Chassis

What it does

The case looks like packaging and functions as thermal engineering. Its job is to force every cubic foot of air the intake fan moves to pass through the fins of the heatsinks rather than around them. Air is lazy and will take the widest gap available, so the shroud exists to make sure there is no wider gap.

It also fixes board spacing. The distance between hashboards is set by how much air has to move between them at a given ambient temperature, and it is not adjustable by opinion. Running boards outside a chassis on a bench is the classic way to cook a chain that was working fine the day before.

Secondarily it earths everything, contains the noise, and gives the rails something to hang on in a rack.