Remember my ghetto rack server mod? (
Building server on metal rack :) )
I re-did that a while back (I dubbed it Rack Server Mod v2.0), so there were 2 servers on one rack (running on one PSU), but I fried the motherboard in the newer server, so it's now back to just one.
Now I'm doing Rack Server Mod v3.0! I'm not JUST having the rack, I'm building the entire CASE out of those racks! I'm doing it as a project for my welding class
So far, I've trimmed the edges on two of the racks, (two more to go). Then I'm going to cut two of them in half. So I'll have 2 full racks for the sides, and 4 halves for the top, bottom, front, and back. I've got one more extra rack that I'm going to cut up and make hardware mounting stuff (drive mounts, etc). I'll be putting 120mm fans all the way up the front and back of the case (it's wide enough for two rows on the front, and one on the back... I may be able to fit 2 rows on part of the back... I'll have to wait until it's done to measure and see). The dimmensions of the thing will be 24"x24"x12". I'm going to have the hard drives and PSU(s?) mounted in the bottom section of the case, and the rest of it will be standard configuration. All of the hardware will be ziptied in (I'm going to use rubber vibration dampeners on everything that has moving parts (fans, hard drives, optical drives, etc).
I'm probably going to use a Zalman CNPS9700 for the CPU cooling, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do for graphics cooling. If I have enough time and money, I may do phase change on the CPU and GPU, but I doubt that'll happen.
I don't have any idea what the hardware is going to be, but it'll probably be something that's cutting edge when I actually build it (probably june-july-ish)... it may be an AMD 4x4 (2x4 cores!). I dunno what kind of graphics will be in it either, but hopefully there will be dual 8800 series GPU's out (like the 7950GX2... I'm hoping for an 8950GX2), and I'll get 3 of them and run them all in SLi (will be able to run quad displays and SLi, IIRC... or maybe it's dual displays... I can't remember). I'll probably put 4 or 8 gigs of RAM in it... 1gb per core (however many that ends up being)...
I'm budgeting $5000 for the whole rig, and the case is going to cost me nothing, so I'll have 5 grand for hardware, displays, and lighting. I'll probably go with 2x22" or 4x22" widescreen displays... I'm not sure yet. Basically, I'll be building an insane rig
I've been grounded from the net for the last month, so I'm WAY behind in tech news... I don't have any idea what the latest and greatest hardware is(is it still the x6800 and the 8800gtx? Has r600 been released? Is it better or worse than 8800gtx?)...
Anyway, the whole plan with this rig is to start with the biggest baddest case possible, and decide what I'm doing from there. I've got a rough idea what kind of hardware I'm going to put into it, and a rough idea of the cooling that I'll be using (I'm leaving space for phase change just in case I ever want to do it)... other than that, I'm flying blind.
I'll be updating with pictures tomarrow afternoon, and I'll probably have updates every few days after that.
Let me know if you've got any ideas/suggestions/flames/hatemail/whatever... for the project... they'd be greatly appreciated
TIA