- Jan 27, 2012
- 3,773
- 7
- 26,965
Welcome to Greens’ build log!
I think I will name it Silver Surfer.
This build is intended to be as powerful a PC as I could reasonably make without going completely overboard in regards to part cost.
I had decided that I would only utilize one GPU for the foreseeable future. This combined with being at least a little budget conscious puts me firmly in a Skylake build. I can’t justify the additional lanes of a 2011-v3 board. I also couldn’t justify the quad channel memory or other major features of a 2011-v3 for the money.
Given that I was going Skylake, single GPU, there was absolutely no reason I could think of not to go small. If you’re going to go small, go really small, so I went on with an ITX ultra small form factor build.
An ultra-small form factor build… That still has a GTX 1080 and a 6700k, no easy feat. Sure there are plenty of large ITX cases with plenty of room to work, but that defeats the point of ITX.
I had recently built my fiancé a new work station and 4k media streaming PC using a 6400 and a GTX 960 inside of a Rainjintek Metis.
http://www.raijintek.com/en/products_detail.php?ProductID=17
The Rainjintek Metis is an absolutely fantastic case. Brilliant layout, no wasted space, feels quality, I don’t think you could find anything even remotely as good in the same price range.
When I originally built the fiancé’s PC we had purchased it in “gold” According to her it wasn’t gold at all, but rather an ulgly orange/copper color. I had to agree and went out and got the same case in black…. And proceeded to miss the return window on the orange case.
I thought what the hell, I’m a confident builder, and I planned on modding the hell out of whatever case I used anyway, why not try using this case I already have?
Well I did some measurements/research and it turns out it has room for a 160mm CPU cooler and 10.5” of GPU clearance, if you jam it in there.
That is absolutely perfect for my intended build! I can fit a nice beefy tower cooler and a GTX 1080 (some of them), inside this tiny, tiny little case. This would turn out to be easier said than done.
First thing first – taking the case apart, completely. This is nice and easy as the case uses screws throughout, no rivets.
The metis has an inverted motherboard compared to most PCs, putting the GPU at the top. Having the GPU like an inch away from the closed top of the PC wasn’t going to be very good for temperatures. So the first thing I did was cut out two 120mm fan holes. I use a dremel for the large cuts, and a drill for the holes.
Cleaned up each hole with a file. I would eventually be putting some slim fans there to give the GPU some nice positive pressure fresh air.
The orange was too ugly. It had to go. Given that the case was aluminium I figured I’d sand it, how hard could it be?
Went out and got a range of grit, pulled out my sanding block and files, and went to work.
This took FOREVER. Dear god it took so long, gave me blisters… It was a terrible, awful experience.
I even got inside each and every little circle with a drill bit, uhg was a nightmare.
Turned out OK though!
I wanted it to still have some texture, and I certainly wasn’t going to spend the time polishing the whole thing to a shine, so I left it like this, turned out pretty good. Doesn’t show marks or scratches, nice and durable finish, no worries about it at all. The Aluminium will probably oxidize differently where it has been touched, sanded more, etc, over time. I think this will give a pretty nice effect. Overall I’m very pleased with the finish. Cleaning is great because I can just give it a good scrub with a green scrubber and it just further polishes it up.
I was not about to sand the inside after the trouble with the outside, so I scuffed it, cleaned up the edges, and prepped the interior for paint. I taped the whole thing off, in fact I probably went overboard as far as taping goes. This amount of tape would probably have been great if I had been using normal spray paint for metal, but I wasn’t.
I ended up deciding to Plasti-Dip it. I know that it does have some sound deadening properties, will give it some added weight, and I can really lay it on thick. So I did that, at night, when I knew I would have the least visibility, worst amount of spray control, terrible drying, and altogether the poorest paint conditions I could manage.
It turned out not too terribly! I decided not to touch it up much after cleaning the edges. Cleaning edges was easiest using a sharp knife.
