7950x Cooler suggestions

[katie279]

Sorry for the late reply. The case itself is made of 18mm MDF then wrapped in black Fablon. I originally wanted to paint it black but after a test piece couldn't get a satisfactory finish due to the MDF soaking the paint up and even after sanding wasn't happy to continue. The top section is 230mm and seperated from the bottom section by a 4mm thick aluminium motherboard tray. I went that thick so that I could tap it for the motherboard risers. The bottom deck Is 180mm high and houses the PSU and originally the pair of D5 pumps as well as hiding the many cables out of sight.I got hold of a full set of Corsair grommets for one of their cases for just a tenner on Ebay and lined strategically placed holes for cables with them. I routered the top of the desk to take a almost full size piece of laminated glass as a window and I think it looks great. I have no resonance/vibration from the fans which is a bonus from making it out of wood. I had to find a solution for the power/reset/HDD LED and found a extrenal device that covers all three on Amazon for a few quid. It has a long lead which plugs into the motherboard front panel headers and a sticky pad which I used to fit it in the center of the front of the case just under and between the fans. Despite being a chep device from China I have had no problems with it at all.

The pc has evolved since I first built this case when I built a pc based around a Asus Z170 ROG Hero motherboard (back when they were still quality boards and reasonably priced) and a 8700k cpu and it was originally water cooled. Back then I had a pair of Bitfenix Spectre Pro 200x30mm fans at the front and a pair of Aerocool Silent Master 200x25mm fans at the rear all controlled by a Zalman ZM-MFC2 multifunction fan controller. This is a great bit of kit as it shows live power draw as well as four sets of temps. The front fans have filters mounted on the outside of the case. The radiators were mounted in a filtered box on the windowsill drawing outside air through them while the pumps were sat in the bottom deck of the case along with the psu and all the cables out of sight. The eight 140mm rad fans were controlled by a Lamptron FC5 v2 four channel fan controller. The fan controllers were mounted in a box that I also made sitting outside the case under the desk. While keeping the same cooling set up it was upgraded to a Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro motherboard with a 9600k cpu. Back then it looked like this:-
[/SPOILER]

Really helpful - loads of good tips and lessons in here! Looks great and no surprise regarding the quietness - as you say the density of the MDF will help hugely!

 

[katie279]

Ps.
Never heard that one before
How the hell do dairy farmers fight?
Throw friesians at each other.?

Hehehe, sorry, you either have played Monkey Island or you haven't....!

 

[katie279]

Walnut or elm would look gorgeous especially if you oiled it to bring the grain out. You can't get anything like that around here just pine, pine, MDF, chipboard, more pine, OSB, hardboard (which I was tempted with as it can look nice if use choose the right finish) and oh yes, I nearly forgot, more pine. They love the stuff around here!!

Oh really!? I'm just a bit down from you and it's wonderful tree land - loads of elm, birch, oak, chestnut etc etc - gorgeous wood. Here's some elm I was working on a while back (just to make you jealous!): https://www.instagram.com/p/CrX923JoK9c/?img_index=1 Totally right though, you get a lovely pop once I apply a finish!

I would love it if you could tell me how you get a fine finish on MDF. I have tried sealing it with supposedly MDF sealant that B&Q sells and even tried a couple of coats of watered down PVA glue but it still absorbed the paint. I gave it one coat then sanded it down before giving it another, sanding down and a third coat and then gave up and went with fablon instead. It looks ok but the stuff is easily knicked or slit.

Yeah part of the trick is the MDF itself, partly it's the paint itself (ie quality) and part is the layering. Basically you're half there - however would highly, highly recommend Zinsser primer (probably others, but the key is to get a shellac-based one as this really kills the annoying grain on the edges). Also worth looking at decent quality MR-MDF (ie moisture resistant) - makes a big difference to finish.

Once dry, sand down and put first paint coat (again good quality paint makes a difference), then de-nib (really lightly sand, just to take off any bumps), then keep going until you're happy with the finish - then importantly put one more coat on. Most factory finishes for kitchens use 6-7 coats as a flavour - but 3-4 coats is usually plenty.

Doing above you'll end up with a really flawless finish - even with rollers (very close to kitchen cabinet finish) - only way you'd improve is by spraying and that would only make a minor improvement for reflections and the like.

I'm off to bed now as I have a awful dose of flu and feel lousy. Happy New Year to you and your family and everyone on here.

Oh dear, get well soon and happy new year to you and everyone else!

 

[katie279]

@katie279 yeah definitely makes sense
To use quality paint
Buy cheaper stuff either you have to do
A load more coats
or it just doesn't do the job properly even with more coats
Also assuming zinsser isn't water based?
Which would make sense on mdf

Correct - that's part of the secret, it just clogs the pores in MDF rather than swelling the grain like water would.

Thought you might have to use mdf edging tape
But sounds like you don't

Nah, it's not actually that effective unless you have an edge banding machine - takes way too much time, plus it doesn't work for anything other perfectly flat edges (think bevels, angles, skirting boards, profiles etc)

You're obviously a woman of many talents
Really looking forward to what
You might come up with as a wooden pc case

Have a bit of time to start the case design, mainly musing.through airflow at the moment, so will post some thoughts this week!

 

[katie279]

Just in case anyone wants a nose/give advice, I've started a project log here:

Whisperwood

Hi all, Starting a PC build - looking to play mainly solitaire and use for a bit of Word letter writing, so thanks to all your advice I've gone with following specs, which apparently should be able to just about run them without too much lag: Specs: GPU: RTX 4090 CPU: AMD 7950x RAM: 96GB HDD...

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