Another GPU, lol

So, this is around the time COVID started. I was faced with the prospect of being stuck at home, and spending a lot of time in my room, on my computer (not really a big deal, basically no change from grad school, sooo...). Anyways, I figured if I wanted to get another real GPU (Nvidia 630 does not count), then now was the time. This snowballed into a new CPU, GPU, PSU and case. You see, I liked my really small Chopin case. And while you can buy small itx cases that support a GPU, they cost a lot, and most are not as small as I wanted. Also none of the cases I could find were made out of solid 1/16" stainless steel plate, really thin, or designed for maximum airflow efficiency. So I made this:

Very cool, but a little industrial appliance looking! Needless to say, it was very sturdy. Although it is hard to tell in the picture (sorry), all of the bolts and rivets on the side are countersunk and flush to the surface just like you would see on an airplane. The four fans are 60mm yellow-sharpie-treated, it has some cool feet, a yellow power button in the center of the front panel, and USB-C+A (5Gbps) on the front. On the inside we have a Nvidia 2080 super, AMD 3700X, 16GB ddr4, some SSDs, and a power supply. The stainless plate is from a local recycling place (~$1.5 per pound), and cost about $7. So the materials were cheap, but the components, fittings, and time to construct were all very costly. Simple things like cutting and bending the stainless plates that would take ~10 minutes at a proper machine shop, took me days, because I had to build the right tools, like a sheet metal break, from scratch. Worst of all was cutting the stainless, because my best option was a dremel with cutoff wheels. If only I had a plasma/waterjet cutting table *sigh*

I mentioned airflow earlier, and in the picture above, you can start to see what I mean. There are two compartments in the case, separated by a divider. The GPU goes in one, the PSU and MOBO in the other. Two of the 60mm fans blast air through each section; Air comes in from the front, and goes out the back. No silly nonsense with mesh sides, top or bottom vents, dust filters, positive/negative pressure designs, etc... Its like a pair of mini wind tunnels. The components go in the tubes, and stay supplied with cool air. Of course its not quite that simple, because the components have their own fans, like the CPU and GPU that help direct air over their respective radiators. The GPU is a EVGA blower design, which is compact, sturdy, and cheaper than other options. Like most GPUs, the fin stack inside the card only dissipates something like 70% of the heat, the rest goes to the backplate of the card. Therefore the backplate needs good airflow, which it gets while the card is suspended in the center of a a mini wind tunnel. This machine drew about 315 watts from the wall under load, 75% of that is the GPU. Therefore the motherboard and PSU do not need nearly as much airflow, which is good because their compartment had a lot more stuff restricting airflow. You can see this in the image below, which is from a second rebuild of the PC, where I stopped caring about cable management (the solid, stainless side panel is removed):

Although I made feet, I never really used them. It lived strapped to a filing cabinet under my 'desk' (I say desk loosely here, because it is really just a door I found used, sitting atop some secondhand furniture, and a cool pice of aluminum I found and used for a leg... Heck, I should make a page about my lovely desk, and go on a rant about pre-made computer desks) The nice thing about having it under the desk is how quite it was, even when the blower GPU cranked up. In the next section I decide that I want to put the same components in a case half a thick!