Victory's Power Mac G5 Gaming PC Build

[Victory]

 

Let me start my thread by saying that this is my first ever PC build. It took roughly 1-week to build and assemble (excluding the weeks I waited to get my parts) and cost me roughly £2,300 all-together.

 

When I first decided that I was going to build a PC, I had already decided that I was going to build it inside a Apple Power Mac G5 case. I've always loved Apple products (and still do) but when it comes to gaming there's no comparison. Going back to the uniqueness, I knew of nobody who'd done something similar; so along with my love for Apple - this seemed like the perfect PC build.

 

I started out by sourcing a Power Mac G5 that was in near pristine condition. Let me be the first to tell you that this wasn't easy. I ended up purchasing a £45 case off eBay and spent 3-hours collecting it. I didn't really want to spend £45, but since it was in mint condition I felt that it would be a lost opportunity if I didn't.

 

Additionally, I had ordered a load of my PC parts from places like Amazon, Scan, etc. and they had all arrived. I made a little collection of parts at the back of my room (as you do) which sat there whilst I prepared the case.

 

 

Now came the fun part. After getting home from the 3-hour journey there and back, I started to dismantle it. It took roughly 6 hours in total to completely 'gut' the PC of all the components (along with a few cuts and scrapes to my hands and fingers) but it was a great feeling once I finished to know that I now had a case that I could start working with.

 

 

I decided at this point that I wanted to customize the case a little. After looking at how the case came apart, it occurred to me that it'd look nice if I spray painted the 'inside part' (sorry, that's the best way to describe it) to make the case stand out a little more. The aluminium finish does look nice, but I thought that adding black would again add to the uniqueness and generally make the case look 'cooler'. Additionally, I decided that I was going to make the Apple Logo's black. It had two options 1) purchase some vinyl stickers that I could apply over the logo's or 2) Cut out the logo and fill it in with some material (i.e. acrylic). I came to the conclusion that it would probably be easier to purchase the stickers with less chance of ruining the case.

 

A huge shout-out to [uSER=391494]2Quick4U[/uSER]  for not only doing the stickers for me, but also giving them to me free-of-charge!

 

 

Before I could do anything else, I needed to mount the motherboard tray so that I could A) size up where everything was going to go and B) start attaching / installing components. So I rang up a friend who's a little more experienced with machinery tools than myself and we spent a morning fitting the motherboard tray that I ordered from the USA. I would estimate that it took about 3-4 hours or so to cut the back panel out and attach the motherboard tray in place; the end result was certainly worth it because not only did it look great, but it was also very solid (something that supprised us both) which meant we weren't going to need to create supports that attached the motherboard tray to the inside of the case - only use screws to attach the tray to the outside panel (saving us a load of time).

 

 

It was now time to spray paint! I went to my local store and picked up a few cants of Rust-Oleum All-surface spray paint, along with a can of aluminium primer. I woke up early one morning and applied 3-4 thin layers of the primer. After leaving it to dry for an hour or so, I started with the black. I ended up applying 7-8 thin coats leaving a 30-minute gap in-between each coat giving the paint time to dry. After the 8th coat, I left the paint to cure for 18-hours so that it was completely dry.

 

Unfortunately I can't seem to find the images of me spray painting it, so I'll continue to look for those.

 

And so came the day of reckoning was upon us. My case was completed and motherboard tray was mounted, so all I needed to do now was put the parts together. I always knew that cable management was going to be an issue (so I knew it wasn't going to look great inside) but since there wasn't a window on the case nor did I have any intentions of opening up the case very 5-minutes to look inside it didn't really bother me.

 

Again, it took roughly 5-6 hours to put everything together. Here are some of the key features:

•  

• PSU mounted at the bottom-back of the case using Industrial Velcro.

• HDD mounted at the bottom-front of the case using Industrial Velcro.

• SSD's mounted at the top-front of the case using Industrial Velcro.

• CPU Cooler (H100i) mounted at the top-front of the case using a custom-built mount, JBWeld and Industrial Velcro.

• Motherboard mounted to the motherboard tray attached to the back-middle / top of the case using 15-or so screws and washers.

