AT0MAC

Definitely post here BEFORE you do anything..   Outline your thoughts and what you think you'll do.  Just in case.

So, HERE IT IS

I named it iMbalance as it's a odd pair, the overclocked 8600K, with a bunch of drives, watercooled with a too large AIO, in a very small cube case, very many fans, 64GB RAM and a brand new kinda overpowered GPU - pretty much imbalanced, but it works
 

 
Made this picture for my instagram, it was easier than posting a bunch of pictures, you guys got the whole story instead
 


New parts list:
Asus Maximus Code X Z370 motherboard Intel i5 8600K Der8auer Advanced Edition CPU OCed to 5000 MHz 64 GB Patriot Viper Steel (2x32) GB DDR4 CL16 3000 MHz AsRock RX6800XT graphics card Corsair Force MP500 120GB NVME SSD for boot 500 GB HDD for media (I draw a lot) 1TB WD Black for games 240 GB SSD for editing video (I do that too) Corsair ML120 120mm fans (12 of them!) Phanteks 120mm Halos Lux fan frames HW Labs Nemesis GTS 240 white radiator EVGA SuperNova G2 750watt Gold PSU   All sorts of wire extensions to make it pretty. Duct tape and heat shielding gold tape A shelf, a part of a desk and some scrap aluminium Fake carbon vent and a HW Labs Nemesis GTS 240 white radiator  
I have a old 1000 watt Corsair PSU I might consider putting in instead, I had a weird thing happen a day I tried Watchdogs Legion on Ultra, with 25% extra details and RTX on medium, it worked, had 25fps, but it quit unexpcted - I think it made a power spike it could not handle (it works smooth if I dial it down, just had to try)

It's done, let me show you some of the details
 
This old cap for the watercooling loop I used to have, give it bit of a steampunk feel
 
 
 
View of the side, it has a special feature - I since the build swapped out the RAM for a 64GB kit, instead of the 16, and I could do that without disassembling anything - just reach in and swap
Also, thats the AIO there on top, I mounted it basically with some fan mounts and really strong double sided tape - it works wonders both to dampen vibration as it does to stick things down
 
If I was to do this permanent, I would rivet the mounts on instead, but I guess I at some point re-do all this again so this will do for now (like, lets say I swap motherboard and CPU)
I glued on this fake carbon vent for a car, just to make it look different and because I had it laying around
 
 
 
A bit of CyperPunk mood when the lights are on, am I right?
 
This is 4x RGB fan frames, a lighting fan on the GPU, RGB light spread across the motherboard, a mini screen on the AIO and a large white flood light LED mounted with magnets on the inside of the case lid
 

Here is a fun fact, you might notice the mirrors around the case on one of the pictures
 
The reason being, it's inside a closet so when plugging it in, I really can't see much - so I use a flashlight and mirrors, while I stand on a stepladder
Yes, it's NOT your everyday computer build if you have not guessed it yet 😉
 
 
 
I use this rig for video editing, playing games, drawing and much more - I have more computers than most people, but this one, is my star of the show
 
At this stage, I tried playing Sea of Thieves at the highest quality, man it looks purdy!
 
 
 
Also played Assassins Creed Valhalla, I'm danish btw, so I am viking and absolute love this game, also on Ultra quality, damn...
 
 
 
Yeah, I'm sort of a ingame photographer, so this is absolute critical that I can play in high quality

Time to wrap it up, kinda...
 
I had some gold foil tape laying around, it's ment to be use on cars, and some white duct tape, I figured that could look cool - so taped up the front panel
One of the front USB ports never worked, for some odd reason, so I block that port off with the tape, same goes for the front audio, I don't use it and never will
 
 
 
Sneak peek of the finished system, it looks pretty nice I'd say
 
 
 
Remember I said I put a LED fan frame both in front and behind the front fans?
It actually ended up matching the effect on the graphic card almost spot on
 

After a clean, from a few different angles
 
How the innards look now, with a few more of my old water cooling bits added, just for looks
 
 
 
Sorry it's not super sharp, pictures are all taken with my phone and it's like anything else a few years old, so it's not the greatest
 
 
 
The reflection on the AIO is actually one of the coloringbook pages I have drawn myself, I do a lot of linework, that there is my pirate from Sea of Thieves, drawn in Illustrator, and colored with colorpencils
 
The grey power cable is from Reaper Cables, from that Reaper PC I linked earlier, I had an extra one laying around and figured, grey don't look too out of place in this build (the GPU uses 3x8 pin power connectors, totally mad)

