[SPONSORED] - Project Sinister

[Sphinx818]

Hi all! I hope that this year has been great to all of you thus far?

 

I was asked by Cooler Master South Africa to complete a case mod on the new MasterCase Maker 5 chassis for the rAge expo this year in October in Johannesburg, this is a large computer and gaming expo here in South Africa, and I have to say that this is an amazing opportunity.

 

So without further delay, let the modding begin!

 

The day I received the chassis:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I decided instead of going with the typical movie or game theme, I went with a different approach. This machine will resemble power, passion, detail and what Cooler Master means to me (Making it yours and empowering your passion!)

Take a look at the texture I decided on going with for this mod:
 

 

 

 

 

The result now coming together, the overall effect being that the machine has so much power to harness, hence the "sinister" naming.

 

[Sphinx818]

 

Above you can see how the texture I've have created emphasizes the MasterCase Maker 5.

 

Here's a nice close up shot for all of you to see the dragon skin:

 

 

Here I created and painted the main veins, and was moving onto the dragon skin between the veins:

 

A close up shot of the top of the chassis:

 

Another juicy detail... This chassis will be featuring the tempered glass accessory panel that you can buy from Cooler Master store!

I am so stoked with the result here, as it suits the "sinister" approach that I am going for with this mod!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sphinx818]

 

Why are there veins around the logo you ask? It's simple... Cooler Master is empowering many branches of creativity in multiple industries. I wanted to highlight this fact, and that's why the veins are around the logo

[Sphinx818]

So I built a home-made spray booth:

 

 

 

 

I decided on Primer Grey as the interior's color, as it would help with internal lighting and adds a sense of cleanliness and takes a minimalistic approach:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Megadeblow]

Great effect mate
The glass side panel is really nice.

[Sphinx818]

Great effect mate

The glass side panel is really nice.

 

Thanks man!

 

It gives a totally different appearance to the MasterCase Maker 5!

[Sphinx818]

Hi all!

Hope everyone is well, here are some more shots of the Project Sinister rig!

Alright, so with the MasterCase series, there is this dust cover that is magnetically held in place for the top exhaust fans.
I did not want this to be plain and flat... Take a look at what I did...

 

 

 

 

So I used my technique to give this panel a really unique appearance to match with the rest of the Sinister build:

 

 

The effect worked out so well, it makes the top of the chassis have a really rugged appearance!

 

 

Here is a shot of the cover with the rest of the chassis:

 

 

Now one thing I noticed that some people are concerned about, is whether or not the front I/O panel of the MasterCase series is interchangeable or not, it is definitely interchangeable.
The highest spec front I/O panel that is out there is the one that comes with the MasterCase Maker 5, it has 2x USB 2.0 ports, 1x USB 3.0 ports, 1x USB Type C port, the Power and Reset, a switch for the lighting effects (This controls the included RED LED strip within the chassis) and of course the fan speed switch.

 

 

Here is some more texturing treatment:

 

 

The final result:

 

 

Now the panel does light up with red logos to indicate what each item does on the I/O Panel, I have tried to thin out the texture so that these icons are visible when the I/O panel is powered, however it just looks bad due to the blurry result. So I've decided that I am going to paint the logos onto the texture (Will post pics of this when it is done).

 

Here's the I/O panel installed with the rest of the panels:

 

Let me know what you all think of the Sinister build so far!

 

[Sphinx818]

Hey all! Hope everyone has been well?

I have received some of the hardware from Cooler Master South Africa and Asus ROG South Africa for the mod, thanks a lot guys! It is really appreciated!

- GPU: ASUS GTX1070 STRIX 8GB DDR5

- MOBO: ASUS Z170 Deluxe

Here are some mouthwatering shots of this gorgeous hardware:

 

 

 

 

And of course, once I received the GPU, I just had to install it in my test machine...

 

 

 

Did someone say motherboard?

 

 

 

 

 

[Sphinx818]

Hey everyone! Hope that the week was good?

More progress on the Sinister build!
Alright, so the system will be water cooled with a custom hard-line loop, therefore I wanted to make this chassis really unique and at the time of writing this, is the only Maker 5 Chassis that has this built in reservoir panel that is known.

Here I took the real panel of the chassis off, and then took it to engineering to remove the material that I do not need for the built in reservoir:



Take a look at this machine that was used for the cutting work!



Now for some perspex goodness...



Final profiling work:



Here's an action shot of the water channel that was milled into the 15mm perspex panel (8mm deep):



Here's the completed panel that will contain the water:





A before and after shot:



Now when it came time to put the perspex panel into the chassis, the top most piece of the metal that folded over was causing some interference issues, so it had to go...

Before:



After:



And here we are with the original metal panel re-riveted into the body of the Maker 5 chassis, along with the perspex built-in reservoir.



There are still some final details to be completed on the perspex panel to allow for the gorgeous ASUS GTX1070 STRIX card to fit comfortably in the Sinister chassis.

Stay tuned!

[Sphinx818]

So today was a busy one, I ensured that the 15mm perspex panel was fitted to the rest of the chassis, which meant making the necessary holes and threading them!

Also, the GPU mounting bracket needed to be accommodated within the perspex (about 1.5mm depth).

Therefore, correct size and depth marked, time to get cutting...



Success!



Alright, the radiator will be a 360mm XSPC (One that I used from my Envy build), it will be mounted in the front of the chassis between the front plastic cover and frame. Now for the fittings to not be obstructed by anything, some modifications are necessary (of course!).

'X' marks the spot...




Now for the other side...





And now the final result! Nice clearances for the radiator