Building a gaming computer...again

Syndil

Finally took pics of my rig. Was upgrading the HDDs so I figured it was a good time to snap some pics.

Silverstone SG04-FH



Side view. This vent will be covered with a sheet of steel backed with dense foam (neoprene) to reduce noise. The case is built so that you can situate the PSU so that it intakes from this side vent or from inside the case. I have it sucking air directly from above the CPU, so the side vent is pretty much not used.



Side panel removed. Free space? HA! Actually there is some, but it's underneath what you can see here.



Bottom bracket removed. Bottom bracket has a shelf to help support the PSU, and also contains a single 3.5" HDD bay. I have installed two 2.5" HDDs in this bay in RAID1 as my media drive.



PSU removed, getting a look at what's underneath. Scythe Big Shuriken 2 low-profile CPU cooler on the i5.



View of the entire case with the PSU removed. There are two intake fans on the front of the case, covered by a door, lined with neoprene (added by me). Neoprene is not cheap, but it's better than the low-density open-cell foam that most PC mod places sell as noise-blocking material.



Bottom of the case separates from the rest of the case to reveal...



The main two HDDs in RAID0. You can also see the intake fan of the video card in this shot. I specifically went with this card so that the fan would intake from inside the case and blow it out the rear, unlike some cards which just stir air around the card. That's one of the two case fans directly to the right of the graphics card.



Here's a list of everything that's in this SFF case:

Asus P8Z77-M Pro motherboard
Intel i5 3570K
G. Skill Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1866
HIPER Type M HPU-4M880 880W ATX12V PSU
EVGA 02G-P4-2660-KR GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional
Vista View DA-1N1-E Saber Combo Analog/Digital PCIe TV Tuner Card
SanDisk ReadyCache SDSSDRC-032G-G26 2.5" 32GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) mounted above the DVD drive
2x 3.5" HDDs in RAID0
2x 2.5" HDDs in RAID1
2x Arctic Cooling F12 PWM Fluid Dynamic Bearing Case Fan
LG DVD burner
4-port USB slot plate adapter
And a whoooole lot of cable mods which are pretty much invisible, but were necessary for getting everything where it needed to be in this case. There was a lot of cable shortening, then cutting the netting, re-heat-shrinking the netting over the shorter cable, soldering new leads onto the ends, etc.

Entire machine weighs 29 lbs.

From the pics, you might assume airflow would be an issue, but it's not. It's impossible to photograph now that the machine is built, but most of the cables (all but the PSU) are routed in channels around the two intake fans. It's like a sandwich of just enough free space between a whole lot of computer components. Right now the machine is idling with the mobo temp sensor at 29C, CPU at 43C, and all fans spinning at less than 1000 RPM. Very quiet, and cool enough.

Sherardp

Sweet looking case.

Polkie2009

Very nice build Syndil ! +1 sweet!

EndersShadow

LOL, now I gotta take pics of my little mini-itx to show off too hehehe... be looking for em Saturday

Syndil

Thanks! Look forward to the ITX pics. This was my first venture into going small. I've used nothing but mid-towers to full-towers in the past, and the PC I had just before this one was in a gargantuan Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 case. You just can't comprehend how large one of those beasts are until you see one in person. Ridiculous. It's a piece of furniture, not a case.

I'm loving the small form factor, although I didn't love the amount of work I had to put into it. But I definitely won't be going back to a behemoth after this.

mrbiron

You just can't comprehend how large one of those beasts are until you see one in person.

She sleeps in my basement and is sensitive to the word "beast"! That reminds me, i should start gutting her this weekend. Thanks!

Syndil

Mine is gutted and waiting for a new owner. I'm pretty sure I could fit my current PC, case and all, inside the Cosmos.

AsSiMiLaTeD

So it's over a year later, but thought I"d post an update on my gaming rig. Over the last year it has been very solid with no real issues other than typical random Windows crap, nothing major though. I recently added a 4K TV for gaming so had to upgrade the video card, but everything else is still in tact. That was really the idea with this build, get a solid foundation and then just use video card upgrades to keep up with my gaming demands.

I've moved to a couple 780 Ti cards in SLI and they handle the 4K resolutions very well. I'm still very happy with the machine and the approach that I took with this build, it has been my best experience by far with a computer build.