I've been thinking about several case designs for a while. The one that I would most like to create would literally be a hollow cylinder lying on its side with a box on top of it for Harddrives, PSU and DVD drives. These would be connected by long cables through a small hole to the motherboard which is enclosed within the tunnel. It would be lying down horizontal to the ground with the CPU HSF standing vertical along with the graphics card. The outputs from the motherboard and PCI slot cards would go out the side of the cylinder.
At each end would be roughly a 300mm fan. One input and one output. Both running at around 800-1000RPM which should be enough to get quite a large airflow through the cylinder. The DVD drives and harddrives would rely on the PSU fan to cool them.
I'd love to create a case like this even if just to see if it could actually work. Unfortunately I doubt I'll ever have the tools to do this. Maybe I'll juryrig up some sort of cardboard design for it just to test the cooling of the two large fans.
The other idea I've had most recently is more of a conventional design that might already be done. Basically I'm going with the idea of heat rising and using that to our advantage in case design.
I did up a quick diagram which can probably explain it better then I could here:
Basically you'd have 3x120mm fans at the bottom of the side panel tilted at about a 30deg angle upward. You'd have another 3x120mm fans at the top of the case pulling air out, maybe just 2x120mm and the PSU fan acting as the third.
For this I'm thinking it would probably be best to change the cpu tower to blow air upwards instead of the traditional out the back approach.
The problem facing both these designs is the graphics card. It present quite a large blockage to the air, especially if you have a 2900XT or a GTX. While this is good for the graphics card it potentially shadows the CPU cooler behind it from the air.
What do you guys think anyway? I'd be more likely to attempt the second idea of mine at some point. Probably when i'm sick of my current Antec Titan case and want to replace it. I'd just hack away at it and see how far I got. It could potentially be done with just some judicious hacksaw usage and some nuts and bolts afterwards. Obviously welding would be great but I don't have the kit or expertise to do that
At each end would be roughly a 300mm fan. One input and one output. Both running at around 800-1000RPM which should be enough to get quite a large airflow through the cylinder. The DVD drives and harddrives would rely on the PSU fan to cool them.
I'd love to create a case like this even if just to see if it could actually work. Unfortunately I doubt I'll ever have the tools to do this. Maybe I'll juryrig up some sort of cardboard design for it just to test the cooling of the two large fans.
The other idea I've had most recently is more of a conventional design that might already be done. Basically I'm going with the idea of heat rising and using that to our advantage in case design.
I did up a quick diagram which can probably explain it better then I could here:
Basically you'd have 3x120mm fans at the bottom of the side panel tilted at about a 30deg angle upward. You'd have another 3x120mm fans at the top of the case pulling air out, maybe just 2x120mm and the PSU fan acting as the third.
For this I'm thinking it would probably be best to change the cpu tower to blow air upwards instead of the traditional out the back approach.
The problem facing both these designs is the graphics card. It present quite a large blockage to the air, especially if you have a 2900XT or a GTX. While this is good for the graphics card it potentially shadows the CPU cooler behind it from the air.
What do you guys think anyway? I'd be more likely to attempt the second idea of mine at some point. Probably when i'm sick of my current Antec Titan case and want to replace it. I'd just hack away at it and see how far I got. It could potentially be done with just some judicious hacksaw usage and some nuts and bolts afterwards. Obviously welding would be great but I don't have the kit or expertise to do that