There are some areas where there is low coverage, over coverage, tears, rips, peels, it’s really pretty bad as far as paint jobs go… but as an interior it is honestly pretty great. It really changes the feel and sound of the case, definitely made a difference. And when it is all pinned up you can’t even see it. Pinning it up is made more difficult, so take care where you’re letting paint go. Protect threaded screw holes, don’t dip areas that require sliding etc. I just jammed Q tip sticks in the screw holes and cut them out after the paint dried.
I decided not to paint parts that were already black for fear of fitment issues.
Fit testing the feet I got. These feet are for large guitar amplifiers and other heavy music equipment.
There really isn’t any room up front to mount them. I got my PSU brackets out and installed to make sure I wouldn’t interfere with them. I figured I might be able to make some kind of clamp to secure the feet to the lip created by the power supply mount.
Worked great! This took a lot of trial and error, but ended up having really good luck with large bent washers acting as a sort of clamp. Super secure, far more than needed for a PC that is just going to sit there.
So since I was going crazy with all the sanding and plasti-dip, I figured maybe I could do more to make it silent.
I had this insulation laying around. As far as I can tell this is some kind of rubber, it appears to be closed cell polysomething, its original purpose is pipe insulation. It can prevent moisture from condensing on your lines.
It was actually really easy to work with, and I started putting it all over the interior where it would easily fit.
I utilized it to block all of the openings on the bottom of the case, to prevent any unfiltered air being sucked in from the bottom.
Also used it on fans to help decouple them from the case a little bit.
Put it in corners to prevent reverberation and used it on open areas of the case where there was no plastic dip.
This probably didn’t make any difference outside of plugging the holes, but it is a nice thought and feels good. At any rate any loose wires will be against this stuff, preventing any possible wire rattle. Plus any spots you miss when sound proofing can pretty much spoil all your effort, so it is definitely best that I got something covering the bulk of the case for sound reduction.
Bare test fitting went OK, encountered a problem with how for back the fans are mounted, the rear most fan interferes with the lip on the back panel. Easy enough to fix, just install that fan last, after the top is secured. I wouldn’t want to put them any further forward as they would interfere with the front panel ports, so this worked out fine. Best part is there is no orange to speak of!
Parts arrived! Except for the elusive legendary card GTX 1080. (at the time)
Next step was to see how I was going to fit the massive H5 onto the motherboard with the ram.
No way in hell this was going to happen with the included 140mm thin fan, not a chance. Fortunately I had foreseen this problem and purchased a 120mm standard thickness fan. Mounted well enough with the included brackets, but it isn’t the best. I don’t think I’d UPS it as is, but I don’t think it would fall off even in a mild California earthquake. To do this properly you’d want to purchase Cryorig’s oddly shaped 120mm fans, they would work well with the included clips.
http://imgur.com/nECEnWl/img]
Still didn’t fit, fortunately the RAM I got has removable rails on the top, this freed up another couple mm of room and made for a perfect fit! We shall see how the CPU cooler performs using a much smaller fan.
[img]http://imgur.com/ki2qi6z
Building this thing was a pain, big time. I’ve built plenty of PCs, and even done my fair share of mini ITX and even bookshelf PCs, but this was next level. It is like a puzzle – everything has to be done in the correct order.
Wire management was also a major pain. The PSU I got is super high quality, but the wires… they were like bending copper blanks, it was seriously so stiff. The nice thing about this is you can bend them and check the fit, and bend them again before actually securing them, the hold their shape pretty well. Given I purchased a SFX power supply, the included wires were actually quite short and worked well for the build.
GPU arrived! And with it another major problem. How to get the GPU installed when everything is plugged in. I ended up removing the front panel connectors from the front panel, plugging them into the mobo, installing the GPU, then reattaching the panels to the front. This was the only way I could think of to make it all fit. The top then went on last and I was able to slide the fan above the GPU to install that rear fan with fitment problems last as planned.
Pictures make it look so easy, it wasn’t.
Finally finished with it.
