Living Room Gaming PC

[Miles1991]

Hi all, 

 

I wanted to post up my latest build. Its a living room PC which is primarily designed for gaming at 1080p 120+ FPS on my LG OLED. Mostly for racing but also the odd game like CIV or other controller based games. 

It took me a while to source the parts I wanted and think about how I was going to cool the cabinet where the PC would sit. 

Cooling was going to be an issue as the case would be put in a space with no airflow. So I made some holes in the rear of the cabinet for the two Noctua fans and also cut a hole in the rear of the case for a fan cable pass-through. This then runs into a Y splitter for the two fans so they are both controlled by the PC as required. 

Specs are as follows:

Ryzen 5 3600
MSI B450I 
Corsair LPX DDR4 3200mhz
MSI Ventus 2060 SUPER
WD NVME 512gb 
Corsair H60 cooler
Noctua NF A12x25 (Radiator Fan)
Noctua NF F12 PWN x2 (Media Cabinet Fans)
FSP 450w PRO SFX

I think the build looks great. The case was super easy to build in and all the parts went together no issues at all. Will get down to testing over the next week and see how it runs but should meet my 1080p at 120+ FPS requirements no problem. 

[Statik]

What case is that? I love the design and it seems perfect for a living room gaming/media setup. I'd love to see if I can find enough components to do something similar.

 

EDIT: +1 for the fans on the TV stand mod. I like it.

[Miles1991]

22 minutes ago, Statik said:

What case is that? I love the design and it seems perfect for a living room gaming/media setup. I'd love to see if I can find enough components to do something similar.

 

EDIT: +1 for the fans on the TV stand mod. I like it.

Totally forgot to add the case. 

 

Its a Silver Stone SG13. 

[kkpatel87]

1 hour ago, Miles1991 said:

Cooling was going to be an issue as the case would be put in a space with no airflow. So I made some holes in the rear of the cabinet for the two Noctua fans and also cut a hole in the rear of the case for a fan cable pass-through. This then runs into a Y splitter for the two fans so they are both controlled by the PC as required. 

Why did you cut a hole in the case for a pig tail? Personally i would have taken the opportunity to put in a panel mount connector so that it looks a bit neater. At the very least you should always put a grommet on the edge or a routing standoff so the wire never touches the metal edge. Although no one is going to see it and I guess if it works it isnt stupid.

 

As for the PSU cables, i would have cut them down to remove the rats nest near the front.

[Miles1991]

2 hours ago, kkpatel87 said:

Why did you cut a hole in the case for a pig tail? Personally i would have taken the opportunity to put in a panel mount connector so that it looks a bit neater. At the very least you should always put a grommet on the edge or a routing standoff so the wire never touches the metal edge. Although no one is going to see it and I guess if it works it isnt stupid.

 

As for the PSU cables, i would have cut them down to remove the rats nest near the front.

How do you mean "cut them down"? The PSU isn't modular so you are left with extra cables to hide somewhere. I put the up the top like that and pushed forward so that when the shell is on it is out of the path of airflow. 

 

Yes I plan to get a grommet for the cabinet at some stage. The hole I cut is to size so I can just slip on in there but I have not had time to back to the hardware shop

 

 

[kkpatel87]

7 hours ago, Miles1991 said:

How do you mean "cut them down"? The PSU isn't modular so you are left with extra cables to hide somewhere. I put the up the top like that and pushed forward so that when the shell is on it is out of the path of airflow. 

So it all depends on how much time you want to spend and your own mod/wiring skill level. 

 

For me personally, if i am using a non-modular PSU, i would open up the psu (BE CAREFUL and follow all precautions) and remove the wires that i wont ever need for this application. I would then cut and re-terminate the wires i do need to shorten the wire lengths.

 

Obviously this assumes that the non-modular PSU is just something laying around that you wont need anymore.

[Drama Lama]

Good build even though of back ventilation. But where do you run the fan cables I can’t see them

[thevicparable]

Awesome build! I'm about to start one in the white version of the same case. 

[Statik]

On 6/12/2020 at 3:55 PM, Drama Lama said:

Good build even though of back ventilation. But where do you run the fan cables I can’t see them

I thought the same thing, but you can see on one of his photos there looks to be a PWM cable coming out the back of the case, so I would assume he connects the 2 fans to a splitter, then plugs them into that.

[Miles1991]

On 6/12/2020 at 8:55 PM, kkpatel87 said:

So it all depends on how much time you want to spend and your own mod/wiring skill level. 

 

For me personally, if i am using a non-modular PSU, i would open up the psu (BE CAREFUL and follow all precautions) and remove the wires that i wont ever need for this application. I would then cut and re-terminate the wires i do need to shorten the wire lengths.

 

Obviously this assumes that the non-modular PSU is just something laying around that you wont need anymore.

I see what you are saying but I think opening up the PSU just to remove cables which aren't in the way of airflow seems a little pointless. If I wanted less cables in the case I would have just gone modular. 

 

One of the reasons I went with this case is that it has room at the top where cables can sit and not get in the way. 

 

If I remove cables from the PSU and then want to use it in a later build which requires more SATA drives or other devices, I would have to try to reverse what you are describing which seems un-necessary. 

[Miles1991]

9 hours ago, Statik said:

I thought the same thing, but you can see on one of his photos there looks to be a PWM cable coming out the back of the case, so I would assume he connects the 2 fans to a splitter, then plugs them into that.

Yeah you are correct. 

 

One of the reasons that I went with Noctua as opposed to other brands is that the fans come with a PWM extension in the box as well as a y splitter. So all I had to do was run one extension out the back of the case to connect the two rear fans to one internal PWM header. 

 

Worth noting as well is that this motherboard only has two fan headers. So if you had a more expensive AIO that used a pump header as well as a header for the fan you might run into issues if you also wanted to power rear fans as in my case. I have the CPU fan on the fan header, the two rear fans on the case fan header and the H60 runs using a SATA connector.  

[Miles1991]

On 6/13/2020 at 8:19 PM, thevicparable said:

Awesome build! I'm about to start one in the white version of the same case. 

Make sure to share it when you are done! 

 

What specs are you planning? 

[thevicparable]

On 6/16/2020 at 6:21 AM, Miles1991 said:

Make sure to share it when you are done! 

 

What specs are you planning? 

Ryzen 2600 + GTX 1060 from my previous build. I've got a build log here and will be adding some pics today.