Should I mod my case for vertical GPU mount?

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cyclone3d

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I have an old Rocketfish / Lian Li full tower case. I think there is just about enough room above the expansion card slots to add a 3-slot vertical mount.

This case is 8" wide but there is no space behind the motherboard to put cabling. Are there any full tower cases wider than about 7.5" from the motherboard? Preferably still available? I've been looking and can't seem to find anything that matches what I would want.

Only real thing I am wondering about is how well the PCIe riser cables work. I see I can get a 300mm PCIe cable which would definitely be long enough. I would pair that with a right angle adapter and then of course I would need a 3-slot mount.

I would do this so I could free up an extra 2 PCIe slots on my motherboard. Then if I add another 1 or 2 slots right above the PSU, I would free up another slot on the motherboard and then also have the possibility to mount the serial port without taking up a regular slot.

Any of you ever do something like this?

I can't find any cases that would be able to do this. Pretty much all the case want to waste all/ almost all the motherboard slots in order to be able to have a vertically mounted GPU.

The only real downside is that I would definitely have to mod the side cover as well.
 
Personally, I would get a new case before messing with PCIe risers. For one, quality risers aren’t all that cheap, especially those that are PCI-e 4.0 capable. Some also have issues with certain GPU/MB combos. Then there are those that like to catch fire.

There are lots of really good modern case options out there that have fantastic cabling options and channels for running things behind the MB. For example, a Lian Li Lancool II Mesh can be had from Micro Center for $115.
 
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That case only has 7 expansion slots. My video card is an EVGA 2080 SC that is a 2.5 slot card. This blocks an extra 2 slots.

My Sound Blaster ZxR takes up 2 slots because it has a daughter card.

Ideally, I would be able to have access to all the PCIe slots... just cause and it seems silly to be only able to use 4 PCIe slots total on a 7-slot motherboard.

If I were to go with a new case, it would probably be a Rosewill Thor V2 white. That at least has 10 slots but I would still want to be able to do a vertical GPU so PCIe slots aren't blocked.

I thought about getting the Lian-Li vertical GPU adapter but the cable is only 200mm. From measuring, I think I would really need a longer cable. I might be able to get away with 220mm, but 300mm would be the safe bet.
 
Looking at new cases, these might work if modded:
Rosewill Thor V2 white - 10 slots and has a mesh side
Corsair 750D - 9 slots
Phanteks Enthoo Pro Series PH-ES614P_WT (only has 8 slots though)
Phanteks Enthoo Pro II Full Tower (only has 8 slots but already has 3 verticle mount slots.) Would just need to get PCIe riser cable and make a support. Would also have to get the solid side version so I could add a grill/filter for fresh air for the GPU. Has tons of internal drive mounts.
Fractal Design Define 7 XL ( 9 slots and already has 3 vertical mount slots) Has tons of drive mounts.

Edit: The Phanteks Enthoo Pro II looks like a really sweet case. If I used the ITX panel, it would even give me an extra 3 vertical slots... hmmmm.
If someone was so inclined, they could even run dual vertical GPUs.

I'll keep adding different cases as I find them.
 
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Again, new case sounds like a better investment than throwing a PCIe rider into your old case... plus, when you do eventually upgrade the internals, you’ll be all set case wise.
 
Thing is... the case I have is still really big and it wouldn't take much to mod it into a really nice case... besides the fact that it doesn't have any wire management stuff behind the motherboard. It has stock space for 6x 3.5" HDDs of which 2 are open and I also have 4x 2.5" SSDs mounted and there is plenty of space to mount a bunch more.

It even has enough space in the top to mount a 420mm radiator.

My PSU has flat cables though so I would probably be able to cut some holes in the motherboard tray to run the cables though and get pretty much all of them out of the way. Even without doing that I have the cables routed around the front of the motherboard tray and really just need to zip tie them together to hold them down.

I also already have a steel 2 slot expansion card bracket from some other case so I could add that in between the motherboard and the case. All I would have to do is cut a hole in the case and drill a couple holes for the screws to attach it.

Sooo... I could spend a bit of time and around $50-$60 to get the PCIe GPU riser or I could spend around $130+ and around $50-60 for the PCIe GPU riser just so I would also have better cable management.

Either way I am going to have to mod the side cover to get fresh air to the GPU.
 
So....I was thinking about this a bit more and to do what I want to do is really going to require me to have a 90 degree PCIe riser cable and also another 90 degree riser card so I don't have to have a super hard bend in the cable since that is apparently bad for them.

With that in mind, I am pretty sure my case is not going to be quite wide enough.

So I guess I will be getting a new case.
 
Doing some measurements and the Phanteks Enthoo Pro II will not be wide enough to actually have clearance for the right angle riser and right angle cable.... uggghhh. I did find another case that has .4" more width available which should hopefully be enough.
 
Worked for me in a Phanteks Enthoo Luxe (original) Case twice.
The nice part separating it from most risers is that I can still use other motherboard expansion slots like my SoundBlaster audio card

1st Luxe with build log pics

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2nd Luxe

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Which motherboard PCIe slot are you plugging the riser cable into?

If the first slot(closest to the CPU) isn't that making you do a hard 90 degree bend on the riser cable?

How much space in between the top of the normal slots and the edge of the case is there?
 
The monster case has arrived.

Went ahead and ordered a couple each:
400mm Cooler Master PCIe 3.0 right angle riser cables
PCIe right angle riser cards
vertical GPU mount brackets

Not 100% sure that I can cram 2 vertical mounts into this case but I am going to try.
 
I assume you are asking me please ignore if not
cyclone3d said:
Which motherboard PCIe slot are you plugging the riser cable into? Top x16 slot both builds

If the first slot(closest to the CPU) isn't that making you do a hard 90 degree bend on the riser cable? No

How much space in between the top of the normal slots and the edge of the case is there? approx. 20cm. I provided images for perspective not sure what your concern would be or even if I understand the question
Click to expand...
 
cyclone3d said:
Yeah, the questions were directed to you.

Thanks for answering. How tight is the bend in the cable?
Click to expand...
I assume you mean the PCIe extension cable, if so, nearly no bend at all. Note the 1st image above. final shape is like a not quite formed "S"

1S.png
 
I could populate any of the expansion slots not in use but only have the GPU and Sound Blaster Z (hence the red glow below the vertical mount) (last pic) installed in both builds.
 
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