SFF micro-ATX: Advice on adding AIO

[genesRus]

I'm building the Silverstone SG12 to be used as a coding workstation/casual gaming rig (I needed something I could bring home on a plane once Covidtimes that was expandable to 128 Gb of RAM). I'll be using either an i5-9600K or i7-9700K (mostly single threaded for computationally intensive scripting) and a GTX 1060 GPU. The case suggests that I use a low-profile L/C cooler that vents into the PSU. Noctua says I could use moderate O.C., but I imagine that's in a case with better airflow. I wondered if it would be possible to add an AIO to cool the CPU instead and made two mock-ups using the Corsair Hydro Series H80i. I did my best to make everything close to scale (except for the airflow diagrams, which are approximate).

Option 1: Adding the AIO rad vertically where the current fan is located (would need to add attachments since the originals would be in the removed HDD/SDD drive bays)

Option 2: Drill a hole in the bottom and mount the AIO rad horizontally. 

 

Questions

• Do you think either of them would work? If so, which would be better for airflow? Is the improvement in the one that requires cutting enough to justify the cost to rent the circular saw and drill from Home Depot? Would they be better than the suggested scheme of venting into the PSU?
• I plan on using Coolermaster Fan Brackets to add the all the fans by securing them to the base and zip-tie-ing where possible. Is that reasonable? Is there any issue to adding metal below the motherboard? (I assume not since the case is aluminum, but maybe the paint is non-conductive?)

 

P.S. The MoBo graphic is a bit off--the GPU won't actually be going across the RAM. Lol.

P.P.S. Sorry for my bad Photoshopping. Haha. And also sorry if the images are huge...I'm not sure how to fix that on here. 

[genesRus]

Also, here are some better images:

https://techplayboy.com/29820/silverstone-sugo-sg12-micro-atx-case-review/4/

https://www.techpowerup.com/208904/silverstone-shows-off-sugo-sg12-sff-case

https://bjorn3d.com/2015/08/silverstone-sg12/3/

 

[Chippinganimal]

Hey there, did you ever end up going through with modding the case? I was recently given an older Newtek Tricaster TCXD40 that is a prebuilt PC tailored towards live video production and is based on an older version of this case that is largely the same but with 2 5.25in bays (SG01 or SG02 I believe, it also has a custom front panel with a bunch of BNC component video inputs and outputs). I'm looking into doing a similar custom build/upgrade in it for a HTPC.