Part Crysis

[dexaroni]

After working on this case as "The Mirage" for months and not getting the result I wanted, I decided to tear the entire thing down and start from scratch. Here is what I have so far.

My goal with this case is to make a fairly small PC that houses a full ATX board, SLI cards, watercooling, dual hard drives, and basically an all around high performance PC, while still maintaining a small size and looking good.

I started with this. The husk of the original Mirage. Note the bottom mounted radiator holes, which ended up blocking my PCI ports. This just won't do. Today, I will be cutting the holes for mounting a radiator up front.

I had to get all of my tools together, the paint, acrylic, tools, etc, and of course the Mountain Dew.

First I cut out the existing holes in the front of the case for intake. I didn't need this to be clean because it would not be shown.

Next I had to cut out the bottom bay of my drive rails, so that I could fit a full size 240mm radiator up front.

Finally, I drilled the holes to mount the radiator in the front of the case.

I will post more pictures tomorrow morning, I will be doing the paint as well as interior prep.

[dexaroni]

So I got down to polishing the turd today.

Here is the whole thing. I got the top panel painted, as well as the chassis.

Here is a shot from the back. I love those chrome bolts.

And the front cleaned up nicely, eh?

And finally, a shot of things to come...

[dexaroni]

The Mirage was completed, and I never finished the thread here. It won the Amateur Mod Competition at pdxlan. With this mod, I am doing an entirely different theme, layout, colors, its only the same base case, which is why I feel that I should start a new thread.

Anyways, the bottom will be having a mirror put in, I had one that I intended to install today, but it snapped in two when I tried to slide it in, so I will be ordering another one and having it cut smaller. I should have that by tomorrow, so I will update the thread then.

[dexaroni]

Edit: Found the winning pics.

As for the mirror, I did find a use for it... I'll be posting what I did with it in an hour or two, just waiting for paint to cure.

[dexaroni]

I need to redo the front panel to accomodate the radiator, and I also don't like the general way the stock panel looks, too much going on. Lets make this REAL simple, shall we?

Going to pick up a piece of acrylic tomorrow and cut out the holes, then paint it black, so the front of the case is a black mirror. Should look good...

[dexaroni]

I finished up the chassis today, I think it turned out pretty good.

Here is a neat little style shot I took of the bottom.

And here is a more conventional shot of the whole bottom.

I stuck a panel in the top as well so that more light will bounce around the case.

Here is the drive bay cover.

And this is how I can access my drives still

I polished up the paint and finished it, check out the awesome metallic blue on this thing!

And finally a shot of the entire finished chassis.

[dexaroni]

I was working on the custom front panel last night, and to my dismay, the company that cut it didn't take it's time, and the edges are all chipped, which just won't do for a front panel.

I decided to just skip USB ports alltogether, it will minimize wires inside, and since the motherboard I am buying has 6 on the back, I don't think I need 2 USB 1.0 up front.

[dexaroni]

WEWT! Picked up some sweet new parts for the rig.

A friend:
DFI LanParty UT NF680I LT SLI-T2

Newegg:
PC Power And Cooling 750 Quad Silencer (Black)

Crazy PC:
Logisys Blue Lazer 5 LEDs Kits
Black Trim Molding (6ft)
UV Blue Slot Protectors
Neon Blue 1/4 Inch Cable Sleeves (5 ft)
Black 9mm (3/8 inch) Heat Shrink (2 feet)
Molex Pin Removal Tool

Frozen CPU:
Blue Illuminated Bulgin Style Vandal Switch - Silver Housing - Ring Illumination

Bye bye 250 dollars, hello SWEET FREAKIN MOD!


I also updated the name of the thread (in true dexaroni fashion).

I realized that I am really just building this system to run Crysis on high settings with good FPS, but I don't want to call it Project: Crysis because it's not a crysis themed build. Instead I used a play on words... I am in a crysis that my computer isn't fast enough to play the newest games, so I am going to call it Part Crysis.

[dexaroni]

Crysis is the name of the game. A catastrophe is a crisis. lol

Looking good though dude.

Yeah... thats why it is a play on words...

I am having a catastrophe because my system is not powerful enough to run Crysis at max settings. The play on words is why it's called Part Crysis.

And thanks for the kind words bro!

[dexaroni]

Ah, I'm glad you asked Spawn:

Bought Parts:
DFI Lanparty 680iLT motherboard
Black Ice GTXtreme 240 Radiator
DD 680i Chipset Waterblock
Sound Blaster Audigy 2
PC Power and Cooling 750 Quad Silencer
Western Digital Caviar 500GB 16mb Cache
Antec Tri Cool Blue LED Fans

Coming Soon:

2x eVGA (whatever is top of the line in december)
Intel Q6600
Crucial Balistix Tracer DDR2800
Another WD 500 GB HD
2x Antec Drive Coolers
Sceptre 22" 1080p monitor

Watercooling to buy:
Danger Den MC-TDX Waterblock
Hardware Labs Black Ice 120
2x Danger Den Video card waterblock (for whatever cards I get)
Danger Den D5 Pump

And yeah, the UV light is sweet, but I honestly don't know if I will be utilizing it since it doesn't go with my color theme. I picked up some UV blue slot protectors to go with my UV blue sleeving, so that may fix that. We will have to see how it looks when the parts arrive.

I am just waiting for my check to clear, then I am going to start work on the front panel. I will be sure to keep you guys updated!