Putting it all together is fairly straightforward. We only had to fight a few minor quirks.
I opted for installing the Motherboard first. Despite being a full ATX case the OrigenAE case is still rather cramped. You do notice that once you start installing components. Installing the motherboard works well using a magnetic screwdriver. Putting the Scythe Ninja cooler on top of the CPU proved to be more tricky because of the push pin system. You have almost no space to move with your fingers. So I’d recommend anyone installing the Ninja prior to installing the motherboard in the case.
The combination of the GA7AUM-DS2H Gigabyte board, the OrigenAE S16V and the Ninja makes the choice for an optical drive rather easy. You cannot use a drive with a depth greater than 170mm. I also makes sense to use angled SATA cables and angled SATA power connectors on the optical drive. You can see that fairly well on the pic here how cramped everything is in that setup. Given that the space behind the optical drive is so limited, there is no other way of mounting the CPU fan on the side blowing towards the PSU fan. As I said before, the CPU itself would not really need the fan but the Nvidia chipset is greatful for a bit of airflow. Temperatures drop significantly even tough the fan doesn’t really blow at its cooler directly. One could also stick on a Scythe 40mm fan to the northbridge heatsink directly. But these tiny fans have a tendency to get filled with dust and stop working. So wherever possible I try to avoid them in my builds.
I think installing a 3rd party heatsink on the chipset such as a Thermalright HR-05 would make the CPU fan unnecessary.
Cables from the PSU that are not needed can easily be tucked away between the case wall and the optical drive. This is one spot where there is sort of too much room. Certainly helpful if you don’t have a PSU with modular cables. Currently we have a Zalman fanmate installed to help us find the optimal speed for the CPU fan. I hope during this summer we’ll find out how much airflow is really needed so we can install a fxed resistor or a lower speed fan. One can see that Fanmate cable fairly well it’s not tucked away with cable ties and the like but just thrown in really.
The OrigenAE case comes with some rather large holes with rubber gommets for the 80mm fans on the back. Somebody looking for a quiet system ought to replace the stock fans immediately. They are certainly not bad but just not quiet by our standards. The OrigenAE rubber gommets are rather brittle. We installed the decoupling pieces provided by ichbinleise.ch with the fan leaving the original gommets in place. Otherwirse the holes would have been too large most likely.