 

Airflow was another key consideration with the build. The Corsair H100i has 4-fans attached to it to create a push-pull airflow system through the radiator. Additionally, there are x2 80mm Artic Cooling fans at the back of the case pulling through the air from the H100i. The PSU's fan was placed upwards meaning that when the workflow was great enough for the fan to start spinning, any air pushed upwards would be put right into the path of H100i-to-80mm fan flow.

 

 

Final Build

 

• Intel Core i7-4770k @3.5GHz

• 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM (x2 8GB Sticks) (32GB as per October 2014)

• NVIDIA EVGA GTX 780 Ti SuperClocked Edition (x2 SLI as per October 2014)

• GIGABYTE Z87 U3DH

• x2 256GB Samsung 840 Pro (Raid 0)

 

• Seagate 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive

• Corsair AX860i Platinum Certified

• Corsair H100i (with x4 push-pull Corsair AF120 quiet edition fans)

• Corsair M95 Gaming Mouse

• Corsair K95 Gaming Keyboard

• Windows 8.1 Professional 64-bit

• BenQ GL2250 21.5 inch LCD Monitor (VGA, DVI-D, 1920 x 1080, 1000:1, 5ms, 250cd/m2)

 

I think that's it. Any questions feel free to ask!

 

October 2014 Upgrade 

 

• Another 780Ti (SLI)

• Another 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM (x2 8GB Sticks)

 

[Guest Kloaked]

Very nice. How loud are those 80mm fans when the PC is on load?

[FuzzyYellow]

Wow! that is so cool!

[Victory]

Very nice. How loud are those 80mm fans when the PC is on load?

So if I'm just surfing the web, using programs such as Photoshop or even doing a considerable amount of gaming then the fans aren't really that noisy. However, if I stress the system then the noise picks up slightly. 

 

That said it's never really been an issue because A) The system is hardly ever stressed B) I often have my headset on that cancels out the noise. 

 

 

Wow! that is so cool!

Thanks! 

[Thebman712]

nice, but you must dual boot and get a apple magic display

[Victory]

nice, but you must dual boot and get a apple magic display

I have both an upgraded iMac 27" and upgraded MacBook Pro so I don't really see the need to dual boot. Granted I love the OS X operating system (prefer it over Windows), but this is solely a gaming PC and therefore I don't particularly see the point. 

[Guest Kloaked]

So if I'm just surfing the web, using programs such as Photoshop or even doing a considerable amount of gaming then the fans aren't really that noisy. However, if I stress the system then the noise picks up slightly. 

 

Ah, I was just curious. I'm a bit of a noise whore since I have OCD and Tinnitus, so my 120mm fans that came with my Air 540 are starting to bother me even with my headset on when I'm playing games.

 

It may just be my case not being very noise isolated.

[Thebman712]

I have both an upgraded iMac 27" and upgraded MacBook Pro so I don't really see the need to dual boot. Granted I love the OS X operating system (prefer it over Windows), but this is solely a gaming PC and therefore I don't particularly see the point. 

i still think that a magic display and dual boot would be sick

[Victory]

Ah, I was just curious. I'm a bit of a noise whore since I have OCD and Tinnitus, so my 120mm fans that came with my Air 540 are starting to bother me even with my headset on when I'm playing games.

 

It may just be my case not being very noise isolated.

Ah okay. I would have chosen 120mm fans but the motherboard tray didn't support them so I was stuck with 80mm.

 

Although it'll be very costly, have you considered a water-cooled system? 

[Victory]

i still think that a magic display and dual boot would be sick

Haha, I would be inclined to agree with you there! Sadly I don't have a spare £1,000 to be spending on a cinema display! 

 

There's nothing wrong with my current LG 34UM95-P though since I do a lot of web design and therefore make real use of the extra-wide monitor.

[Thebman712]

Haha, I would be inclined to agree with you there! Sadly I don't have a spare £1,000 to be spending on a cinema display! 

 

There's nothing wrong with my current LG 34UM95-P though since I do a lot of web design and therefore make real use of the extra-wide monitor.

if you have a 34um95 and could make it look like a magic display that would be AMAZINGLY SEXY EPIC

 

really nice rig though

[Geekazoid]

@Victory, with spending all that money on that build you could've gotten an Apple Cinema/Thunderbolt Display to complete that setup.

