Interview with Sergey Mnev - a professional modder and founder of the Tech MNEV team

Western Digital products are very popular not only among retail consumers and corporate customers, but also among modders. And today you will find truly unusual and interesting material: specially for Habr, we prepared an interview with the founder and head of the Tech MNEV team (formerly Techbeard), specializing in creating custom cases for PCs, Sergey Mnev.

Hello, Sergey! Let's start the conversation a bit from afar. There is a joke: “How to become a programmer? Learn to be a philologist, doctor or lawyer. Start programming. Congratulations! Are you programmer". Hence the question: who are you by education and profession? Was it originally a “techie” or “humanist”?

The joke is quite true. I have two higher educations: “socio-cultural service and tourism” and “clinical psychology”. At the same time, I once worked first in a private computer service in Bratsk, then, when I moved to Krasnoyarsk, I got a job in a company specializing in servicing IT infrastructure of corporate clients. So I’m a self-taught IT specialist and I think that is absolutely normal. It seems to me that the professional qualities of a person are not indicated by crusts, but by practical skills.

Tell me more about your team. By the way, how to: Techbeard or Tech MNEV? How did the hobby for modding begin?

Initially, the project was called Techbeard (that is, “Technical Beard” - I think it’s understandable why), but recently I decided to rename it, so now we always mean exactly like Tech MNEV. Our story began with the site Overclockers.ru. I liked everything related to the computer world, then I got hooked on the topic of modding, I started writing profile articles , and off we go. There I met a very talented 3D engineer Anton Osipov, and we began to do common projects.

By the way, why does Anton prefer to stay in the shade? Where is the video with his participation? What are you hiding from us?

Everything is simple here. Firstly, Anton is a very popular specialist and he sorely lacks time. And secondly, to be honest, acting as a host doesn’t work very well for him (in terms of experiment we tried to record several videos, but it didn’t work out very well), and he doesn’t like to shine in public.

Is modding for your team a hobby or is there a commercial component as well?

Honestly, at one time we had plans to launch our own product line. We started small: they began to produce their own frames for mounting video cards and even sold them at one time. The next step was to become a water cooling system for the CPU, but here we are faced with the harsh truth of life. We went to government agencies, which, in theory, should help small businesses, but did not receive help as such. They tried to find partners in the face of production enterprises, but they put up some crazy price tags even for test samples. In total, it took a year and a half to “go through agony” - and all to no avail. Unfortunately, Russia is not a country where this kind of business can be built. What is the result? The developments have not gone away, and we would still like to realize them, but at this stage it is impossible simply becausewhich is trite to anyone not interested - neither investors nor consumers.

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Yes and no. The problem of modding is that a personal computer is more a consumer topic than, for example, cars. The PC, in principle, is utilitarian, with it you won’t go out to show off in front of others, there isn’t any kind of party here, like the same street racers. A computer is first of all for a loved one. The mass user either does not need this at all (he is only interested in performance, silence, compactness), or there are enough RGB fans on the front panel. And those who are in the topic usually make custom assemblies for themselves. That is, readers of Overclockers or viewers of our channel are not converted into customers: they come for inspiration and exchange of experience.

Well, in Russia it is unpromising to launch, there are not so many potential customers as it might seem at first glance. But here a logical question arises: what if we enter the international arena? Try to establish production through the same China, look for investors in Europe?

We are currently considering launching a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. We have a new housing concept and a test sample will be ready soon. I can’t reveal all the cards yet, I’ll just say that it will be a completely different look at the case for the PC, at what it should be and what it should do.

In general, for ourselves, we decided this way: we do not want to do cheap things. We want to create truly thought-out cases made of high-quality metal (3-4 mm aluminum AMg6), with powder coating, thoughtful cooling, and a convenient layout. But at the same time, we want to create custom cases that could become a full-fledged decor item. We began to treat modding as an art form, however pathetic it may sound. Now all this is in its infancy, but who knows, maybe in the future we will become some kind of IT-artists.

