It was June of 2024, I’d been aimlessly following Matt around the studio for a couple of months by then, learning about how things work at the studio. We’d been looking at comments on the YouTube videos and found the most commonly asked questions: they’ll be what you expect, ‘will this fit?’, ‘how was the build?’, ‘do you guys test the builds?’. So we decided that I would do a weekly round-up of our build for the website so anyone interested could hopefully find the answers they wanted and perhaps learn a little more about each week's focus product. I suppose the question here is ‘Sam, why are you telling us this?’. Well, the first write-up I dared to publish was focused on one of my favourite case designs, the Jonsbo TK-1, a cuboid ITX chassis with wrap around glass. It’s a beauty of a case, though with the usual size limitations, but it turns out Jonsbo has gone one smaller with the TK-0. It takes everything the TK-1 did so well and makes it more compact. Though as mentioned the TK-1 had size limitations, quite restrictive ones at that! So, is smaller actually a good idea? I suppose that depends on what level of performance you need, or how much you’re willing to compromise. For me, I can make a few compromises to have a smaller system, and this case has become my personal favourite. We’ve been looking for a smaller build to take pride of place in the entertainment centre of Studio B, I think this might just be the one! Let’s get into it!
Case Overview
Matt had the TK-0 shipped in earlier in the week, and knowing my preference for smaller cases and particularly the TK-1 thoughtfully neglected to mention that this was the next project! I’m not mad, if anything I was quite excited when he said. He came into the office carrying the boxed unit under one arm, it was super small and light for a PC case. Once we’d released it from its container it struck us exactly how small this case is. It stands at 235mm(W) x 250mm(D) x 280mm(H) which is quite a bit smaller than its bigger brother. Saying how much smaller it is in mm wouldn’t really do it justice, and sadly we don’t have a TK1 in the studio for pictures any longer, but trust me, it’s tiny!
The design language has stayed the same, just shrunken. Carried over is the double curved wrap around tempered glass, which on the black model has a slight tint. This is the signature of the TK line, and one of the reasons I like it so much! It also remains a dual chambered case, which is impressive at this size. There is one major addition to the design. Jonsbo are now seemingly embracing the wood clad case trend. The IO panel is a very thick slab of what we believe to be a type of hardwood - Jonsbo doesn't specify what wood it is. This is the thickest wood panel we’ve seen used so far at around 16mm. The grain running through our unit is very pretty. It’s a nice addition to the design, it looks great in standard orientation, but the TK0 has removable feet which can be attached to the back panel to lay the case flat. In this orientation the wood panel is truly at its best!
So, hardware support, the area where we need to make compromises, and our biggest worry when it comes to building a system with longevity. Here are the headlines:
Motherboard: Mini-ITX
Graphics Card: maximum 230mm
Radiator Support: none
Air Cooler: Max height 135mm
Fans: top - 1 x 120mm or 140mm, rear - 2 x 90mm, bottom 1 x 120mm or 140mm
Power Supply: SFX up to 160mm
We’re looking at very minimal cooling support, a maximum 2 fan graphics card, a SFX power supply (which are almost always more expensive than ATX PS2) and a smaller air cooler - which limits which CPU can be safely used. This is going to be interesting, and I’m curious to see what the cost of the build comes to!
Parts List
How Was The Build?
Stripping down the case was a familiar experience, the top panel slid off, though it is pretty firmly in place. Once removed it reveals 2 screws to remove the glass side, which is a better solution to the massive screws on the side keeping the TK-1 glass in place. The rear panel has 4 screws to reveal the second chamber. It’s very spacious for its size, which should make cable management a breeze - more on that later. To use the chassis in the laid down orientation the feet must be screwed on to the back through the holes used for securing the back, it’s a novel solution which works, but feels a bit like an afterthought.
Motherboard assembly was the usual straightforward experience, though it felt odd using a low profile air cooler. The ID-Cooling IS-55 has performed well for us in the past in builds with more modest CPU’s so we’re not too concerned, but we decided to stick on a Noctua NF-A12 25 for two reasons: to keep the build as quiet as possible and also for aesthetic purposes. Once the motherboard was in we were almost done. Filming a build can usually take 8 hours, at this point we’re about 90minutes in, score!
