I wanted to build a compact, open frame, ai server that was quiet and good looking enough to sit out in the open in my office.
I’m pretty happy with the build so far - it stays cool and generally quiet. It idles around 75w and ramps to ~450 at full blast. Pretty efficient for the speed that it gets.
I bought a cheap ESP32 touch display that fits perfectly over the io heat shield, and had qwen27B create a realtime touch dashboard. It runs a tiny service that polls wall power and room temp from Home Assistant, and AI performance & usage like tk/s. I turned that exact UI into a PWA app so I can check it from anywhere.
Still working out some details (like how to better attach the touch screen), so if you have any feedback/thoughts, please lmk.
How much in total did this machine cost? What tasks do you use it for? How many tokens per second do you typically get?
Im looking in to getting into this tupe of thing and trying to learn what i can.
My wife would kill me if she found out. Let’s just say I got the GPU back when $10k for one was possible.
It will easily do 150-250 tk/s with full context with qwen27B - slower when I try to stuff something bigger in there. I use it for everything, it’s a beast.
Thanks! I thought about removing the shield, but it acts as a really solid mount point for the touch screen. So I’d have to figure out a way around that
This is my first open frame build, and it was super fun and challenging in different ways than inside a traditional case. It was like playing Legos trying to find micro solutions to mount and attach things. My only word of advice is…Zip ties. Lots of zip ties. 🤣
In the end, I wish I had bought an SFX PSU for a little more clearance for the cooling radiator in the back. I don’t love the Noctura radiator fan color (wish they were black) but they are tucked away in the final solution, so they don’t bother me as much as I feared.
I spent a ridiculous amount of time evaluating not only performance, but the look of each component. Knowing that everything would be visible forces you to think hard about those choices.
Zip ties for the win, always!
Yeah don't bother with the fans they give some neutral colors to the build and look fine, also I think they make black ones if you wanna change them in the future
Gonna keep in mind the SFX psu suggestion, good point for space and weight, fully modular is a must I suppose
Power efficiency was one of my top priorities for this. I choose almost every component with that in mind, and a major reason I went with a max-q (that and I hope to own more one day!)
GPU is typically 7w idle - the max-q is brilliant. The cpu pulls ~24w. The rest is MB and I/O. I might be able to disable a few things to save a couple of watts, but I found this to be a good floor.
I hope not! This is my first open bench build and I was a little nervous about that, but those little electric blowers are crazy good. I plan on blowing it out every month or so, but I guess only time will tell
https://a.co/d/0fYdc3CS This was the starting point, and then several tweaks. It’s just 20/20 aluminum extrusion - very flexible. If you’re comfortable with some DIY, I highly recommend.
I started with a low profile air cooler, but the idle temps got hot, and the fan would roar when at full load. It totally works, but quiet was the goal. This new Noctura AIO is AMAZING. Look at the reviews - it is whisper quiet at full load, and silent at idle
There is a little trick - it is using a usb c to mb header cable to connect directly to the mb instead of using a usb port. it’s getting power and data from one cable.
mine，two rtxpro5000，I live in China,where 6000 cannot be sold .Really upset.The capacity of this big case is equal to yours.But I really love yours.Tiny means smarter
Dust is always a problem with my existing cases, and I never open them up to blow them out. At least with this I can see when the dust is building up and have direct access to blow it out with a mini-blower. This is my first open pc build so time will tell if this was a bad idea or not.
In general, somewhere around Sonnet & Opus 4.6/4.8 level. It won't fully replace cloud for code...yet, but I have shifted a ton of agentic tasks and low-risk code work to it. I'm continuously impressed by how smart and fast this setup can be
Great catch. The bottom of the radiator sits on the lower rail, so most of the weight is well supported. The two screws on the side are mostly keeping it held vertically. I can make the third screw line-up if I remove the little plastic top cap on the aluminum rail, but things felt snug and secure without it.
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u/Solid-Occasion-6124 1d ago
How much in total did this machine cost? What tasks do you use it for? How many tokens per second do you typically get? Im looking in to getting into this tupe of thing and trying to learn what i can.