Build of the week: mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste”
Every Monday, Build of the week highlights a unique rig from the web's most dedicated PC building communities.
Sure, anyone can build a PC in a chassis that’s designed and intended to hold a motherboard and CPU and a mess of cables, but it takes some unique thinking to look at an object built to hold bullets and turn that into a PC case. In the case of this week’s build, that unique thinking lead to the mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” build from reddit user Porscheklaus who constructed his PC inside a US Army Ammo Can in order to avoid the cost of a custom laser cut case built from scratch.
A full parts list is below, and still to be added to the build are some vibration and sound dampening foam for the lid of the case. Between the unusual case and the blower coolers, there’s a fine balance between noise and heat in this build, although overall it’s pretty quiet according to the builder (see the temperatures and airflow plan of the case here). One concern with building inside an ammo case was weight; Porscheklaus has said one of the challenges in the build was having to remove the PCI-E slot plate to comfortably fit the GTX 670 inside. Another concern was finding a way to secure the GPU in place (the dust filters on the bottom fit tight enough in the end to prevent sagging). If you’re interested in an ammo can build, check out Porscheklaus' reddit post for some advice.
mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” parts list
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 2.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer XTREME Rev.2
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX-2-4g Thermal Paste
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Gold 450W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5” SSD
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Green 1.5TB 3.5” 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive
Case Fan: Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm
Case Fan: Arctic Cooling AFACO-120P2-GBA01 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan (2)
Case: US Army Ammo Can
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM, 64-bit)
Other: 120mm Fan Grill (2)
Porscheklaus answered a few questions about the Munitionskiste and sent us a few extra photos of the build in progress.
What was the hardest part of the ammo can build?
"Filing down the fan holes to look somewhat round was pretty tiring, but honestly other than that the build was pretty easy—just time consuming."
What inspired you to build inside an ammo can?
"The case I had back then (EVGA Hadron Air) annoyed me with the psu noise, size and somehow I found just buying components not satisfying. I had seen a few ammo can speakers on Instructable and noticed that the boxes were quite similar in size compared to the smallest dimensions I could achieve by cramping the components together. After further googling I noticed that I was sadly not the first one to come up with that idea but the first one to provide sufficient and economic cooling for higher end components, so I just gave it a shot."
What advice would you give to other builders or modders considering a similar build?
"Although it's time consuming, building your own case will definitely be worth it! It also isn't very hard, but can be frustrating (mid-build I thought about selling my components and just getting a PS4, WTF was wrong with me). Take your time, better spend 10 minutes more repainting than looking at a sloppy paint job every day."
Every Monday, Build of the week highlights a unique rig from the web's most dedicated PC building communities.
Sure, anyone can build a PC in a chassis that’s designed and intended to hold a motherboard and CPU and a mess of cables, but it takes some unique thinking to look at an object built to hold bullets and turn that into a PC case. In the case of this week’s build, that unique thinking lead to the mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” build from reddit user Porscheklaus who constructed his PC inside a US Army Ammo Can in order to avoid the cost of a custom laser cut case built from scratch.
A full parts list is below, and still to be added to the build are some vibration and sound dampening foam for the lid of the case. Between the unusual case and the blower coolers, there’s a fine balance between noise and heat in this build, although overall it’s pretty quiet according to the builder (see the temperatures and airflow plan of the case here). One concern with building inside an ammo case was weight; Porscheklaus has said one of the challenges in the build was having to remove the PCI-E slot plate to comfortably fit the GTX 670 inside. Another concern was finding a way to secure the GPU in place (the dust filters on the bottom fit tight enough in the end to prevent sagging). If you’re interested in an ammo can build, check out Porscheklaus' reddit post for some advice.
mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” parts list
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 2.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer XTREME Rev.2
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX-2-4g Thermal Paste
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Gold 450W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5” SSD
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Green 1.5TB 3.5” 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive
Case Fan: Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm
Case Fan: Arctic Cooling AFACO-120P2-GBA01 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan (2)
Case: US Army Ammo Can
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM, 64-bit)
Other: 120mm Fan Grill (2)
Porscheklaus answered a few questions about the Munitionskiste and sent us a few extra photos of the build in progress.
What was the hardest part of the ammo can build?
"Filing down the fan holes to look somewhat round was pretty tiring, but honestly other than that the build was pretty easy—just time consuming."
What inspired you to build inside an ammo can?
