When all of the walls of a system are transparent, where do you hide the cables? Answer: behind all the awesome insides
Were there a Mount Everest of PC builds, the see-through PC would likely be it. The difficulties are great, and the possibilities for failure high, but there’s nothing that gets me more excited than the opportunity to crack my knuckles and customize the lighting and electrical setup of a transparent desktop system.
The most fearsome part of this build is the acrylic case I’m using: There’s nowhere to hide any mistakes. Nor can I just stuff a mass of cables in some secluded area of the case and call it a day. Every bit of this build has to be focused on aesthetics, so I’m grabbing my toolbox and busting out a ton of different tricks to make sure this system can stand up to scrutiny.
Ingredients
- Case DangerDen DD Tower-21 $210
- PSU Kingwin LZG-1000 $170
- Water Block Koolance CPU-370 $85
- Reservoir Swiftech MCRES Micro Rev2 $26
- Pump Swiftech MCP35X $110
- Radiator Black Ice GT Stealth 360 X-Flow $70
- Tubing Tygon 3/8-inch ID tubing (5 feet) $10
- Fluid Feser One, UV orange $20
- Fans 3x Yate Loon 12x2.5cm UV-reactive LED fans $21
- Fan Filters 3x ModRight FilterRight 12cm filters $18
- Switch UV-illuminated Bulgin-style "Momentary" Vandal switch, Lamptron EZ Bulgin switch cable $21
- Connectors 8 pairs Koolance Quick Disconnects (VL2N-MG and VL2N-F06S) $101
- Mobo Asus P6X58D Premium $280
- CPU Intel Core i7-950 $270
RAM Corsair TR3X6G1600C7 DDR3/1600 6GB kit $75 - Optical Drive Lite-On iHAS424-98 DVD burner $25
- Hard Drive 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black 7,200rpm $80
- GPU AMD Radeon HD 6850 $180
- OS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (OEM) $99
- Lighting Mutant Mods EL wire, yellow (10 feet) $12
- Lighting Sunbeam Rheobus Extreme 6-channel fan controller $5
- Fan Controller Sony Optiarc BC-5640H-01 $35
- Sleeving Flexo (UV Jester) and black heat-shrink $22
- Total (customizations only) $945
Total for PC: $1,945
Selecting the right hardware to make a system look good is the most important part of a transparent PC construction. That’s why you’ll see that my parts—a number of which were donated to the cause by online retailer FrozenCPU—are more focused on the system’s appearance than its actual performance. Feel free to use whatever components you want. I’m using the same standard parts I’ve used for my previous case builds.
The case is a no-brainer: acrylic. DangerDen graciously sent over a version of its acrylic case that hides the hard drive underneath the power supply, lest I be tempted to bust out the Dremel and construct a window within the drive itself. The two-bay cutout on the front of the case is critical, too, providing just enough space for an optical drive and a series of switches that I’ll use to power and control the system’s lighting.
Also critical: the modular power supply (provided by Kingwin). If you haven’t noticed by now, the name of the game here is cable management. Specifically, I need to use as few cables as possible inside the case, as there’s no great way to conceal them.
I’m packing a 3/8-inch water-cooling setup to give the inside a bit more visual flair. The reactive fluid should look extra special combined with blue lighting from the radiator fans and separate UV spotlights. And to complete the Tron motif, I’m outlining the exterior of the case with yellow electroluminescent wire.
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