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Why I wanted to rack mount my gaming PC
For years, I have had a rack in my office for my home media server and NAS. The rack is small enough to sit under my office desk. The server is very quiet even when spun up, so sound has never been a problem. The heat from the server is also pretty minimal. My rack has had the space for one more 4u server case for years.
I have always had trouble with the amount of desk space my gaming PC takes up. It has been on my mind for years that it would be easy to move all the components in the gaming PC to a 4u server case so that I could put it into my rack. I even did a little bit of research on other people who have done this as well. There are many posts on Reddit specifically where people have put their gaming PCs or workstations into rack mount cases without issues. So, ultimately I made the decision that rack mounting my gaming PC was the route I wanted to go as well.
How I rack mounted my gaming PC
When I built my home media server, I used a Rosewill 4u case and have been extremely happy with how everything has worked. If you look at some Reddit posts, you will find that these Rosewill cases are pretty popular for home servers and gaming PCs. So, I decided that the best bet was to use another Rosewill case for my gaming PC. I decided to add the case to my Christmas list and was lucky enough to have one of my family members purchase the exact one I needed.
On Christmas day, after the festivities, I brought my gaming PC into the living room and started moving all the components over. I ran into a few issues with the case I put on my Christmas list. The first problem was that I got the 21-inch case rather than the 25-inch one I used for my media server. This became a problem because my gaming PC used an AIO for CPU cooling, and in the 21-inch case, I didn’t have anywhere to mount it. So, I had to order a Noctua low-profile air cooler.
The next issue that I ran into was that the power supply in my gaming PC was a non-modular version. So there were a lot of cables that I would not be using that would be in the way. So, I also decided to order a modular power supply since I would need to wait for the CPU cooler anyhow.
The last issue is that the fans that come with these cases are not the greatest, so I had to order two new 40mm fans for the back of the case. I had two unused 120mm fans sitting around for the front of the case.
Once all the components I ordered arrived, the rest of the build was really straightforward. The hardest part was routing all the cables without any dedicated cable channels or built-in cable management in the case. Now, I was ready to turn everything on.
How things are going so far
It has been a few weeks since I completed the build and got everything mounted into my rack. Below is an image of everything in the rack. The bottom server is our home media server, and the top is the gaming PC. I have been monitoring the temperatures of all my components while gaming and while idle, and everything is looking perfect. The airflow in the PC is excellent, and it only gets a little loud during points when there is a lot of activity in the game. Even then, the fan sound is no louder than what it was in the regular case.
Overall, I have been thrilled with my decision, and now I have a ton of extra space on my desk. If you have any question about my process leave a comment below.
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