PC hardware

The PC hardware isnt the best, with a Skylake i5 and SATA ssds, but its perfect for me. Ive thrown an RX 5700XT for that sweet sweet Catalina compatability and 24GB of DDR4 RAM so I can open 5 tabs on chrome (also so NodeJS can eat it all for work). 

Case Conversion

Now, the fun bit. I bought the original PowerMac G5 on TradeMe for $150 NZD. I had to strip all the original components to plan my attack. Goddamn Apple loves over engineering their computers, took me a couple solid hours to strip it all out.

I had ordered an ATX Low 120 Kit from the LazerHive. It included the motherboard tray, aluminium backplate and a jug plug for power.

I popped off all the existing standoffs which interfered with the new motherboard tray (I think I removed more than whats in this photo, so just use common sense here)

and then lined up where I had to cut out the back

An angle grinder took care of the back and once the back plate and motherboard tray were affixed I could transplant the PC from it old case.

Now, I definitely didnt just leave it like this for 1 1/2 years. I totally got right on it and finished the project.

----- One and a half years later -----

i exchanged the old 1070 for the 5700xt (Due to apple having a tiff with nvidia) and replaced the water cooler with the Noctua cooler due to the pump having an irritating whine.

I figured I could move the HDDs over to the left, due to no CD drive, I haven't used a CD since high school. I could then move the power supply to the top-right, running a power extension down the next to the PCIE cards and the fan.

I fabricated a bracket for the power supply, bolting it to the shelf.

This brings us to today. Its all pretty sorted, and I get to use it every day for work (macOS) and fun (windows)