Introduction and Background:
Hi, I'm Taylor!
I'm pretty new to case modding, and cases in general actually. All my computers until my current system have been laptops. My current setup is... well, not very small. It's an old server converted to a dual headed gaming system for my wife and I and mounted in a wooden box.
Sometime next year though I plan to upgrade us both to our own separate systems. She's got her eye on a few cases she likes, but I haven't found quite what I'm looking for yet, so I decided to see if I could make it.
What I was looking for:
As small as possible.
Supports custom water cooling.
Is not a cube case.
Supports maxed out hardware both in size and heat dissipation.
And by maxed out hardware I mean up to 1080ti sli. I have no idea if I can find a way to fit that in my budget anytime soon, but our current system is 16 cores, 32 threads, a 1070, and a 1060 all in one system, and while I want my next system to be MUCH smaller, if I go with a lower specked system I want it to be because of my budget, not because of my case. I ended up with a design that only allows for 2 pcie slots, so to pull off sli I'd have to use single slot cards, but that's possible with water cooling.
Since I decided to try to design my own case, I figured I should try to make use of the 1U power supplies I already have from my current system. They were a steal at $40 each on ebay for 750 watt platinum power supplies. (they've gone up since then though)
Additional design goals:
Support 1u and flex atx power supplies.
I debated doing an atx system since sadly no one is going to make an itx threadripper motherboard, but I don't think I can really justify buying a 1950x any time soon (as much as I'd like to), so I decided against it and went for only itx support instead. Maybe I'll revisit the atx idea later since I do have some mockups I really liked that supported dual 360 radiators and came in several liters smaller than the Cerberus. Not the Cerberus X, the Cerberus! (with some heavy compromises of course).
I went through probably a dozen or so different ideas before settling on one that ended up being about 12.5 liters, but I made it a little larger to support two extra fans in the front and have a few extra millimeters of wiggle room between parts.
I'll probably want to go with 1.5 mm steel since that keeps it just under 14 Liters (13.93) while 2 mm aluminum makes it 14.07. (those measurements don't include the pcie bracket protrusion or any case feet)
This is a case designed pretty much for exactly what I want, but getting something like this custom made is expensive. Bulk buying always makes things cheaper and if I like it, others might to. So while I have no idea what the timeline on this looks like other than "I want this sometime next year", I'm putting this in the custom cases and projects area.
Anyway, enough rambling. On to... hmm, I really need a name for this thing. On to the case!
Hi, I'm Taylor!
I'm pretty new to case modding, and cases in general actually. All my computers until my current system have been laptops. My current setup is... well, not very small. It's an old server converted to a dual headed gaming system for my wife and I and mounted in a wooden box.
Sometime next year though I plan to upgrade us both to our own separate systems. She's got her eye on a few cases she likes, but I haven't found quite what I'm looking for yet, so I decided to see if I could make it.
What I was looking for:
As small as possible.
Supports custom water cooling.
Is not a cube case.
Supports maxed out hardware both in size and heat dissipation.
And by maxed out hardware I mean up to 1080ti sli. I have no idea if I can find a way to fit that in my budget anytime soon, but our current system is 16 cores, 32 threads, a 1070, and a 1060 all in one system, and while I want my next system to be MUCH smaller, if I go with a lower specked system I want it to be because of my budget, not because of my case. I ended up with a design that only allows for 2 pcie slots, so to pull off sli I'd have to use single slot cards, but that's possible with water cooling.
Since I decided to try to design my own case, I figured I should try to make use of the 1U power supplies I already have from my current system. They were a steal at $40 each on ebay for 750 watt platinum power supplies. (they've gone up since then though)
Additional design goals:
Support 1u and flex atx power supplies.
I debated doing an atx system since sadly no one is going to make an itx threadripper motherboard, but I don't think I can really justify buying a 1950x any time soon (as much as I'd like to), so I decided against it and went for only itx support instead. Maybe I'll revisit the atx idea later since I do have some mockups I really liked that supported dual 360 radiators and came in several liters smaller than the Cerberus. Not the Cerberus X, the Cerberus! (with some heavy compromises of course).
I went through probably a dozen or so different ideas before settling on one that ended up being about 12.5 liters, but I made it a little larger to support two extra fans in the front and have a few extra millimeters of wiggle room between parts.
I'll probably want to go with 1.5 mm steel since that keeps it just under 14 Liters (13.93) while 2 mm aluminum makes it 14.07. (those measurements don't include the pcie bracket protrusion or any case feet)
This is a case designed pretty much for exactly what I want, but getting something like this custom made is expensive. Bulk buying always makes things cheaper and if I like it, others might to. So while I have no idea what the timeline on this looks like other than "I want this sometime next year", I'm putting this in the custom cases and projects area.
Anyway, enough rambling. On to... hmm, I really need a name for this thing. On to the case!
Name: Doesn't have one yet...
Volume: 14 Liters
Dimensions: 332 mm tall x 318 mm deep x 132 mm wide
Power Supply support: flex or 1U
Motherboard support: M-ITX
HDD Support: 2? 2.5" drives
GPU support:
Length: 297 mm with front fan, 322 mm without
Height: I wouldn't recommend going over the standard height as it'd make routing the pcie extender and tubes
for water cooling significantly harder. The exception to this would be hybrid style coolers that don't use
a block on the side of the gpu. In that case ~130 mm.
Supports two 120 mm fans in the front of the case plus up to dual 240 radiators:
60 mm x 122 mm x 290 mm of clearance on the bottom,
43 x 122 mm x 290 mm on the top
This requires either no fans or slim fans on the top 240 radiator.
Both radiators have a length clearance of 315 mm without the front case fans.
Supports ddc or similar pump/res combo units up to 16 cm tall. I might could get a d5 to fit in the design, but I'm not sure yet.
Recommended water cooling kits:
EKWB Liquid Gaming A240G with an extra 240 rad and 2 slim 120mm fans.
Put the slim fans on the top radiator and the leftover 2 Vardar fans in the front of the case.
This is still pretty rough. A lot of the holes and tabs haven't been modeled yet and all the bends are still modeled as squares. I feel bad doing any further polish here when I really need to do it over in a proper cad program that supports sheet metal.
(all the actual computer hardware in the model I pulled from the 3d warehouse and double checked their dimensions. I didn't make any of them except the model of my 1U psu and it's edge connector)
Please throw as much feedback as you'd like, I'm learning as I go (including trying to learn to use fusion 360 so I can stop using Sketchup...) and most of what I know about pc building and cases I've learned from forums like this one.
Thanks!
