While glass side panels, clever vertical graphics card mounts, and whacky case designs all add to the allure of a standard gaming PC, wall-mounted PCs surely have to be the ultimate statement in PC art. Positioned for all to see, spread out wide and thin so every component is on display, they leave little room for error. That’s why we’re quite so impressed by Michael Matney’s stunning wall-mounted gaming PC.
Thanks to our rapidly growing PC building Facebook page, we’ve seen many custom gaming PCs, from mods based on existing case designs to scratch PC builds. You can even submit yours for consideration right here. Now, let’s find out how Michael built this PC.
The build consists of two custom-made wooden panels onto which all the components are mounted, with a rear panel for the twin radiators and water distribution blocks, and the front panel housing the motherboard and graphics card. In between the two panels and behind the second panel is space for the PSU and all the extra cabling.
Showing the versatility of vinyl wrapping, the panels use the technique to create a swirling effect. Ironically, the paneling itself is made from laminated wood, rather than cheap chipboard or MDF, so it would’ve looked good if left plain, but the end result looks great too.
A notable feature of the build is that all the water-cooling piping is kept on the front of the panels, with none passing through to the back of the panels. This made the build potentially more difficult as passing the tubing through would’ve allowed Michael to make some quick, easy but potentially ugly tubing runs behind the panels, saving on a lot of extra tube bending and pipe run planning.
This dedication to doing things properly meant that a whopping four distribution blocks were used to reroute the water flow, though Michael admits using four was excessive. As well as looking amazing, an upside of keeping all the tubing on the front is that future upgrades shouldn’t need access to the rear of the panels so could be done in situ.
Michael documents the building of this PC here, where he explains that after winning a tidy sum of money in Las Vegas he was inspired to splash the cash on a lavish PC build.
“I’ve always been a huge fan of open-air cases and wall mounting them,” he says. “My last two PCs were wall-mounted. So I definitely wanted to do that and one of my friends had just done a custom wall-mounted PC for his wife and I loved how it turned out.”
One of the pitfalls Michael encountered during the build was rushing the piping and falling foul of leaks. “I was so excited to start cutting pipe that I just started cutting and pushing everything together and when I was ready to pressure test it I had a leak,” he says. “I had no idea where [it was coming from] so I had to take the whole thing apart.”
Similarly, filling the system proved hazardous. As Michael was trying to get air out of the system, coolant leaked out of a hole they forgot to close shut. “It was a mess,” he says. “But it was fun and an amazing learning experience.”
For all the trials and tribulations encountered along the way, though, Michael was very pleased with the end result. That being said, if he was to do it again, he’d have “custom distro blocks made that mirrored each other to give a more symmetrical look. But I do love the asymmetry of it. It’s unique and it’s one of a kind.” We couldn’t agree more.
The specs of the system include an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card, an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X CPU, an Asus ROG Strix X670E motherboard, 64GB of G.Skill Trident Z5 6000MHz DDR5 RAM, and a Corsair RM1000X PSU. It’s a seriously high-end system but if you’re going to this effort, you might as well get the best possible hardware you can afford.
Meanwhile, the cooling includes CPU and GPU EKWB waterblocks, two Alphacool VPP655 D5 pumps, two Alphacool 360mm radiators, masses of Byski fittings, six Lian Li unifan SL120 V2 fans, and Koolance coolant.
This post originally appeared on Custom PC, which has been covering amazing setups for over 20 years and is now part of PCGamesN. Join our 500k member Facebook group to discuss this build.
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