Modded H440 Ryzen Build

[LowRentChef]

Just finished my most recent build, and wanted to share it because I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Specs:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 1700X
Cooler: CM 212 EVO w/2 LEPA 120mm Chopper Fans

MOBO: ASUS Crosshair Hero VI

VC1: ASUS Strix GTX 1070 8GB
VC2: EVGA GT 740 Superclocked Single Slot 4GB

RAM: GSKILL 16GB 3200Mhz DDR4 RAM

HDD1: Toshiba OCZ 256GB RD400 NVMe M.2
HDD2: Seagate Firecuda 2TB 3.5" SATA

 

Originally, I photoshopped together this image to plan out what I wanted the case to look like. I wasn't able to get a useable image of the exact vinyl wrap that I wanted, but I found some carbon fiber print of a similar color, so I went with that.

 

Just laying out some of the parts. It made me feel like I was doing something while I waited over a month for the motherboard to show up.

The vinyl I chose had a cool chameleon mosaic look that I hadn't seen on another case before, so I went with it. 

Applying the vinyl wrap. It didn't stick as well as I would have hoped, but I kept pressing it down when it separated, and eventually the glue dried up enough to stay.

The NZXT H440 has a lighted NZXT badge on the basement of the case, and I had the idea when planning the build that I could make a different plate with my Steam gamertag logo on it that would be backlit with some LED strips. First I cut the strips to length and soldered in a section of 4-wire LED strip power wire in between the two strips, so that I could use one connection to power both strips.

You can see them installed here. The Crosshair Hero VI has 2 RGB headers on the motherboard, so I just connected the strip to one of those, letting me control it through the Aura software instead of having to mess with one of those janky USB connections that you have to open the case when you want to change lighting colors or patterns. The adhesive hated the case here as well (probably has something to do with the anti-dust coating on the NZXT H440, but the logo plate was going to be held in place with magnets, so I figured it would hold this as well once it was installed.)

I cut the plate out of 1/4" sheet of polycarbonate, then bead-blasted it to give it a diffuse, foggy effect against the backlighting I had already installed. 

 

Then I printed out my logo on regular paper, covered it with a single layer of clear packing tape (which also held it in place against the vinyl I stuck it to), and carefully cut out the logo with an X-ACTO knife. Once I had stuck all of the vinyl pieces to the plate, I stuck some cheap strip magnets from Wal-Mart on the back and installed it to the case. 

And a few BIOS flashes and software installs later, it was complete. Again, not perfect or award worthy, but I was able to get it pretty close to my original vision, and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. (Don't mind the messy cabling behind the case, I'm planning to velcro tie and cable manage the shit out of it when I have a spare evening, lol. 

 

Decided to go with the blue color for the logo since a second pump failure on the Corsair AIO cooling loop (and a current lack of overclocking headroom for Ryzen) convinced me to go back to air cooling, and I found some Blue LED fans I liked the looks of.

Anyway, just wanted to post this up to see what everyone thought. Happy modding!

 

[Guest]

 

That looks cool. Love the vinyl wrap on the case.

[ProjectBox153]

Looks a lot better than my Core 2 Duo. I'm jealous. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

Looks a lot better than my Core 2 Duo. I'm jealous. 

Looks a lot better than my laptop... It's a old scratched one. I need to vinyl wrap that motherf*cker...