Fitting the power supply required removal of 3 screws to release a bracket to hold the unit, which was simple enough. We had decided to use the FSP Dagger as it was small but powerful enough for the build, but it came with 1 drawback, the cables are the opposite of aesthetic! So we had to use extensions to keep everything looking clean - so I’m very happy this is dual chambered so there is somewhere to manage the excess.
The graphics card went in just fine, though it looked as if the glass wouldn’t fit with it in. There was a big sigh of relief when we test fitted the glass and we had about 3mm of clearance!
With all that done it was time for cable management. We don’t typically advocate for the use of cable extensions with small form factor builds, but the Jonsbo TK0 has the space to store them. There is a glaring omission here though, not only is there no pre-routed cable channel despite there being space for one, there are also no cable anchor points. I had to wrap the cables with velcro in a way that kept just enough tension to keep them in place. It all worked out in the end, but some anchor points wouldn’t go a miss on any future variants.
Airflow
As we are relying on the graphics card and air cooler to handle their own intake we knew going in that the airflow visualisation would be a bit of a dog to get right. Showing the graphics card pulling in air was easy enough as there is plenty of space under the case to pull the air, the big issue was always going to be showing how the CPU cooling worked. Air would be pulled in through the side, but low profile coolers tend to create turbulence as they exhaust mainly vertically, but it spills in all directions. This effect would then knock away some of the intake. It could be somewhat solved by the addition of 2 x 90mm intake fans on the rear, but given the CPU’s thermal demands we didn’t think it necessary. Testing showed what we thought to be true, intake is far from perfect, but should be more than sufficient to keep the system cool.
Performance
Performance testing seems to agree with our thoughts on the airflow visualisation. The turbulence created by the low profile cooler isn’t ideal, but the CPU and GPU manage to stay sufficiently cool under load. The fans on the coolers do ramp up fairly high, but we knew this would be the case going in and used Noctua Chromax fans to help alleviate the noise created. It all worked well in 1080p gaming, the fans were audible but never distracting. Full results:
Ambient Temp 20.9°C
Cyberpunk 2077
1920 x 1080
Location: Ghost Town - Afterlife
Quick Preset: Ray Tracing Low
Vsync: Off
77-108 FPS
79°C CPU
70°C GPU
Quick Preset: Medium
Vsync: Off
105-120 FPS
77°C CPU
69°C GPU
Furmark 2
1920 x 1080
146 FPS average
68°C Temp
82°C Hotspot
CPU-Z
Max Temp 79°C
Exhaust fan ~1500 rpm
CPU fan ~ 2000 rpm
CPU Power Draw 83.8
Roundup
This build has turned out to be everything I thought it would be, small, powerful for its size and gorgeous. It’s not going to be pulling high frame rates at 4K, but nor is it meant to. The Jonsbo TK-0 exists for lower powered builds and should be treated as such. The build we put together could hardly be considered a ‘budget build’ but equally at less than $1500 for a small form factor PC with all brand new, current parts it does offer good value. The build process was extremely simple, which is uncommon when dealing with small PC’s and we’re pretty sure this will take pride of place in studio B for a bit of casual gaming during our down time! If you haven’t seen it yet check out the full build video below.
Blog post written by Sam Thwaytes
Full Video Below:
Affiliate Links
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US Links
Case: https://amzn.to/432Ityt
MOBO: https://amzn.to/41c2Pmk
Cooler: https://amzn.to/437JjK5
Fan 120mm: https://amzn.to/4gPx8oz
Fan 140mm: https://amzn.to/4hK3DWz
Storage: https://amzn.to/4i3xf0E
Cable Extensions: https://amzn.to/3Xb1hYD
Keyboard: Drop x Noctua
Mouse: https://amzn.to/3XDtZBJ
Monitor: https://amzn.to/4hrs5vP
Espresso Machine: https://amzn.to/4apOwOY
UK Links
Case: not available
MOBO: https://amzn.to/3CZ4R14
Cooler: https://amzn.to/3ERsWHF
Fan 120mm: https://amzn.to/3EQ1xWD
Fan 140mm: https://amzn.to/4beW5ZA
Storage: https://amzn.to/41mlixH
Cable Extensions: https://amzn.to/41qwnxM
Keyboard: Drop x Noctua
Mouse: https://amzn.to/4hPrHqX
Lamp: https://amzn.to/4jBUbWs
Monitor: https://amzn.to/4hNz41P
Espresso Machine: https://amzn.to/40lcTsK
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