"The case I had back then (EVGA Hadron Air) annoyed me with the psu noise, size and somehow I found just buying components not satisfying. I had seen a few ammo can speakers on Instructable and noticed that the boxes were quite similar in size compared to the smallest dimensions I could achieve by cramping the components together. After further googling I noticed that I was sadly not the first one to come up with that idea but the first one to provide sufficient and economic cooling for higher end components, so I just gave it a shot."
What advice would you give to other builders or modders considering a similar build?
"Although it's time consuming, building your own case will definitely be worth it! It also isn't very hard, but can be frustrating (mid-build I thought about selling my components and just getting a PS4, WTF was wrong with me). Take your time, better spend 10 minutes more repainting than looking at a sloppy paint job every day."
Every Monday, Build of the week highlights a unique rig from the web's most dedicated PC building communities.
Sure, anyone can build a PC in a chassis that’s designed and intended to hold a motherboard and CPU and a mess of cables, but it takes some unique thinking to look at an object built to hold bullets and turn that into a PC case. In the case of this week’s build, that unique thinking lead to the mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” build from reddit user Porscheklaus who constructed his PC inside a US Army Ammo Can in order to avoid the cost of a custom laser cut case built from scratch.
A full parts list is below, and still to be added to the build are some vibration and sound dampening foam for the lid of the case. Between the unusual case and the blower coolers, there’s a fine balance between noise and heat in this build, although overall it’s pretty quiet according to the builder (see the temperatures and airflow plan of the case here). One concern with building inside an ammo case was weight; Porscheklaus has said one of the challenges in the build was having to remove the PCI-E slot plate to comfortably fit the GTX 670 inside. Another concern was finding a way to secure the GPU in place (the dust filters on the bottom fit tight enough in the end to prevent sagging). If you’re interested in an ammo can build, check out Porscheklaus' reddit post for some advice.
mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” parts list
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 2.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer XTREME Rev.2
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX-2-4g Thermal Paste
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Gold 450W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5” SSD
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Green 1.5TB 3.5” 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive
Case Fan: Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm
Case Fan: Arctic Cooling AFACO-120P2-GBA01 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan (2)
Case: US Army Ammo Can
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM, 64-bit)
Other: 120mm Fan Grill (2)
Porscheklaus answered a few questions about the Munitionskiste and sent us a few extra photos of the build in progress.
What was the hardest part of the ammo can build?
"Filing down the fan holes to look somewhat round was pretty tiring, but honestly other than that the build was pretty easy—just time consuming."
What inspired you to build inside an ammo can?
"The case I had back then (EVGA Hadron Air) annoyed me with the psu noise, size and somehow I found just buying components not satisfying. I had seen a few ammo can speakers on Instructable and noticed that the boxes were quite similar in size compared to the smallest dimensions I could achieve by cramping the components together. After further googling I noticed that I was sadly not the first one to come up with that idea but the first one to provide sufficient and economic cooling for higher end components, so I just gave it a shot."
What advice would you give to other builders or modders considering a similar build?
"Although it's time consuming, building your own case will definitely be worth it! It also isn't very hard, but can be frustrating (mid-build I thought about selling my components and just getting a PS4, WTF was wrong with me). Take your time, better spend 10 minutes more repainting than looking at a sloppy paint job every day."
Every Monday, Build of the week highlights a unique rig from the web's most dedicated PC building communities.
Sure, anyone can build a PC in a chassis that’s designed and intended to hold a motherboard and CPU and a mess of cables, but it takes some unique thinking to look at an object built to hold bullets and turn that into a PC case. In the case of this week’s build, that unique thinking lead to the mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” build from reddit user Porscheklaus who constructed his PC inside a US Army Ammo Can in order to avoid the cost of a custom laser cut case built from scratch.
A full parts list is below, and still to be added to the build are some vibration and sound dampening foam for the lid of the case. Between the unusual case and the blower coolers, there’s a fine balance between noise and heat in this build, although overall it’s pretty quiet according to the builder (see the temperatures and airflow plan of the case here). One concern with building inside an ammo case was weight; Porscheklaus has said one of the challenges in the build was having to remove the PCI-E slot plate to comfortably fit the GTX 670 inside. Another concern was finding a way to secure the GPU in place (the dust filters on the bottom fit tight enough in the end to prevent sagging). If you’re interested in an ammo can build, check out Porscheklaus' reddit post for some advice.
mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” parts list
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 2.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer XTREME Rev.2
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX-2-4g Thermal Paste
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Gold 450W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5” SSD
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Green 1.5TB 3.5” 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive
Case Fan: Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm
Case Fan: Arctic Cooling AFACO-120P2-GBA01 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan (2)
Case: US Army Ammo Can
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM, 64-bit)
Other: 120mm Fan Grill (2)
Porscheklaus answered a few questions about the Munitionskiste and sent us a few extra photos of the build in progress.