EDIT: You've got a LG 34UM95 21:9 Ultrawide display, so that's good enough I think.

[Victory]

@Victory, with spending all that money on that build you could've gotten an Apple Cinema/Thunderbolt Display to complete that setup.

Haha   Yes I suppose, but I've always thought that £1k is a large amount of money for a monitor. At the time of the build (a few months ago) I spent my budgeted amount on the build itself and didn't really think about the monitor. Maybe if another sum of money comes my way then I'll consider it. 

[JAKEBAB]

Looks sick definitely one of the better builds in this case!!

[Geekazoid]

Haha   Yes I suppose, but I've always thought that £1k is a large amount of money for a monitor. At the time of the build (a few months ago) I spent my budgeted amount on the build itself and didn't really think about the monitor. Maybe if another sum of money comes my way then I'll consider it. 

Ah okay, fair enough . I edited my post above. The LG 34UM95 is just as good IMO. Could you take a pic of the whole setup with the case and that LG monitor? Twould be awesome to see mate. I'm quite amazed by what you and your friend did . Good job mate!

[Victory]

Looks sick definitely one of the better builds in this case!!

Thanks buddy. 

 

 

Ah okay, fair enough . I edited my post above. The LG 34UM95 is just as good IMO. Could you take a pic of the whole setup with the case and that LG monitor? Twould be awesome to see mate. I'm quite amazed by what you and your friend did . Good job mate!

I'm currently at my university accommodation and won't be heading home until next weekend, but I'll certainly take a photo for you then. 

 

Yes I was quite lucky really that I had a friend who was quite experienced with using hand-held tools. I believe he used a Dremel (if I remember correctly) to cut out the back panel and then we simply used nuts and bolts to attach the motherboard tray to the already cut holes (thanks to already perforated holes around the case).

[Geekazoid]

I thought I'd take a peek at your site and Se7enSins forum. Looks pretty good. I love the black/green/white colour scheme you got going.

[Geekazoid]

I'm currently at my university accommodation and won't be heading home until next weekend, but I'll certainly take a photo for you then. 

Ah okay. I didn't realise, my bad. Well thanks! Just post it on this thread of yours as I'm quite sure everyone would want to see your amazing setup.

 

Yes I was quite lucky really that I had a friend who was quite experienced with using hand-held tools. I believe he used a Dremel (if I remember correctly) to cut out the back panel and then we simply used nuts and bolts to attach the motherboard tray to the already cut holes (thanks to already perforated holes around the case).

Well you guys certainly did an excellent job. Top job!

[Guest Kloaked]

Ah okay. I would have chosen 120mm fans but the motherboard tray didn't support them so I was stuck with 80mm.

 

Although it'll be very costly, have you considered a water-cooled system? 

 

Yes, but I'm on a tight budget at the moment.

 

I just need to replace the stock case fans with more silent ones, and I don't even have money for that, haha

[zacRupnow]

I have an even older Mac that runs better than my friends 2010 iMac

[flibberdipper]

Wow, this is pretty clean. I like it.

[Victory]

Ah okay. I didn't realise, my bad. Well thanks! Just post it on this thread of yours as I'm quite sure everyone would want to see your amazing setup.

 

Well you guys certainly did an excellent job. Top job!

So I ended up bringing my monitor back to my accommodation. Unfortunately the pictures probably don't really do it any justice (as setup at home it looks much nicer) but at least it'll give you a flavour of what it looks like 

 

 

[HashtagMilk]

This looks amazing. Why'd you decide to mount the motherboard upside down?

[Norman_the_Owl]

Nice, i love how clean your entire set up is. I wish mine could stay that clean for long!

[Victory]

This looks amazing. Why'd you decide to mount the motherboard upside down?

Somebody noticed 

 

Because of how the the motherboard tray is designed, you can't mount the motherboard the correct way up (not without extensively altering the case). Although it was something that bugged me a little at first, I've come to terms with it to be honest with you; mainly because I barely ever see inside the case

 

. I think anyway this particular build is more about the exterior appearance rather than the interior.