Just like in TV shows, I cheated
 
Because I have actually been running with the aio for a while, one of the valves in the hardline loop somehow broke and started dripping, not sure how it happened but it did and that's why I originally rush jobbed in the aio like this
 
It looks pretty bad, so this is the time to do it better
 
 
 
Before you ask, that thing on the table is a blunderbomb replica I made from the game Sea of Thieves, and its laying in a pile of gold, because i'm a pirate
 
 
 
I really like this trend of making technology black, grey and white (I painted the case white)
As it was sitting there I test fittet the AsRock RX6800XT and damn, it's big
 
 
 
Guess you can kinda see it there, but I have mounted a Phanteks fanframe to the inside of the front fans, so they actually have LED frames both in front and behind
 
That totally covered the 5mm space, just look at it
 
 
 
I cleaned the case and the dust and all after this, this was just a test fit

I did not want to spend money on the re-build itself, i mean, hardware is expensive enough
 
So I found a old shelf I had laying around, and the left over paint from the Reaper PC I linked earlier, started to cut the shelf and painted it
In the drawing it's wooden, but I figured it would look better in black
 
 
 
Drilled a bunch of holes, and mounted my old radiator to the side, with some of my unused fittings, and glued some aluminum to the inside - mainly because I had it, and I did not feel like painting both sides of the wood
 
 
 
 
 
Put some rubber dampers on the screws, so I did not have to screw the radiator in fully, it's even balancing itself off the fittings there, I countersunk some holes so they sit sort of flush into the surface
 
I did not bother to screw in the lower row of screws, it's only on for cosmetics, because I had it and it looks kinda cool

First things first for any big build like this - plan!
 
So I fired up SketchUp and started drawing and a whole lot of measuring
 
 
 
Let me just tell you, the motherboard, fans and radiator is models I found in the SketchUp library, I did not draw those.
But, I did make all the holes in the fan grills, because I really wanted to see how this might look
 
 
 
 
 
That thing the fans are on, is a front panel off a case I modded a few years back
 
The thing is, I needed to switch out the hardline tubing as I simply can't fit it inside the case with this massive gpu
Instead I bought a AIO, but as everything is hard to come by these days, I ended up with a 360 model, that I also can't fit inside the case...
Good thing is, I'm basically a unemployed artist (pretty cliché), I make video, draw my own coloring book and much more, so thinking outside the box really can not surprise me
 
If I build it sort of as I've drawn it, then it will fit!
 
I re-measured the internals, I should have space for the 33cm long GPU
 
 
 
See, in the drawing, that's the 5mm, between the front fans and the back end of the GPU
 

Firstly let me explain a thing
 
The computer is inside a closet, because of cooling (I drilled holes in my house for outside air) - all that is in the old thread
 
But that brings me to this, I have a little bit of size restrictions and the best fitting case in "this case" is the Lian Li PC-V33
It's a now pretty old cube styled case, can't actually find any good links for it anymore, it's that old.
 
I have modded it quite a lot already, but its going to get a little wilder this time around, sort of.
 
Here is the best picture of the standard case I could find, that's the reference
 

So, I build this PC a while ago - the Killer Panda PC
 
Let me show you the before pictures, what we are working with here:
 

 

 

 
The parts before:
 
Asus Maximus Code X Z370 motherboard Intel i5 8600K Der8auer Advanced Edition CPU OCed to 5000 MHz 16 (2x8) GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 2400MHz CL10 RAM (OCed to 3000MHz) Zotac Amp Extreme GTX 1070 graphics card Corsair Force MP500 120GB NVME SSD for boot 500 GB HDD for media (I draw a lot) 1TB WD Black for games 240 GB SSD for editing video (I do that too) Corsair ML120 120mm fans (14 of them!) Phanteks 120mm Halos Lux fan frames HW Labs Nemesis GTS 240 white radiator EVGA SuperNova G2 750watt Gold PSU Koolance 702 coolant    All sorts of wire extensions to make it pretty. A panda sticker A blood spatter sticker Bamboo tape It's an absolute awesome PC to use

But it's starting to show its time, mostly because of the 1070...
Pretty damn bad timing! But I found sort of an okay deal, soooo....
 

 
Yes, I bought a RX6800XT
 
And THAT's why I need to re-arrange things, because this graphic card is MASSIVE (the weight alone is 1.815 grams, as in, almost 2KG)
 
Let me show you what I did...

24th December


Let me present:

*Reaper PC*

 



 



 


Test-fit at my place:

 



 



 

And this is how it looks installed at the owner (switched off), right next to a window and above his 2 monitors

 




 

Thanks to everyone looking
This have been a challenge and very fun to build, hope you like the result as much as I do.