What was the hardest part of the ammo can build?
"Filing down the fan holes to look somewhat round was pretty tiring, but honestly other than that the build was pretty easy—just time consuming."
What inspired you to build inside an ammo can?
"The case I had back then (EVGA Hadron Air) annoyed me with the psu noise, size and somehow I found just buying components not satisfying. I had seen a few ammo can speakers on Instructable and noticed that the boxes were quite similar in size compared to the smallest dimensions I could achieve by cramping the components together. After further googling I noticed that I was sadly not the first one to come up with that idea but the first one to provide sufficient and economic cooling for higher end components, so I just gave it a shot."
What advice would you give to other builders or modders considering a similar build?
"Although it's time consuming, building your own case will definitely be worth it! It also isn't very hard, but can be frustrating (mid-build I thought about selling my components and just getting a PS4, WTF was wrong with me). Take your time, better spend 10 minutes more repainting than looking at a sloppy paint job every day."
Every Monday, Build of the week highlights a unique rig from the web's most dedicated PC building communities.
Sure, anyone can build a PC in a chassis that’s designed and intended to hold a motherboard and CPU and a mess of cables, but it takes some unique thinking to look at an object built to hold bullets and turn that into a PC case. In the case of this week’s build, that unique thinking lead to the mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” build from reddit user Porscheklaus who constructed his PC inside a US Army Ammo Can in order to avoid the cost of a custom laser cut case built from scratch.
A full parts list is below, and still to be added to the build are some vibration and sound dampening foam for the lid of the case. Between the unusual case and the blower coolers, there’s a fine balance between noise and heat in this build, although overall it’s pretty quiet according to the builder (see the temperatures and airflow plan of the case here). One concern with building inside an ammo case was weight; Porscheklaus has said one of the challenges in the build was having to remove the PCI-E slot plate to comfortably fit the GTX 670 inside. Another concern was finding a way to secure the GPU in place (the dust filters on the bottom fit tight enough in the end to prevent sagging). If you’re interested in an ammo can build, check out Porscheklaus' reddit post for some advice.
mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” parts list
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 2.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer XTREME Rev.2
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX-2-4g Thermal Paste
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Gold 450W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5” SSD
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Green 1.5TB 3.5” 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive
Case Fan: Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm
Case Fan: Arctic Cooling AFACO-120P2-GBA01 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan (2)
Case: US Army Ammo Can
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM, 64-bit)
Other: 120mm Fan Grill (2)
Porscheklaus answered a few questions about the Munitionskiste and sent us a few extra photos of the build in progress.
What was the hardest part of the ammo can build?
"Filing down the fan holes to look somewhat round was pretty tiring, but honestly other than that the build was pretty easy—just time consuming."
What inspired you to build inside an ammo can?
"The case I had back then (EVGA Hadron Air) annoyed me with the psu noise, size and somehow I found just buying components not satisfying. I had seen a few ammo can speakers on Instructable and noticed that the boxes were quite similar in size compared to the smallest dimensions I could achieve by cramping the components together. After further googling I noticed that I was sadly not the first one to come up with that idea but the first one to provide sufficient and economic cooling for higher end components, so I just gave it a shot."
What advice would you give to other builders or modders considering a similar build?
"Although it's time consuming, building your own case will definitely be worth it! It also isn't very hard, but can be frustrating (mid-build I thought about selling my components and just getting a PS4, WTF was wrong with me). Take your time, better spend 10 minutes more repainting than looking at a sloppy paint job every day."
Every Monday, Build of the week highlights a unique rig from the web's most dedicated PC building communities.
Sure, anyone can build a PC in a chassis that’s designed and intended to hold a motherboard and CPU and a mess of cables, but it takes some unique thinking to look at an object built to hold bullets and turn that into a PC case. In the case of this week’s build, that unique thinking lead to the mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” build from reddit user Porscheklaus who constructed his PC inside a US Army Ammo Can in order to avoid the cost of a custom laser cut case built from scratch.