Here you are talking about Kickstarter and the new project. I think, among readers of Habr there are many who wish to support you. Where can all this be tracked?

Tech MNEV Key Representative Offices - YouTube Channel and Instagram. There is still a group on the VKontakte network, but I practically do not do it, so all the news appears on the pipe and in the instagram.

Listen, does modding itself generate any income?

Modding brings fabulous ... expenses. Taking into account the time, materials, manufacturing of test models, some improvements, we always go into minus, since the creation of a custom case is a pleasure, to put it mildly, not cheap. In order not to be unfounded: the budget of two Zeniths amounted to 75 thousand rubles, 120 thousand were spent on the String Theory project, and 40 thousand were spent on Assassin.

Hm, to be honest, I figured it was somehow paying off.

Ultimately, no. Well, of course, some projects are sponsored by component manufacturers, in some cases the same components are used several times (for example, iron from Apex was later useful in the implementation of three other projects), and something is being sold. But in the end, there are always losses. Modding is not a plus, modding is a minus, it is a very expensive hobby that does not generate income.

But, perhaps, the publication on Habré will correct it! When this material comes out, thousands of people will read it. Surely someone will be interested in what you are doing and will write to you in Direct: they say, so and so, you are so cool, make me a cool build. Take on such a private order?

In fact, our subscribers have already written to us with similar offers. We are fully open to cooperation and are always happy to work on an interesting project, but there is a nuance. It’s one thing when a person comes to us and says: “Guys, there is such a budget, I need such a PC to be beautiful, functional, practical.” There are no problems: we create a 3D model, coordinate the details, and proceed to production. Again, as an option, you can order something from us based on existing developments - we will do the same.

But very often we are approached with orders in the style of "I want something, I don’t know what." We do not undertake such work in principle. I will explain why. Designing the housing from scratch takes at least 3 days. I mean 72 hours of net work time. Moreover, it is not a fact that the first time it will turn out a thing suitable for further implementation: for example, we have about a dozen dead projects that did not even go into metal, since at the initial stage it became obvious that they were not viable. And if the customer does not have a clear vision of what he wants to receive, then, in principle, we will not come to anything good. If, in the middle of the work, “what if done, what if removed and what added here”, then this project can be considered obviously futile: you can communicate for a month, six months, a year - and nothing can be done.

Zenit Project: Threadripper and RAID from 8 NVMe SSD WD Black

We talked about the team, it is time to go directly to the hero of the occasion - the Zenit project. How did it begin and how did the idea of ​​creating such a body come about?

I will not deceive: I am a longtime friend of Asus. More precisely, I have very good relations with the people who work there (it all started again from the Overclockers portal and the overclocking party). How good are they? Well, I can call them and say: “Guys, now you have a cool mother coming out. May I take her for a review? ” And they will send it to me, without any problems at all. Actually, this is exactly how I got the ASUS ROG Zenith Extreme Alpha X399 - by the way, the first in Russia. And as you can easily guess by the name, the Zenit project was inspired by Asus products.


In general, a rather interesting story came out with this case. As I said, on average, it takes 72 hours of pure time to design. However, I sketched the Zenith sketch on paper literally three hours: the day before the release, they took off photos of my motherboard and I was so inspired by this product that I immediately issued the concept. As a result, the first version of the hull was built in just two weeks. But the second one took almost a year, but then the whole snag was to polish and finish some parts, which turned out to be rather laborious, since we set ourselves the goal of making Zenit a full-fledged, viable product.

Wow! Ok, the Asus motherboard served as the basis and source of inspiration. And how were other components selected?

We tried to work with a variety of companies (I won’t talk with anyone so that it wouldn’t turn out black PR), we wrote off to the same Overclockers with someone, we got in touch with someone directly. And very often, we received nothing but empty promises. It is not refusals, but unfulfilled promises. That is, it was just like that: it’s like they agreed on everything, like they said to you: “Ok, no question, we’ll do it, give it, send it”. And silence. After a month, two - there is no result. Given how much time and effort is spent on each project, such situations do not go unnoticed. Therefore, we basically do not cooperate with such companies, since now we have partners with whom we can conduct business adequately.

