New Chassis/Scratch Build Recommendations

CriticalConsumer said:
If you are going for the bottom fan, please ensure you use a filter :)
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Filters are already on ALL inptakes as I said earlier, even on the PSU intake. And with no fans extracting air the positive pressure will keep everything nice and clean inside :D Exhaust air will go out the top (which can take 3x140 fans if I want it to) and rear.
 
Ok so you got the PSU fan taking in fresh air from the bottom and sputting it out the back correct?
3 front intake fans, now the bottom 2 are pushing directly through your HDDs and you will have some normal disk ones which can get quite hot,
The GPU will make a sort of ceiling and you could end up with a hot pocket of air around your north bridge and ram.
The bottom intake could help to assist this air on it's way up and out. Even if it is a slow and quiet 900rpm fan it'll do the trick.
 
PSU does the usual intake at the bottom, out at the back without any air from anywhere else.
Only the bottom fan goes through the (single) HDDs, the middle and top fans dont really cool anything (reservoir and pump are in their path). So the middle one should pass over RAM ond mobo power heatsinks and top one should cool the northbride and feed an air cooled GPU.
Thinking I'm gonna stick with the bottom fan though. Little bit more cooling + better to have a case with a little spare room (9% of the volume is free currently) than to try squash everything in. Especially with the master plan being to resleeve the PSU wiring which makes the wiring take up more space than usual.
 
Ok MyBB, comment now! :D Planning on ordering everything this week so time is short

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I quite like the hexes everywhere, it agrees with my engineering side :) Tried to make it a bit random (except at the front) so that it looks a little bit more interesting. That blank area at the top front will likely have a fill port put in, and possibly some sort of logo as well (ie it wont look as empty as it does here).
 
I like the design, looks very functional and well laid out.
1 question. Is it open by the hdd bays? so they hot-swappable or is there perspex there?
 
Looks friggen sweet dude! :D

Are you going to have two top-mounted exhaust fans? 140mm?

If so then I approve, as hot-air rises and all that :p Much more effective than rear-exhaust IMO
 
nakedpeanut said:
I like the design, looks very functional and well laid out.
1 question. Is it open by the hdd bays? so they hot-swappable or is there perspex there?
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Only around 9% "wasted" space, so very functional :p The opening is 3x 5.25 bays (DVD, fan control, power buttons/USB). Max 2 HDDs squish in below that, with another 1 exposed above that. But the top slot will be reserved for a backlit SSD tray thingy :D

Ono'rach said:
Looks friggen sweet dude! :D

Are you going to have two top-mounted exhaust fans? 140mm?

If so then I approve, as hot-air rises and all that :p Much more effective than rear-exhaust IMO
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Thanks, hoping it looks as good in real life too! Since I'll be water cooling I'm not putting fans up top, the 4 intakes (3 front, 1 bottom) will create more than enough positive pressure inside the case to force the hot air out. I did however make sure that there is space for 2x140mm fans up top, just in case ;) PS - the hot air rises thing is actually not that much of an issue, any modern day fan creates more than enough airflow to overcome the relatively small upward velocity of ±75° air. But it is part of the idea I'm going for :p
 
Archer said:
Thanks, hoping it looks as good in real life too! Since I'll be water cooling I'm not putting fans up top, the 4 intakes (3 front, 1 bottom) will create more than enough positive pressure inside the case to force the hot air out. I did however make sure that there is space for 2x140mm fans up top, just in case ;) PS - the hot air rises thing is actually not that much of an issue, any modern day fan creates more than enough airflow to overcome the relatively small upward velocity of ±75° air. But it is part of the idea I'm going for :p
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Ah ok, I've never seen a case without exhaust fans actually, so that is pretty interesting :)

I was reading a huge debate on overclock.net about what is better for airflow: positive or negative pressure; ie more exhaust or more intake fans. SUPER NERDY stuff, but I found it interesting :p

What fans are you planning on using? I bought a couple of these bad boys. They move an incredible amount of air, but are a bit on the noisy side :/ The one is connected to the motherboard fan connector jobbie and the other is running at 50% to keep the noise down, but they still work great :)

What water-cooling are you going to be using?
 
Positive pressure is better from a dust point of view since you only need to filter your intakes. Negative pressure you need to filter every little tiny opening else you'll be getting tons of dust in.

Actually not 100% decided on the fans yet. Noiseblockers XK2, Prolimatech Blue Vortex, Enermax TB are the likely ones I'll be going for. Enermax ($15) is quietest, but also moves the least air, might as well go for Thermal X Silent. NBs are the best but cost $20-25 depending on model. Blue Vortex makes little less noise than NB, apparently moves the same air and costs less. So its my number one for now. Just wish I could get a review of it with air pressure and airflow stats.