I guess it is still missing the window in that picture, but it is pretty much done!
I think I will name it Silver Surfer.
This build is intended to be as powerful a PC as I could reasonably make without going completely overboard in regards to part cost.
I had decided that I would only utilize one GPU for the foreseeable future. This combined with being at least a little budget conscious puts me firmly in a Skylake build. I can’t justify the additional lanes of a 2011-v3 board. I also couldn’t justify the quad channel memory or other major features of a 2011-v3 for the money.
Given that I was going Skylake, single GPU, there was absolutely no reason I could think of not to go small. If you’re going to go small, go really small, so I went on with an ITX ultra small form factor build.
An ultra-small form factor build… That still has a GTX 1080 and a 6700k, no easy feat. Sure there are plenty of large ITX cases with plenty of room to work, but that defeats the point of ITX.
I had recently built my fiancé a new work station and 4k media streaming PC using a 6400 and a GTX 960 inside of a Rainjintek Metis.
http://www.raijintek.com/en/products_detail.php?ProductID=17
The Rainjintek Metis is an absolutely fantastic case. Brilliant layout, no wasted space, feels quality, I don’t think you could find anything even remotely as good in the same price range.
When I originally built the fiancé’s PC we had purchased it in “gold” According to her it wasn’t gold at all, but rather an ulgly orange/copper color. I had to agree and went out and got the same case in black…. And proceeded to miss the return window on the orange case.
I thought what the hell, I’m a confident builder, and I planned on modding the hell out of whatever case I used anyway, why not try using this case I already have?
Well I did some measurements/research and it turns out it has room for a 160mm CPU cooler and 10.5” of GPU clearance, if you jam it in there.
That is absolutely perfect for my intended build! I can fit a nice beefy tower cooler and a GTX 1080 (some of them), inside this tiny, tiny little case. This would turn out to be easier said than done.
First thing first – taking the case apart, completely. This is nice and easy as the case uses screws throughout, no rivets.
The metis has an inverted motherboard compared to most PCs, putting the GPU at the top. Having the GPU like an inch away from the closed top of the PC wasn’t going to be very good for temperatures. So the first thing I did was cut out two 120mm fan holes. I use a dremel for the large cuts, and a drill for the holes.
Cleaned up each hole with a file. I would eventually be putting some slim fans there to give the GPU some nice positive pressure fresh air.
The orange was too ugly. It had to go. Given that the case was aluminium I figured I’d sand it, how hard could it be?
Went out and got a range of grit, pulled out my sanding block and files, and went to work.
This took FOREVER. Dear god it took so long, gave me blisters… It was a terrible, awful experience.
I even got inside each and every little circle with a drill bit, uhg was a nightmare.
Turned out OK though!
I wanted it to still have some texture, and I certainly wasn’t going to spend the time polishing the whole thing to a shine, so I left it like this, turned out pretty good. Doesn’t show marks or scratches, nice and durable finish, no worries about it at all. The Aluminium will probably oxidize differently where it has been touched, sanded more, etc, over time. I think this will give a pretty nice effect. Overall I’m very pleased with the finish. Cleaning is great because I can just give it a good scrub with a green scrubber and it just further polishes it up.
I was not about to sand the inside after the trouble with the outside, so I scuffed it, cleaned up the edges, and prepped the interior for paint. I taped the whole thing off, in fact I probably went overboard as far as taping goes. This amount of tape would probably have been great if I had been using normal spray paint for metal, but I wasn’t.
I ended up deciding to Plasti-Dip it. I know that it does have some sound deadening properties, will give it some added weight, and I can really lay it on thick. So I did that, at night, when I knew I would have the least visibility, worst amount of spray control, terrible drying, and altogether the poorest paint conditions I could manage.
It turned out not too terribly! I decided not to touch it up much after cleaning the edges. Cleaning edges was easiest using a sharp knife.
