Launching the Super Dimension Fortress Macross

It’s been FOUR years since I bought the Lian Li DK-04X desk case that started this journey and we’ve finally come to the point where I have an operational PC built inside of it. Feels good man, feels real good.

However, this is only the beginning! The new MACROSS may be operational, the third one I’ve built, but it is by no means complete. I’ve still got a long way to go in terms of getting a new graphics card, more storage, some miscellaneous cables and then buying new monitors, etc, etc… and then finally getting this thing finished with a custom water loop.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve gotten so far…

The image above seems to be pretty lacking but a lot went into getting this build operational that isn’t pictured.

CPU: Intel Core i9-7900X
CPU COOLER: Corsair Hydro Series H100i Extreme CPU Cooler*
MOTHERBOARD: Asus Rampage VI Extreme
RAM: G.SKILL TridentZ RGB 64GB DDR4 – F4-3200C14Q2-64GTZR

GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 Superclocked with EVGA ACX Cooler**
SOUND CARD: Sound Blaster Z

PSU: Corsair AX1600i
CUSTOM CABLES: CableMod PRO ModMesh cables in red and black… A lot of them.

OS DRIVE: Samsung 970 Pro M.2 512GB
M.2 PCIE CARD: Asus HYPER M.2 X4 Mini CARD

CASE: Lian-Li DK-04X
FRONT IO: Lian Li USB, HDMI, and audio IO kit – IC2DAH85

SECONDARY MONITORS: DELL U2717D 27inch UltraSharp InfinityEdge Monitor x2
MONITOR MOUNT: Aavara DS310 Triple Monitor Stand

KEYBOARD: Corsair K95 Platinum Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Cherry MX Brown
KEYCAPS: Corsair PBT Double-shot Black Keycaps
MOUSE: Corsair Scimitar Pro Black
MOUSE PAD: Corsair MM300 Anti-Fray Cloth Gaming Mouse Pad Extended

* This cooler is temporary. I’ll be building a custom water loop for this build in the future.

** This GPU is temporary. It’s funny because this GTX 760 has now been inside all three versions of MACROSS, hah.

Okay… let’s start with the case, the Lian Li DK-04. I bought this case four years ago and it spent three years sitting in my parents garage before being moved to my house where it has spent the last year as just an ordinary empty desk for the previous MACROSS.

Taking off the thick tempered glass top, this is the first time I’ve really been able to take a good look inside. The first thing I did before anything else was to move the sit/stand height controls from the left to the right side of the desk and replaced the four USB 3 IO ports at the front with a Lian Li accessory that has two USB 3 ports, a USB 3.1 C port and a HDMI port for the front IO.

That HDMI port is meant for VR, but I’ll be using it differently… and you’ll find out in a couple of months what I mean by that.

To build a PC inside this thing, you have to first take out the tray that holds the motherboard, PSU and has spots for two SSDs. I chose to stick with the fans that came with the desk, though they’re pretty weak and will be replaced when I get the custom water loop done.

Speaking of which, my previous builds were all done pretty quickly. I had Windows installed on those systems within 2 hours… but with this build, holy fuck. It took me SEVEN HOURS the first day to get to the point where I installed Windows and then another couple of hours the second day to do the cable management and get everything looking as clean as possible.

This is the hardest build that I’ve done but damn was it worth it.

I’ve gone with an i9 7900X but I’m not going to overclock it until I get that custom water loop done. That little H100i isn’t going to be able to handle the burning surface of the sun that is the Skylake-X series.

And yeah, I had to go with the RGB bling with that Rampage VI Extreme, how could I not with a glass top desk case where you can see the entire thing right there? Coupled with that set of eight TridentZ RGB ram sticks and you get a pretty cool light show. Though, I didn’t realise that the Sound Blaster Z also has a light on it until I switched on the PC for the first time which… thankfully… matches my chosen colour scheme of… RED. Also, when I get that custom water loop done, it’ll be adding more RGB to the mix.

The nice thing is that the desk also has its own set of RGB lights which you can use to illuminate the inside of the desk. It’s also pretty cool because the tempered glass is tinted, meaning that when the lights are on, it’s not overwhelming, and when they’re off, all you can see is a dark void inside your desk with the RGB lights shining through in all their glory.

Pretty cool stuff.

From the images above below, you can see how the “finished” build turned out, but it’s still nowhere near done. The next step is to get a new graphics card and to get updated monitors. Right now, I’m still using my old Samsung S27A950D 27inch 950 Series 120hz LED Monitor that I’ve had for many years (and, if you notice, isn’t mounted but stacked on a box and some DVDs) which is going to be replaced by… well… you’ll see when we get there.

In the meantime, I’m pretty happy with how things have turned out and I’m definitely going to start buying games for PC instead of consoles with this rig.

Check back in a couple of months for the second phase of this build.