the better – trying
to cram a Noctua
NH-D15 into a mini-ITX
buildis justfuntome.It looks likekeeping
the interior minimal is a big
priority for you, and that’s some
amazing cable-tidying work.
Take us through the process of
creating such a clean interior.
Paul: Planning a build doesn’t
really take long once all the parts
are there. I can usually see where
the cables will go pretty quickly,and where I’ll need to make mods
to make the cable tidying a little
cleaner. It was really easy to work
with this case – all the grommets
were in the right places, and I didn’t
really have to worry about PCI-E
power cables because of the way the
graphics card is mounted – there’s
a grommet directly behind it.PaulTurtondeliberatelyeschewedfancy
water cooling and multi-coloured lights for
this build, focusing on making a clean and
tidy air-cooled rig with a white theme
/MEET THY MAKER
Name Paul Turton
Age 35
Occupation System
builder/publican
Location Bexhill-on-Sea
Main uses for PC
My daughter uses
it for homework
Li kes Anything tech,
spending time with family
Dislikes Anything tech
at times, working!Snowblind
Readers’ Drives
MODDING / READERS’ DRIVES
What made you want to build
a PC with an all-white interior?
Paul: I’ve always liked white
builds. Not many people do them,
as there’s a lack of pure white
parts. Most of the white cases that
get released tend to have a black
interior, but the SilverStone RL07
was pure white,soit startedthere.We see a lot of
water-cooled PCs in
the Readers’ drives
submissions, but
your build stood out
by being minimal
and air-cooled. Do
you prefer air cooling
to water cooling?
Paul: I love air-cooled
systems. I build lots of
water-cooled systems
for customers, and
have a lot of friends in
the community who
all do the same thing- they’re amazing
systems. I just have a
soft spot for silly big
air coolers. I’ve done a
lot of air-cooled builds
to date, using coolers
from Noctua, Cryorig,
be quiet! and a few
more. As far as I’m
concerned, the smaller
Didyoumaketheangled
graphics card mount yourself?
Paul: The graphics card mount
was an idea I’d seen a while back
on another system, and I wanted
to try it out. There’s no advantage
to positioning it like that; it’s just
different to having it mounted
in the traditional way or with a
vertical bracket. The mount is made
from just a couple of coat hangers
from B&Q, which I bent to shape.
I then drilled the mounting holes
in the PSU shroud, added a couple
of bolts and bingo! It’s just held
inplacebyheavy-dutyVelcro.How do you access
the graphics card’s
outputs at that angle?
Paul: As the system sits at the
moment, the HDMI cable just
passes through the rear of the
case where the PCI-E expansion
slot screws are located. However,
I’m looking at getting wireless
HDMI, which will remove the
need for a cable altogether. If
that doesn’t work out, then I’ll
get an extension cable and run
it down into the PSU shroud.I was going to paint
the whole shroud
white, but I thought
it looked better with
the end result I got