When I first built this PC, I noted that some of my parts selections didn't play as nicely together as I had hoped. Everything worked, mind you, but some smarter choices could have been made to avoid certain caveats of the ultra-small form factor.

The biggest "mistake" in the original build was going for an H470 chipset motherboard. As many of you probably know, until recently, Intel had a habit of artificially limiting RAM overclocking on cheaper chipsets, and that meant I couldn't run my 3200 MHz RAM at its advertised speed. In ATX land this was never an issue for me since cheap boards abound even with higher tier chipsets. On this build, I went for the cheaper chipset and learned the hard way.

Well, now that some time has passed, the price of used Z490 motherboards has come down and I decided it was time to fix that. I considered doing a full-on upgrade, but honestly, no other board on the market quite met my needs. I really liked the design, dual M.2 slots, and plethora of USB 3 ports on the ASRock board I already had. I really just wanted the chipset. While I was at it, I replaced the onboard WiFi with an Intel AX200 for an additional bit of oomph.

Another aspect of this build I decided needed more attention was the CPU. While I've had no issues running an Intel i5 10600K, the reality is it's too power-hungry for my cooler to keep up with. Until now, I've mitigated that by disabling Turbo Boost and limiting frequency to 3.7 GHz in my Windows power plan. It strikes a reasonable balance between performance and noise, but heat is not entirely under control. Certain applications can still push the CPU up to 90 C, which is fine, but not ideal. In the end, I made a slight downgrade to an i5 10400 for its much lower power consumption and therefore heat generation. The difference in performance is nonexistent since I was already limiting the 10600K, and now temps stay much more under control.

While it might seem slightly odd to go out of my way to pair a non-K CPU with a Z490 chipset, the system is overall much more balanced now while also gaining some new functionality. It also cost very little to do now that the parts are technically out of date, although still very capable. I consider this one a win, and now I know some extra details to look out for next time I spec a system in this chassis!

So, I previously received quite a few questions about my original review of the PSU chosen for this build. I initially said it was near silent, and that was true... outside the case. Once the case arrived and all the components went inside, things got noticeably louder, but still manageable with fine tuning. Only while gaming or under other intensive loads did the PC rival an OG PS4 for its noise. Not ideal, but I was satisfied.

Then recently, I started to notice something weird: my temps would sometimes go WAY high, up into the 90s, with seemingly no relation to CPU or GPU utilization. At first I assumed bad thermal paste, so I replaced it with something better. Temps went down 10C at idle, but randomly would still hit the 90s. As you can imagine, this also made fans CRANK. It was a jet engine.

After some trial and error, I figured it out: it wasn't utilization that triggered the spikes, it was power draw. My parts list was pretty much maxing out a 500w PSU (with reasonable efficiency expectations), which meant heat its poor little fan couldn't keep up with. And since the Metalfish S3 is such a tiny space, heat at the bottom will only rise directly into the other components.

After researching my options, I came across a Chinese manufacturer creating custom power supplies based on the same designs as the Enhance 7660B 1U PSU, but with modular cables, Noctua fans, and even a 700w version. Say hello to the ExtremeCat 7660B.

Unfortunately, I can't update my list to a custom part from a Taobao seller, but let me tell you, this is an absolutely critical piece of the puzzle! I was shocked when I fired it up for the first time to find my whole PC literally silent for the first time. And even while gaming, it's a soft hum instead of a roar. It's seriously just as quiet as when I ran the parts outside the case! Even better, I now have more wattage to work with. As soon as a 3060ti becomes available in mini-ITX form factor, I'll be ready!

I still think the FSP FlexGuru is a solid PSU, but it seems to depend heavily on the context you're using it in. Based on other's experiences, it seems to need good airflow to maintain its performance, so the smaller the case, the louder it'll be.