v3.1

Gothic Futurism

Directly inspired by Andi Darmika's open case project v3.0, this was a custom computer graphics workstation targeting the future-goth/dark-cyberpunk vibe.

My previous desktop was from 2014. 12 years later it was time for an upgrade. While the previous machine had undergone ram and gpu updates, the rest of the components had aged out. Work-from-home, freelance, and freaking windows 11 drove the need for a totally new build.

Thanks to JayzTwoCents videos for answering a lot of questions on compontent selection.

Design

While possibly one of the least service-friendly rigs I have ever made, it's definitely pretty nifty looking. The light-fin made mounting the cpu radiator quite difficult since there's an offset-overhang. The gpu mount makes use of the threaded (server?) holes on the back. GPU riser cable (linkup) is not used for any support. MB is just on standoffs. PSU has a bracket and a retainer bar.

Frame

The frame is made from 20mm extruded aluminum rail. L-brackets inside the channels make all the right-angle connections. The base is 1/4" MDF sealed with wall spackling and then painted. Metal brackets designed in fusion 360, 3D printed to check size, and then ordered from sendcutsend. The 24-pin PSU cable could benefit from a custom ultra-short variant as right now most of the cable mess is from that.

Cooling

Airlfow is just fine, the total cross-sectional area behind the cpu rad is larger than the intake area. I may make dust covers at some point but so far it's been really clean. I added additional heat-sinks using thermal tape to cover some of the logos and add additional cooling to things like the NVME drive. Not needed, but did take the temps down ~3-5c. The AIO was run with the pump below the whole rad before attaching to make sure most of the air made it to the top of the rad and ensure there's no bubble noises.

Lighting

The light fin is 1/4" acrylic with a bevel on the back side and frosted front edge. It has some coats of white paint and then black paint. ARGB ws2812b LEDs 144/m (but not the whole meter, maybe more like 700mm). The bevel scatters light forward towards the edge allowing the LED strips to be mounted on the face with clear VHB tape, and covered with gaff tape.

Next Time

If I were to do this again I'd get custom PSU cables made, re-design the frame so any part could be removed independent of the others, make the base out of metal as well, find a better solution than sanding to frost the front of the light-fin, add more IO to the power-button panel, add filters, and get some fans that didn't have soooo much extra cable.