A full parts list is below, and still to be added to the build are some vibration and sound dampening foam for the lid of the case. Between the unusual case and the blower coolers, there’s a fine balance between noise and heat in this build, although overall it’s pretty quiet according to the builder (see the temperatures and airflow plan of the case here). One concern with building inside an ammo case was weight; Porscheklaus has said one of the challenges in the build was having to remove the PCI-E slot plate to comfortably fit the GTX 670 inside. Another concern was finding a way to secure the GPU in place (the dust filters on the bottom fit tight enough in the end to prevent sagging). If you’re interested in an ammo can build, check out Porscheklaus' reddit post for some advice.
mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” parts list
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 2.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer XTREME Rev.2
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX-2-4g Thermal Paste
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Gold 450W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5” SSD
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Green 1.5TB 3.5” 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive
Case Fan: Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm
Case Fan: Arctic Cooling AFACO-120P2-GBA01 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan (2)
Case: US Army Ammo Can
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM, 64-bit)
Other: 120mm Fan Grill (2)
Porscheklaus answered a few questions about the Munitionskiste and sent us a few extra photos of the build in progress.
What was the hardest part of the ammo can build?
"Filing down the fan holes to look somewhat round was pretty tiring, but honestly other than that the build was pretty easy—just time consuming."
What inspired you to build inside an ammo can?
"The case I had back then (EVGA Hadron Air) annoyed me with the psu noise, size and somehow I found just buying components not satisfying. I had seen a few ammo can speakers on Instructable and noticed that the boxes were quite similar in size compared to the smallest dimensions I could achieve by cramping the components together. After further googling I noticed that I was sadly not the first one to come up with that idea but the first one to provide sufficient and economic cooling for higher end components, so I just gave it a shot."
What advice would you give to other builders or modders considering a similar build?
"Although it's time consuming, building your own case will definitely be worth it! It also isn't very hard, but can be frustrating (mid-build I thought about selling my components and just getting a PS4, WTF was wrong with me). Take your time, better spend 10 minutes more repainting than looking at a sloppy paint job every day."
Every Monday, Build of the week highlights a unique rig from the web's most dedicated PC building communities.
Sure, anyone can build a PC in a chassis that’s designed and intended to hold a motherboard and CPU and a mess of cables, but it takes some unique thinking to look at an object built to hold bullets and turn that into a PC case. In the case of this week’s build, that unique thinking lead to the mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” build from reddit user Porscheklaus who constructed his PC inside a US Army Ammo Can in order to avoid the cost of a custom laser cut case built from scratch.
A full parts list is below, and still to be added to the build are some vibration and sound dampening foam for the lid of the case. Between the unusual case and the blower coolers, there’s a fine balance between noise and heat in this build, although overall it’s pretty quiet according to the builder (see the temperatures and airflow plan of the case here). One concern with building inside an ammo case was weight; Porscheklaus has said one of the challenges in the build was having to remove the PCI-E slot plate to comfortably fit the GTX 670 inside. Another concern was finding a way to secure the GPU in place (the dust filters on the bottom fit tight enough in the end to prevent sagging). If you’re interested in an ammo can build, check out Porscheklaus' reddit post for some advice.
mITX Gaming Ammo Can “Munitionskiste” parts list
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 2.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer XTREME Rev.2
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX-2-4g Thermal Paste
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Gold 450W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5” SSD
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Green 1.5TB 3.5” 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive
Case Fan: Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm
Case Fan: Arctic Cooling AFACO-120P2-GBA01 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan (2)
Case: US Army Ammo Can
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM, 64-bit)
Other: 120mm Fan Grill (2)
Porscheklaus answered a few questions about the Munitionskiste and sent us a few extra photos of the build in progress.
What was the hardest part of the ammo can build?
"Filing down the fan holes to look somewhat round was pretty tiring, but honestly other than that the build was pretty easy—just time consuming."
What inspired you to build inside an ammo can?
"The case I had back then (EVGA Hadron Air) annoyed me with the psu noise, size and somehow I found just buying components not satisfying. I had seen a few ammo can speakers on Instructable and noticed that the boxes were quite similar in size compared to the smallest dimensions I could achieve by cramping the components together. After further googling I noticed that I was sadly not the first one to come up with that idea but the first one to provide sufficient and economic cooling for higher end components, so I just gave it a shot."
What advice would you give to other builders or modders considering a similar build?
"Although it's time consuming, building your own case will definitely be worth it! It also isn't very hard, but can be frustrating (mid-build I thought about selling my components and just getting a PS4, WTF was wrong with me). Take your time, better spend 10 minutes more repainting than looking at a sloppy paint job every day."