Wood case with hot components?

[Ginger Penguin]

Hi all,

 

I'm planning a build that will be my main system for video editing and general use. Current plan was 3900X/5900X + 2060 Super/3060 on an Asrock B550 Steel Legend inside a Deepcool CL500 case (or maybe a Phanteks P500A-D) for a steel blue design. But I had a thought that I could maybe get a case custom made out of wood (my brother has a friend who does carpentry as a side hobby) and make it look a bit like an old radio. 200mm and 120mm brass speaker grilles on the front (like a woofer and tweeter) and maybe a 120/140 at the rear could finally be a good place to use Noctua fans! And on top and bottom, speaker fabric for dust filtration. I could even do a slightly concave side panel if I went full ATX with a B550 Taichi.

 

The problem is I've read that wood is fine for making a case out of but it's a good insulator. So for really hot components - and I would probably be overclocking the CPU a bit - maybe I should save this for a much lower powered media PC or something. Thoughts?

[SupaKomputa]

As long as it has enough air going through, you should be fine.

[LIGISTX]

4 minutes ago, W.D. Stevens said:

The problem is I've read that wood is fine for making a case out of but it's a good insulator. So for really hot components - and I would probably be overclocking the CPU a bit - maybe I should save this for a much lower powered media PC or something. Thoughts?

It is a good insulator, but if your cooling solution relies on radiating heat out of your PC case via the "good insulation" the metal case offers, well, your not doing this, lol. The case material properties mean nothing for PC cooling.

 

Being a good thermal conductor means if metal is warm, it will radiate heat into the surrounding air very well and cool off. The amount of heat radiating from a metal case is so negligible its not even within the noise of error in thermal testing.

 

If you replicated a metal case internal geometry perfectly out of a wood case, all the parts would run the exact same temps.

[TehDwonz]

7 hours ago, W.D. Stevens said:

The problem is I've read that wood is fine for making a case out of but it's a good insulator. So for really hot components - and I would probably be overclocking the CPU a bit - maybe I should save this for a much lower powered media PC or something. Thoughts?

It's fine for the reasons ppl mentioned. If you want some guidance, here are two YTbers with great wooden PC results:

 

 

Also, Matt in the first link did a far better hidden desk PC than LTT... also wood.

 

[Intergalacticbits]

8 hours ago, James Evens said:

problem will be using good wood quality to prevent problems in a few weeks or months.

I never did this before but this is the first thing that comes to my mind also.

What kind of wood would be most stable and maybe finishing everything well to cut down on shrinking or expanding.  Depending on how humid or dry the air is in your environment.

 

I'm guessing you want this thing to look nice like a piece of furniture?

I've seen furniture made out of soft wood in a humid environment with air moving near it. Just twist its joints apart and it had finish on it so it wasn't just bare wood.

 

[PriitM]

Have had a plywood case for 8 years now. No problem with it getting hot, tho I did focus on good airflow when designing it. Any radiant heat stored in the wood will be gone faster, because as an insulator, wood wont store energy. 

 

That said, you need to keep your room somewhat dry. That ensures you wont have much (if any) warping issues.

 

And please focus on getting good grounding in the case. I used a salvaged motherboard tray and ran a wire to the power supply mounting screws. Or you will have lots of noise in the system (particularly in headphones/mic)