Water cooling will be 250mm reservoir with likely a MCP655 (or equivalent) pump, 3x140 radiator EK CPU + GPU block. And if I win the lotto I'll add in a motherboard block :p

czc said:
Nice one there Archer, what program did you use to design it?
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Same thing I use at work - NX. Doesnt do nice renders though, and havent found a free render program that works with it either, sucks. Tried Google Sketchup but that was too basic after being used to NX. SolidWorks works good too (and has a pretty dam decent render kit), but it has some minor differences that make it frustrating for me.
 
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Archer said:
Positive pressure is better from a dust point of view since you only need to filter your intakes. Negative pressure you need to filter every little tiny opening else you'll be getting tons of dust in.

Actually not 100% decided on the fans yet. Noiseblockers XK2, Prolimatech Blue Vortex, Enermax TB are the likely ones I'll be going for. Enermax ($15) is quietest, but also moves the least air, might as well go for Thermal X Silent. NBs are the best but cost $20-25 depending on model. Blue Vortex makes little less noise than NB, apparently moves the same air and costs less. So its my number one for now. Just wish I could get a review of it with air pressure and airflow stats.

Water cooling will be 250mm reservoir with likely a MCP655 (or equivalent) pump, 3x140 radiator EK CPU + GPU block. And if I win the lotto I'll add in a motherboard block :p
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Yeah that makes sense :) I have three intake and two exhaust, so its more or less equal.

Here is quite a cool group test of case fans if you are interested : Linky

Unfortunately none of the fans you listed were tested :(
 
Anyone else have an idea or comment? One way or another I'm sending off the drawings tonight so after today there is no turning back!
 
I was thinking the other day about how nice it is to work with plexiglass / perspex when you have the right tools, to fold it and then design some really nice case panels. It would mostly only be for looks though. Also have you taken into consideration vibration caused by all the fans?
 
axon1988 said:
I was thinking the other day about how nice it is to work with plexiglass / perspex when you have the right tools, to fold it and then design some really nice case panels. It would mostly only be for looks though. Also have you taken into consideration vibration caused by all the fans?
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Dont have any of the right tools for that, and I'm definately not patient enough to bend perspex with a hair dryer/heatgun :p
Fans will be mounted as is to see how much of a noise they make. If its too much then I'll be adding in rubber washers which I've left more than enough space for. I dont anticipate much vibration since they'll be fasted to roughly 2kg (radiator + water)
 
Sounds like a super solid plan then. I'm honestly jealous of this! Hopefully the end product would be 100 times better then you planned it.
 
Ono'rach said:
How are you going to organize the cabling? Do you have a system in place for cable management?
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Well... dam this is going to be tricky to explain with words only :p ...
You cant quite see it in the pics but basically right next to the PSU is a nice big cutout that leads to the back of the mobo tray. From there the CPU power goes on its own to the rear of the case so thats easy. Next is the 24pin mobo connector which will be laid flat (2x12) instead of the usual round bundle. That pops out exactly where needed near the middle. It will likely need a few mount points to keep it tame in which case I'll used cable tie mounts or mini p-clamps. Next is the gpu power which will route very similar to the mobo 24 pin. HDD, fans, DVD etc will all route at the bottom of the case past the back of the HDDs. Fans actually just plug into the fan controller, which will therefore need one 4 pin power connector from the PSU. Power/reset/other small cables have a cutout exactly where needed as well so they disappear behind the mobo tray instantly. What have I left out?

And I've had to postpone this project (again) :mad: Wifes car decided to go nuclear yesterday, so first need to see how much that comes to :cry:
 
Archer said:
Well... dam this is going to be tricky to explain with words only :p ...
You cant quite see it in the pics but basically right next to the PSU is a nice big cutout that leads to the back of the mobo tray. From there the CPU power goes on its own to the rear of the case so thats easy. Next is the 24pin mobo connector which will be laid flat (2x12) instead of the usual round bundle. That pops out exactly where needed near the middle. It will likely need a few mount points to keep it tame in which case I'll used cable tie mounts or mini p-clamps. Next is the gpu power which will route very similar to the mobo 24 pin. HDD, fans, DVD etc will all route at the bottom of the case past the back of the HDDs. Fans actually just plug into the fan controller, which will therefore need one 4 pin power connector from the PSU. Power/reset/other small cables have a cutout exactly where needed as well so they disappear behind the mobo tray instantly. What have I left out?

\
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Haha, the only thing that I was going to suggest was a clever cable-management system to keep the cabling nice and uncluttered, but you are on top of that it seems :)

Archer said:
And I've had to postpone this project (again) :mad: Wifes car decided to go nuclear yesterday, so first need to see how much that comes to :cry:
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Oh no, I'm sorry Arch, that really sucks :(

What car and what went wrong? I hope its not going to be too expensive :(
 
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