 


Merry Christmas, Yo-Ho-HOoo to everyone

 

 

23rd December


If you look carefully, the wall mount is mounted a little wonky on one of the last pictures. Had to fix it but how do you do that on a wallmounted PC?! With kitchen tissue rolls as a lift!
 

 

There are so many little details in this build, so I decided that you get some detail pictures in this update and then the finished one little later.
 
One of the details are the UV LEDs who light up the SSD, they are placed on the PSU cover, I marked them with purple and marked with blue on the SSD where I have done the UV marker, its invisible in daylight and ONLY visible when the UV lights are on.
 
That's freaking cool!
 


The painted graphics card turned out pretty sweet, it is not really visible unless you look at it right from the side, but it turned out good.
 



 
 
The little mod on the AIO also turned out pretty good, it matches pretty well with the rest of the hardware.
 

 
 
Reaper Cables looks so good, they really tie into the rest of the build really well! 
 



 
 
 
Give me a little more time and I show the whole thing assembled.

**Reaper PC**
 
Intro
 
I got the challenge from at friend to re-build his existing PC into a wallmounted build like no other.
Challenge Accepted!
 
Why Reaper?
 
Reaper is death My friends case had to die to be rebuild into this It's also the name of some cables I ended up using, "Reaper Cables" The whole build is kept black/metal The machine is really quiet, quiet like death, most likely because it's now an open air design and heat don't gets trapped  

 
Some of you have maybe found other of my creations before, they are quite popular whenever I build something - I don't have the time anymore to go complete ham and build insane things, but that don't mean you don't get to see some of what I tinker with, like this one.
 
I decided to make it somewhat a Christmas Calendar and release little by little until the 23rd of December.
 
When I don't build PCs a lot of my spare time goes with the game "Sea of Thieves" - so come and say "Ahoy" if you see me:
 

 
My pirate stories are also shared on Twitter, Clutch and Instagram so see if you can find me if you also have a little pirate in the stomach
 
 
 :cheers:

19th December - "Reaper"


Every build needs a name, just like a ship does it, and in this case the name came from these great looking cables from Reaper Cable - I really dig them and must do a shoutout, their quality and colours are very very nice!
Not the last time I'm going to use their cables, that's for sure.





This colour is called "Carbon & Billet grey"



It's because I think these cables look so great, that I try and do as much as possible to hide all the other wires and cables in this build



...follow along and see more in the next "episode"

11th December - build bonus!

 

I just remembered I will have a pretty long day tomorrow so most likely can't do a post, instead why not give you an extra episode today, for tomorrow!
 
This is how the build look at the moment in this story, don't really look like a computer, but that's the point
 

 
 
The green light is a Philips Hue lamp and a green table cloth, worked out great
 
 

See you on Thursday for more ?

9th December - holes!

 

Then came the day where I started drilling into the rather nicely looking black plate...
I am right now actually doing some complicated graphical work for my Sea of Thieves related posts on Instagram and Twitter, so I will keep todays update a bit short.
 
 
Nothing wrong with the tool as some say...
 

 

First little hole...
 

 

...filled out with one very sweet start button  
 

 
 

Fun fact, the dude I build this rig for have actually for a while now turned it on using a screwdriver, because somehow the case mounted start button has given up XD
 

See you tomorrow for more casemod shenanigans

6th of December - Metal!


I am from Denmark, it 's over midnight here now, so technically its considered the 6th now
I know I will come home very late today, so you get the update now instead. In the last update I mentioned that something was already kind of revealed, so here it is:
After I had painted the plate it all will be attached to, the edges don't looks super great, so to give it some character I decided to give it a steel edge!
 
Not yet fully mounted, but the layout is there:
 

 

 

A small backstory:
 
I have over 300 pictures of this build, but to sort them out into 24 days and only show the best and most interesting ones is actually a bit of a task.
On top of that, I post it to 4 forums, in 2 languages, on Twitter and on Instagram, that alone is more work than what most would think.
Im going to show the build almost piece by piece until the last 3-4 days when I start to show how it all goes together, and lastly the big reveal the 23rd of December.
I think the result is much better than I would have hoped for, but lets wait and see what you think...

For tomorrows update, Saturday, I can tell you there is only 1 picture to show, but it's a pretty cool one of something you see more of later on.
On sunday there will be "cable porn" to look at, some of the very nice cables I ended up using from Reaper Cable.
 
 
Follow my calendar to see how it all goes  :9xo

3rd December - paint

 
 
Any casemod tend to have at least some degree of paint involved.
In Reaper PC there is more paint than normal, as I had to build up a case from close to nothing.
 
