. That foam is far more effective than layers of clothes; in the end, layers of clothes just compress to become hard as rock. And that's a lot of $$$ worth of PC that's going into a cheap suitcase.
I'm not sure why I decided on the i3-4160 and R7 265 originally. I should have just gone with an A10-7800 in an SG05, with a L9a to top it off. It would have been so much easier without the hassle of dealing with a video card. People (formerly me, in some ways) who believe in cramming every bit of power into a PC (with graphical requirements that GT3e cannot satisfy) that fits in an aircraft cabin should probably just look into building an all-powerful rig and keeping it in one place. Mistakes were made, and lessons were learned. I don't think I'm going to make these mistakes ever again.
![[Ion]](https://tpucdn.com/forums/data/avatars/l/75/75675.jpg?1443792369){kind=avatar}
In the name of your mice's teflon feet I command you to buy a mousepad right meow!
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sorry for the joke)
) my etailer just happened to have only Hydronaut when i needed some new TIM
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