Project Earth m-itx scratch build (100%)

[asusfan]

Introduction: Ladies, gentlemen, boys & girls, Vulcans and anyone else.... Project Earth scratch build is now finished and so here it is....

its a m-itx form factor rig designed and build by myself, started in the fall of 2014 & taken about 7 months of work due to time, money and facilities / tools limets.

This is now 100% finished, the main thing about this build is the custom design and build of the case. the case is finished now, just got to polish the lexan top window.

 

Location: Canada

 

Start to finish: October 2014 - 1st may 2015

 

Purpose: To design and build a custom case to replace my current AMD rig, it will be used for work, web design, 3D graphics and drawings, entertainment, simulation and action games, music and just do all in one. Designed to be compact, quiet, performance for workstation, entertainment & gaming

 

Notes: I designed it so it has front & side blown fans for lots of cool air, under the m/board tray is the PSU and a cage for 2x 2.5" drives, the tray front has cut out to allow the cool intake air to go to the m/board section and the bottom section.

 

specs:

Custom designed and built case 325mm long, 242mm wide, 285mm height (without the feet) made from 3mm Aluminium sheet metal.

2x 120mm front corsair blue LED quiet edition fans

2x 120mm right side panel corsair white LED quiet edition fans

1x 80mm silent rear exhaust fan

2x 8" UV cold cathode case lighting

Lexan side windows and top window (same stuff Nascar use for windshields)

custom front panel with the earth cut out for airflow and front fans to draw air in on the ocean areas with a blue dust fan filter (took ages to get perfect scale, dremal out & paint)

Hunter Green colour case paintwork

 

Asus Z87i deluxe m-itx motherboard (amazing)

Intel 1150 socket i7-4790 CPU (yes its a non K but still a beast but runs cooler and does what i need it to)

Zalman CNPS 5X performa air CPU cooler (for now)

Team Vulcan 16gig DDR3 2133mhz memory kit (awesome gold to match the m/board)

Mushkin chronos 120gig SSD (sata3)

Seagate 2.5" 500gig HDD @7200 rpm (for now until i can afford a 480gig SSD)

Windows 7 64bit home edition (hate windows 8)

Kingwin 550w 80 plus gold PSU

Asus 970 Strix (baller, amazing card, just fits by about 5mm) 

 

all work done myself with hand tools and a dremal tool, only thing i had to get assistance with is to bend and cut the alloy panels.

 

New Finished pics below....

older pics / build proccess....

 

here are more pics

 

now in the proccess of trying to get all my data, files etc off my AMD rig onto the earth build rig and now with the 970 Strix its so baller, and i am so impressed with the stuff you get on the m/board CD, Asus Fan expert II is amazing, this design and setup is top dog, it runs about 30 - 32 degrees C and it will turn off the side blower fans automatically and slow the others down, its actually way quieter than my liquid cooled AMD rig, and i guess with it been a solid 3mm alloy plate its made of it helps reduce vibrations and the metal stays cool. the fan setup works really well.

only problem i have is the cooler is very tight and just touching the VRM daughterboard its the bracket / clamp for the cooler, not the cooler itself, i used the dremal tool to cut some of the bracket off so it just fits, like wow give me a mm please.

well about 7 months of hard saving and work gone into this, i hope it has inspired others to do scratch case builds, its not easy.

also the i7-4790 is nice, glad i forked out and got the i7 and not an i5. i mean hyperthreading, 2 threads per core way to go

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lolzious]

Basic, but eh, what do you need?

I think you did a good job on the case

Also, good choice on the CPU cooler

[asusfan]

Basic, but eh, what do you need?

I think you did a good job on the case

Also, good choice on the CPU cooler

Thanks, its not easy to design and build your own case with basically no workshop, just a dremal tool and a few hand tools.

don't need a K series i7 cos its just more heat and the 4790 runs at 3.6 ghz with upto 4.0 ghz turbo boost.

Its designed to fit the Asus 970 strix with about 2mm clearance everything is to the mm, even the VRM daughterboard on the m/board just clears the side panel fans by 2mm.

will be interesting when i run it up and get the strix in there. as its a single GPU only it has to be a gpu with a min of 3gig memory, 4gig is ideal. and the 970 is good for 1080p (sweet spot)

[Lolzious]

Thanks, its not easy to design and build your own case with basically no workshop, just a dremal tool and a few hand tools.

don't need a K series i7 cos its just more heat and the 4790 runs at 3.6 ghz with upto 4.0 ghz turbo boost.

Its designed to fit the Asus 970 strix with about 2mm clearance everything is to the mm, even the VRM daughterboard on the m/board just clears the side panel fans by 2mm.

will be interesting when i run it up and get the strix in there. as its a single GPU only it has to be a gpu with a min of 3gig memory, 4gig is ideal. and the 970 is good for 1080p (sweet spot)

That's pretty damn cool man

[ciobanulx]

Looks awesome mate! Great job on the case

[asusfan]

i have now added new pics to the first post, hopefully it will inspire people that like designing and making things to do a scratch case build.

this thing works better than i thought, and is darn cool for an air cooled rig,

[asusfan]

Looks awesome mate! Great job on the case

Thanks mate, its even more complete now, juist got to put in the new gpu when it comes and add the fancy thumbscrews for the side panels when they arrive.

[asusfan]

update: GPU bought and should be here in a week as got it from the USA a good deal with free shipping and customs included for just $28 extra.

i just hope the strix will fit, its gonna be tight but i calculated when i designed the case for a Asus Strix 970 to go in there as to me its the best single GPU for such a small air cooled case and only got 1 pci-e slot. even though i like AMD grapghics cards since i went with Intel cpu on this build and its a green case i thought lets go all green with team green (Nvidia)

[asusfan]

Looks awesome mate! Great job on the case

Thanks, i am not to to happy with the paint in as its not like a car paint that is baked on, it seems a little soft and less durable, but that's what you get for "paint at home in a cardboard box as a booth" job. 

also a little tiny gap on the top panel, so about 0.5 or 0.25mm out. but hey its kinda supposed to be a little getto and home made cos it is, i don't have a CNC machine.