Case Modding

[Robi_g]

Will (after a good 6 months) be getting water cooling for my PC.
However... (dun dun duuun) I bought a £30 case which is brilliant except it won't hold radiators.
So here's some modding
sorry in advance for the crap picture quality, phone broke so am using 6 year old one with VGA camera
Started off by spray painting the rear IO shield and the front bezel (from glossy black to matte black

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Then thought I'd cut out the front 3.5" bays and the lower 5.25" bay, SSD is now crammed in behind motherboard tray (there's not really enough room behind there). The cut along the 5.25" bay is messy but it was flapping about so much with the jigsaw cutting it I had to do it with wire cutters (bloody difficult it was), might patch it over with electrical tape to straigten it out though.

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More when bits come

 

[Robi_g]

Will sort out cables when setting up loop, because it'll be sod's law that I'll redo it and then it'll be in the way of tubing or something

 

[jasont78]

why do you need so much horsepower with a little 6870 my 2500k doesnt change my fps with my 6950oc if its running at stock 3.3 or 4ghz+, just seems crazy that your going to all that effort with a crappy case to start with. for future reference if you need to do a chop job take the part out first (you'll prob have to drill out some rivots, buy a 1mm metal cut off disc and do it properly with a angle grinder, that disc will cut through it like a warm knife thru butter.

 

[Robi_g]

? Sorry what?
*For £30 it's a decent case
*I don't see it as effort, I do this for fun
*I do more video / pic editing than gaming really, and the 6870 plays Crysis maxed out which is the only demanding game I have.
*I don't particularly need the i5 and with hindsight I would have got an FX6100 and played about OCing that but what a great thing hindsight is eh?
*Same with the water cooling, I'm doing it for fun, not because I need more performance, I'll probably go to 4.5Ghz and have cooler temps.
*Drilled out rivets for the 3.5" bays, too tricky to reach the top ones of the 5.25" bays and let's be honest, the bays are going to be behind the side panel anyway as they're out of the way of the window so it doesn't matter.
*Not buying an angle grinder as it won't get used enough to warrant owning it.

 

[Robi_g]

Front side of bay

The big dent covered by the drive clip

 

[jasont78]

sorry but to be anyways case modding is always been about having it look good and function good and showing off what you have done. when you say watercooling you talking aio or custom loop cos if your gonna go custom you will regret it later not having it in a nice case (thats coming from experience too!)

 

[Robi_g]

Got some water, internet is such a rip off for water, would've cost 5 times more from specialtech