There are some areas where there is low coverage, over coverage, tears, rips, peels, it’s really pretty bad as far as paint jobs go… but as an interior it is honestly pretty great. It really changes the feel and sound of the case, definitely made a difference. And when it is all pinned up you can’t even see it. Pinning it up is made more difficult, so take care where you’re letting paint go. Protect threaded screw holes, don’t dip areas that require sliding etc. I just jammed Q tip sticks in the screw holes and cut them out after the paint dried.
I decided not to paint parts that were already black for fear of fitment issues.
Fit testing the feet I got. These feet are for large guitar amplifiers and other heavy music equipment.
There really isn’t any room up front to mount them. I got my PSU brackets out and installed to make sure I wouldn’t interfere with them. I figured I might be able to make some kind of clamp to secure the feet to the lip created by the power supply mount.
Worked great! This took a lot of trial and error, but ended up having really good luck with large bent washers acting as a sort of clamp. Super secure, far more than needed for a PC that is just going to sit there.
So since I was going crazy with all the sanding and plasti-dip, I figured maybe I could do more to make it silent.
I had this insulation laying around. As far as I can tell this is some kind of rubber, it appears to be closed cell polysomething, its original purpose is pipe insulation. It can prevent moisture from condensing on your lines.
It was actually really easy to work with, and I started putting it all over the interior where it would easily fit.
I utilized it to block all of the openings on the bottom of the case, to prevent any unfiltered air being sucked in from the bottom.
Also used it on fans to help decouple them from the case a little bit.
Put it in corners to prevent reverberation and used it on open areas of the case where there was no plastic dip.
This probably didn’t make any difference outside of plugging the holes, but it is a nice thought and feels good. At any rate any loose wires will be against this stuff, preventing any possible wire rattle. Plus any spots you miss when sound proofing can pretty much spoil all your effort, so it is definitely best that I got something covering the bulk of the case for sound reduction.
Bare test fitting went OK, encountered a problem with how for back the fans are mounted, the rear most fan interferes with the lip on the back panel. Easy enough to fix, just install that fan last, after the top is secured. I wouldn’t want to put them any further forward as they would interfere with the front panel ports, so this worked out fine. Best part is there is no orange to speak of!
Parts arrived! Except for the elusive legendary card GTX 1080. (at the time)
Next step was to see how I was going to fit the massive H5 onto the motherboard with the ram.
No way in hell this was going to happen with the included 140mm thin fan, not a chance. Fortunately I had foreseen this problem and purchased a 120mm standard thickness fan. Mounted well enough with the included brackets, but it isn’t the best. I don’t think I’d UPS it as is, but I don’t think it would fall off even in a mild California earthquake. To do this properly you’d want to purchase Cryorig’s oddly shaped 120mm fans, they would work well with the included clips.
http://imgur.com/nECEnWl/img]
Still didn’t fit, fortunately the RAM I got has removable rails on the top, this freed up another couple mm of room and made for a perfect fit! We shall see how the CPU cooler performs using a much smaller fan.
[img]http://imgur.com/ki2qi6z
Building this thing was a pain, big time. I’ve built plenty of PCs, and even done my fair share of mini ITX and even bookshelf PCs, but this was next level. It is like a puzzle – everything has to be done in the correct order.
Wire management was also a major pain. The PSU I got is super high quality, but the wires… they were like bending copper blanks, it was seriously so stiff. The nice thing about this is you can bend them and check the fit, and bend them again before actually securing them, the hold their shape pretty well. Given I purchased a SFX power supply, the included wires were actually quite short and worked well for the build.
GPU arrived! And with it another major problem. How to get the GPU installed when everything is plugged in. I ended up removing the front panel connectors from the front panel, plugging them into the mobo, installing the GPU, then reattaching the panels to the front. This was the only way I could think of to make it all fit. The top then went on last and I was able to slide the fan above the GPU to install that rear fan with fitment problems last as planned.
Pictures make it look so easy, it wasn’t.
Finally finished with it.
I guess it is still missing the window in that picture, but it is pretty much done!
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