Finished and refreshed my open air PC
Hello All,
Here is a pic of the final build of my open air PC build. I built the case about 5 years ago and have been running a 10900k.
I have stepped up to a 9950X3d and the Asus Crosshair ROG 2006 X870E motherboard.
I have 3 x 360mm radiators and a pair of D5 pumps in series.
Let me know if you have any questions! J
81 replies
This person definitely doesn't have a cat.
Or children.
or dust
Of course not, you can tell he still enjoys life and his hobbies.
I have cats and children and dust and I love my hobbies
Your must either not be allowed in the room ever, or is significantly more well-behaved than most! Mine would absolutely wreck this without some kind of barrier in the way.
Bro, what?
Mine would sit on it immediately
Not sure if anyone uses builds.gg anymore. But I posted a bunch of pictures there.
I also have my other builds.liated as well.
https://builds.gg/builds/open-air-case-refresh-plywood-custom-build-39716
There are some pretty nice systems there. Put mine to shame.
Can it play Doom?
That's fucking cool. I've always thought the open designs were pretty sweet, this is giving me ideas. If I end up building one I might do something like this with walnut and more brass.
I am playing with the idea of changing the clear tubes to copper pipes. I still might.
The original steam machine.
That's cool but all I can think of is how dusty it will get.
LoL, yeah I can imagine. I hadn't cleaned it before the rebuild in about 2 years. Here is what that looked like: 🤮
That's cool, but I would have used wheels instead.
For those curious on my the VRM Temps.
Here is the summary of my VRM temps: CPU VDD (Main Core Power) VRM: Averaged 58.1°C with a peak of 61.3°C. CPU SOC (System on Chip Power) VRM: Averaged 57.7°C with a peak of 60.7°C. CPU MISC (Miscellaneous Power) VRM: Averaged 64.9°C with a peak of 66.0°C. GPU VRM: Averaged 34.6°C with a peak of 35.0°C.
Needs more brass.
When that baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit
He for real said lmk bout questions, and ghosted everyone
Nice build tho
I didn't have my notifications on, what Qs do you have?
None I was just being snarky cause I was mostly interested in your answers when I first scrolled this and there were none lol
Same
Make sure you keep an eye on your VRM temps. I don’t see any airflow for that in your picture.
Yeah, so far everything seems ok, I keep an eye on them and I am looking at ways to actively cool it.
The ATX specification will have the exact measurements. You'll be able to get the dimensions from that.
You can also find a junk mobo to use as well from eBay.
Oh wow, absolutely gorgeous and I also wanted to do something like that. How did you attach the motherboard screws to the wood? Are there any suitable wooden screws, did you work with plastic washers or did you glue the metal screws into thr wood?
Threaded inserts most likely.
So happy other people do cool alternative builds like this. I enjoy the idea and creativity, but I will stick with my boring black box filled to the brim with computing power.
Awesome build!
How much did you spend on case/display/lighting/cooling components?
How many hours would you say went into this?
Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently?
So when I built the case/frame, I did it over about 2 months off an on. I didn't have any real woodworking tools. I wish I had a router, table saw, and drill press. So having the right tools would have made it much easier.
The cooling components aren't cheap, the GPU block was a pretty penny, but for the 4090 is probably the best one you can get.
I don't know if I can give a definite number but probably around $1k for the cooling, lighting, raw materials for the case.
In terms of a v3, this was a second version, I probably would use a different wood, maybe not plywood. There are a few decisions on how the GPU was mounted and how I have the PSU.
I seriously weighed just getting a O-11 XL, but for me, there were too many little things I didn't like. So I kept this case.
Attached is the v2,
Awesome build. Well done, love how clean it is. I’m glad it’s not full of RGB everywhere and colored coolant.
On that note, that’s a LOT of radiator you’ve got going on. I’m running an i9 and 4080 on waterblocks and have a single radiator, they don’t go over 59C and it stays plenty quiet.
Now you only have 5 years of payments before the hardware is paid off.
So I have been planning this upgrade for a while, I licked out and purchased CPU, NVME last year when they were a lot less expensive.
I went in on a new egg bundle on the RAM so I got a pretty good deal there.
And the 4090 I've had for a couple of years now.
I love it except for the plywood.
Yeah, I get that. It's my lack of actual woodworking skills.
Well it does look amazing even with the plywood, so I'm sure you're competent.
Thanks! I appreciate it. It was a labor of love. Someday I'd like to try it again. Still have some ideas. 😊
How do you dust it?
Exactly why I always do a positive pressure build. I rather clean a handful of dust filters than an entire PC every 6 months.
Honestly, dusting the entire build is something everyone should be doing, regardless of if they have positive case pressure or not. Dust has a way of getting in no matter what.
Having everything open means you need to do it more frequently, sure, but everything is also very easy to access. Probably a wash when you compare levels of relative convenience.
I don't think you should wash your computer even if it's convenient!
You're not the boss of me! Now where's the hose?
Not OP, but own a similarly open-air PC (Thermaltake Core P3).
I bought a Wolfbox MF200 duster on sale off their AliExpress store for ~$50USD; just need to just give it a quick blast every once in a while and it all remains dust free.
Honestly dust management in open frames is significantly less hassle than in closed cases - regardless of positive/negative internal pressure.
This! 👆
It's pretty easy to keep clean, just blow it out once a month or so.
At first I thought it was a tool rack
LoL, I get that and an espresso machine.
My pc is just a boring air cooled black box but I got all noctua fans so it’s very quiet.
Never seen a 6 fan radiator before, goddang
Wow, that's so pretty.
Thank you!
Pretty. But what do you pump the water around for, if the heat sink isn't larger than the one on the GPU?
Pwetty :3
It is good. That's a lot of radiator heat dissipation.
Wow. That looks very nice. Great job!
one radiator for the cpu, one for the gpu, what's the other one for? warm days?
Here is the back side:
So what was the reason for rad 3?
Where do you see the 3rd radiator? I only count two aha
in the description
Damn I really gotta step up my reading game whoops
it happens to everyone
In the post describing what's in it
Wow that's a beauty.
Have the same processor, very happy with it.
Beautiful! I love open air builds. What kind of wood is in the case and how do you select it?
It is an oak veneer plywood. I used plywood because natural wood, unless handled correctly can quickly warp and or shrink. This could cause a lot of problems with trying to get thinks properly aligned.
Plywood is very stable in that way.
I would probably do a different stain, dark wood.
I tried a gray satin on the V1. I'll see if I can find a picture.
Beautiful
Risky?
Wow, I didn't even know this was a thing. Very cool!
That’s badass
Classy as hell. Love the pipes.
Cool being able to see the internet connect right to the computer.
It’s giving Johnny Mnemonic. Very nice.
What did you do about the radiation leakage? How did you shield it?
How did you find the right spacing for the motherboard holes?
I had an old ATX motherboard and I traced the holes.
Gotcha. Unfortunately, I don't have a spare, but maybe I can figure something else out
This is easily achieved with a ruler and technical schematics.
Thanks, but I was hoping for a more detailed response. I'm not disassembling my PC to measure the hole spacing, and I've been unsuccessful in finding what the standard spacing is.
This is the first result I got for "ATX Specification": https://scidyne.com/ftp/ref_info/atx_201.pdf
There is a diagram with dimensions on page 11