And if we talk about the choice between Intel and AMD ... I myself am not a supporter of the “blue” or “red” camps, these are completely different sides, both are very interesting, each has its own chips. You just need to understand why you need this or that hardware, what tasks it is supposed to solve on it, and then everything falls into place. I think this is the most correct approach. It’s somehow strange to choose one or another platform based on fan feelings, especially since everyone has their own shortcomings. For example, if we talk about RAID from SSD WD Black, which we made at the Zenith, then Threadripper was ideally suited here. However, I still have a specific claim to AMD: this technology is far from the end user. Yes, a rummaging person will do everything without any problems, but for a simple user without basic knowledge it will be difficult, although I thinkA fast RAID array of solid state drives would be very useful to everyone who works with content. In the end, such people are not required to understand computers, and it would be cool if AMD simplified this point: you need RAID, you installed the program, started it, and enjoy it.

, . Western Digital?

In terms of work, everything turned out to be very simple: I got in touch with them, talked about the project, offered to implement it, and implemented it. No expectations and games of silence, as often happens. Why WD? We can say that this is a long-standing love, from the time when I worked at a service center in Bratsk. It so happened that if the hard drive, then necessarily WD, and there have never been any special problems with these hard drives. Here's another point: thanks to the experience of PC service, I know the main HDD sores from different vendors. Almost every company at one time or another had frankly unsuccessful products or devices had weaknesses. Western Digital didn’t have such noticeable jambs. For comparison: the client has a poor-quality power supply, voltage jumps to 12 volts. If there is a screw from WD,then his maximum flies SMART, that the matter is fixable. But another well-known company (again, I will not say that there is no anti-advertising) in this situation, the controller dies. That is, reliability is present.

I myself use WD, and have never noticed any problems. Here I have 12 WD drives from WD with different data: 8 pieces of “blacks” of 2-3 terabytes, a few more “greens” that are no longer being released. Some of them used to work in computers, but now they are used for archives and feel great. By the way, we are now opening a computer club, and there are just WD Black 500s, M.2 which are there. Why did you choose them? Because in terms of price, reliability and performance, everything is more than satisfied (as for me, the most adequate offer now).

Are there really, really no complaints about Western Digital?

I have only positive impressions for the whole time working with this brand, this is personal experience. Of course, on the same Yandex.Market the picture is different, but again all the reviews need to be properly analyzed. Ideally, when you select an SSD or HDD, you need to do this: take, say, four models from different companies that are in the same price category, and compare. Like it or not, it is foolish to demand phenomenal speed from a budget line. Not to mention the fact that a mass product is also a mass one: more devices - more defects. Plus, the curvature of users is added on top. Yes, and the same hard drives - things are quite tender. If these factors are taken into account, everything falls into place.

Although, in general, I have a claim to Western Digital. I believe that they really lack really top-end, image-making solutions in the SSD segment. WD has top disks, top network storages, and it would be cool to see also solid-state drives, let's say, the premium segment. I mean something level 970 Pro. Yes, such decisions are expensive and not everyone needs them. But I'm sure: if Western Digital had created something similar, they would have easily squeezed Samsung out of the market. It would also be great to see something interesting in terms of hybrid drives: at one time WD did a good job developing this area, but now there is nothing to see for new products.

Let's move on from iron directly to Zenith. Tell me, what are the chips of this platform and how is the second version different from the first?

By size, the Zenith is a Midi-Tower, but the case itself is open type with an inclined motherboard. You can install two 2.5-inch drives, four 3.5-inch ones, it supports the installation of 5.25 devices - everything is standard in this regard. A thick 40 mm radiator can be installed on the front panel, and a 360 mm radiator (we installed the Aquacomputer Airplex Radical 2) for water cooling the CPU. In fact, everything is with the technical features.

