Custom ITX stainless steel case design and build

[Niels_at_home]

Heyho guys,

 

I made a neat (if I may say so) small ITX case for use in my office.

Bear in mind I designed the metal parts, I didn't make them! Professional people with professional laser cutters and bending machines did that for me.

 

Here is some info, a video, and a few pics in case you'd like to have a look!

 

Video:

 

Parts (bought and in use already for about half a year)

- AsRock B450 f4tal1ty or however you spell that..

- Ryzen 5 3600

- Noctua NH C14S

- 32GB Corsair DDR4 3200

- MSI Ventus GTX1660 super

- Corsair SF600

- 1TB Samsung NVME

 

Case specs:

- 11.9 liters

- 32x22x17cm

- up to 135mm CPU coolers

- up to 210mm GPU length, dual slot

- 140mm bottom 'GPU fan replacement'

- Space for two 2.5" drives

 

Material and design:

- Stainless steel 1mm thick, complex (for me anyway!) sheet metal work

- relatively accessible without front/top cover, 'easy' to work (for an ITX case that is)

- compact but enough space to fit silent components

 

How does it behave?

- I run the CPU stock, and with my normal workloads the fan never ramps beyond 350RPM.

- My job seems to be staring at CAD software and spreadsheets half the time while getting paid for it..

- I've lowered the TDP to 56% on the graphics card as its heatsink is pretty small. This way it stays passive (<65c) during all my normal workloads and only turns on when gaming after 5 minutes. Then the RPM is around 600. The performance loss is small compared to the increased efficiency, so that is worth it for me!

 

Any regrets?

- I'd find a way to not recess the power button, which I did so it was all installed and accessible without the front/top panel.

- With this construction, 1mm steel is 'good' but 1.5mm would be multiple times stiffer (2x thicker = 8x stiffer if I'm not mistaken). That would be my next choice. Or be more clever with the bending of edges so you increase the effective design without going thicker. Its very stiff fully assembled but when 'open' it flexes a little bit.

- I didn't look at the CPU fan direction. It blows out of the side of the case. I think CPU temps would be lower if I let it draw air IN from the side as now it might get some warmer air that has been through the GPU. But with fan speeds never exceeding 350RPM with my workloads its going to stay like this..

- Cage nuts are fine for one offs like this, I know there are weld nuts or pressed nuts that might work better and mount everything flush. Cage nuts give you some wiggle room though which is neat.

 

Overall very happy, its a pretty professional looking case that I'm sure will be on my office desk for years to come!

 

 

[thedangerine]

That is very fresh

[Kilrah]

Looks pretty nice, just I think I'd prefer low profile screws...

And it's huge for the power it packs to my taste, but I guess silence is a bonus

[Niels_at_home]

I think I agree with the screws, easy 'upgrade' down the line.

 

I have the odd combination of interests being silent computing and compact cases, so you get a weird compromise that isn't really super small. My solution was to get a 49" ultrawide, and next to that, the case looks tiny.