First thing to be painted, the motherboard tray I cut out yesterday so it will be an even matt black:
 

 
 

This is what in the end will be "the cabinet"
Yea I know, a pretty big piece of wood, but the owner did not like the idea of shrinking it down so had to go big
 

 
 

Let's begin
 

 

 
 
 
...see you tomorrow for another update   ?

It has taken way longer than I estimated to bug test the rig, but it looks like I can move forward again.

It turned out it would not boote from either USB or SSD as it was, no matter what I did - and I did a lot!
 
Kind of frustrating, but yesterday I got an idea, maybe it would boot from CD...
So I made an ISO into a disc, only God know when I last did that.
 

 
Success!!
I now have a pretty slow Windows 10 installed!
 
Next up is finetuning and making it an actual usable machine.
Its far from over yet
 

 

To give an idea about why there is so many tubes in the system - there is 3 individual loops!!
 

 
Red - CPU AIO, the unmarked one right under rad it the fillport, yes a AIO with a fillport. Technically not a part of the loop and therefor unmarked.
 
Green - one of the graphics cards I got for free, came with an EKWB waterblock attached, so have to watercool it.
 
Blue - chipset, because Gigabyte back in the day decided this board should be able to be watercooled, so lets do it 10 years too late
 
A true old school system where looks is not nearly as important as todays builds
 
 
...C' ya

Sorry but I been a little silent again, for those who follow me on Instagram you know I lately have been struggling with a eye injury, and today I remembered that I totally forgot to update!

So here goes, mega update:
 
Have drilled the holes bigger in rad, so I can use M4 screws instead of the funky size Swiftech originally used, I even wonder where the original screws are, well never mind....
 

 
Mounted the first fans and fill port adapter, true gold digger
 

 
When this was done, I realized there is actually not enough space for it all, the fill port adapter is hitting the end of the DVD drive. So what to do, lets mod it! Problems arise, the drive is build like a tank and dont want to come apart, so I have to mod it with whatever tool possible and ended out with a not so great hole, but whatever, will not be seen in the end result.
 

 

 

 
Fill port finally installed!
 

 
Reinstalled the cooling tubes for the CPU AIO, but now much much shorter (the black tubes)
 

 

 
At this point, there are so so many details in this build, its a huge task both in term of work and in size.
 

 

 

 

No doubt about this PC is heavily car themed, here a picture of the front, top and backside as it looks now:



Next step is to deal with a lot of wires, there are SO many!
Also need to install the light, finish building the psu shroud and mount all the last stickers.
Actually, if all end out working I have a new investment in mind for something really cool to add, but will only do it if everything pans out so maybe you will see it in a later update.
 

Continues at a later time...

Came to think about, I have not shared the latest pictures other than on my Instagram (I'm @_at0mac_), sorry
 
There was the day I cleaned fans and soldered a broken one
 

 
And there was a day I mounted the top panel and test fittet the CPU rad with fans on
 

 

The new flat top in metallic blue and chrome air filter looks soo mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm imo. Most likely you have never seen a Corsair 800D like this before

Came to think about during test-fitting of CPU loop that its almost impossible to fill liquid in that loop...

I can't unmount CPU block because of the way the GPU radiator is mounted. I can not mount the CPU radiator full of liquid, because I cant measure the CPU tubes correctly before the CPU radiator is placed where it should be. I don't want to mount and unmount everything more than I have to. I want to mount the CPU rad so its res is facing towards the front, the res is an eyesore and the CPU tubes will be shortest this was for maximum pressure on the CPU


There is standard G 1/4 in the res on CPU rad, but its placed almost all up against the front, right above the DVD drive.
Im thinking of making a fillport somewhere with some standard water cooling parts...
It just got even more complex and expensive... Let me remind you, I still don't know if the hardware is actually alive (its dang old, and I forgot to test it before I exploded it all to pieces and am trying to make it into a full build again), also I don't really need this PC, its just a hobby when I await some other newer tasks to hit me

Come back later for more............

I know its been over 1 month since last post and the thread have been dead silent, I have been really busy with "real life" and ideas evolve over time and changes the original plan a little
 
Oh, and I've started playing a "new" game - Sea of Thieves, that takes a load of time too
 
So, what I wanted to update you on is, I have painted the new toppanel like 7 times, 2 black layers and 5 blue, with a little sanding in between for total smoothness, takes a really really long time too
My radiator is only 240mm for the CPU, so looked bonkers having a 3x120 space in the top panel on the 800D cabinet, im sorting it by remaking the top, it will be all worth it, just wait.
 
 
Sneak peak:
 

 
 
I'll Be Back.....