Although no, there are still chips. Firstly, permanent magnet safety glasses, such fastening itself is our know-how. Secondly, we implemented passive cooling of installed hard drives. Heat is removed from the drives to the case itself through thermal pads (we used Thermal Grizzly with a thickness of 3 mm). We tested it on WD Red Pro and Black: on “reds” it turned out 5–7 degrees lower than under air cooling, and on “blacks” - all 10. But the most important thing is good cooling of the controller and cache. No throttling, which ensures a stable speed.

But, in general, “Zenith” - it’s not only about TTX. It is primarily about design and quality. We do not have cheap materials, we have a solid aluminum frame with a thickness of 3 mm, which can be lifted without problems with one hand. We have high-quality powder coating “Black Silk” (by the way, we repainted the case 4 times, because such paint does not fit well in the places of bends, so we had to remove the defective layers by sandblasting, sand and apply again), we still have copper chrome tubes, not acrylic. In general, “Zenith” - it is about aesthetics. This is a show project, which, with all this, can be a home computer. Well, it's like with expensive wheels for a wheelbarrow: it seems and it is not clear why they are, but damn it, cool!


And the famous “beauty requires sacrifice” - is it not about “Zenith”? I mean, often when manufacturers of cases or finished PCs try to make some kind of design thing, it turns out to be terribly impractical. Without a hammer and file, you can’t put either the motherboard, or shove the disk, it makes noise and stuff like that.

No, it's not about Zenit at all. Technically, he is ready for even a schoolboy to collect it. Of course, instructions for him should be done ... and then you can immediately launch into mass production. On the other hand, the manufacture of “Zenith” is a separate song: there is a lot of carving, a lot of soldering, in general, a lot of handmade. But if we had an order for a batch, I think that I could optimize the design precisely in terms of modularity.

By noise: the configuration we made turned out to be very quiet. Turntables we set the Coolermaster at 1,500 rpm, the pump - Watercool HEATKILLER D5-TOP. All this did a great job with Threadripper, overclocked to 4 GHz, while the noise level was quite comfortable even for an apartment.

Tell me more about RAID itself. Of course, we will not do a guide on setting up the array now, but describe in a nutshell, so that our readers will understand how difficult it is (or vice versa).

Actually, assembling RAID from hard drives on a SATA controller is even more difficult than on solid state drives. The point is pretty simple. We used 8 NVMe SSD WD Black. Each drive uses 4 PCI Express lanes - this means a total of 32. Threadripper has 32 lanes on each side. Accordingly, you need to correctly use 16 lines on the one hand and 16 on the other (or 8 and 8, for example, if there are fewer drives). The main thing is that there is no skew, you need full mirroring: if you put 8 on one side and 4 on the other, then there will be a very strong drop in performance. All this is done in the BIOS. And then you launch the operating system, launch AMD RAIDXpert2, create the required array - and voila, you're done! It turns out very reliable, and most importantly - a very fast storage.


That is, no pitfalls and dances with a tambourine? Any more or less advanced user will cope without problems?

Yes, anyone who understands what an M.2 drive will be able to configure such a RAID. But still you need a little understanding of the topic. As I said, this is just a lack of software from AMD - they don’t have a purely consumer solution in the “clicked style” and it all worked. I had the only problem: Windows 10 did not want to pull up the driver, and because of this, the array could not be used as a system disk. But this is already the jambs of the revision: I ran into problems on the assembly 1803, and fixed it on 1909 - the necessary firewood is pulled automatically.

Do you plan to further develop Zenit? Should the MKIII wait with an even crazier filling?

Zenit is very cool, one of the most successful and quickly implemented projects by us. I consider this case to be almost perfect and fully implemented both as a show project and as a consumer PC. In addition, it has become a valuable base for us in terms of design, working with metal, painting, layout, cooling - that's all. And I would really like to make this project serial. For this, in general, everything is there. But it so happened that no one wants him. “Zenith” - cool, but not massive.

For us as a team, he was left behind. We are moving forward, participating in international modding competitions, and developing new buildings. In light of this, I do not see much reason to reanimate and somehow rethink Zenit. He is in the past, now we have more cool and interesting concepts that are worth it to try to implement them.