STEPBY-STEP GUIDE

Build this kick-ass ITX gaming PC

THE CONCEPT

LET’S BE REAL HERE: This is overkill. Massively. We’d pitch this as a “console killer,” but if we’re being honest, with a price tag this large, you could probably buy eight PS4 Pros and still have enough cash left for six crates of beer and 20 packs of chips. In fact, this build is nothing short of gluttony. So, what was the aim of it? What did we set out to achieve with this rig? It was all about building something that could act not only as a big showpiece or ornament for the living room, but also as a system that could comfortably and quietly game at 4K on the big screen. And, of course, all from the comfort of your couch.

Our case of choice for this build is the Phanteks Evolv Shift X chassis. It’s a long, monolithic ITX case, with an expressive internal structure and layout. It supports a hefty amount of hardware internally, including liquid-cooling radiators—but there are some limitations, thanks to clearance. In fact, most builds using the Shift X typically incorporate a single 240mm radiator and then call it a day. We knew, though, that this just wasn’t going to be enough for the hardware we had in mind, so we opted to slot in an additional 120mm radiator at the bottom. That gives us a total of 360mm of cooling potential to play with. Not a lot, by any means, and it certainly meant we’d be running this thing at stock, but it’s still plenty enough to cater for a 4K gaming GPU and a good CPU, too.

THERMAL WOES

THE BIG ISSUE with this build was balancing the hardware choices with the thermal capacity. Because we were going to be running a complete loop, and cooling the GPU as well, it was imperative that we got this right. We knew a single 240mm radiator would be more than enough for any processor we could pop in here, but adding a GPU complicates matters. There certainly wouldn’t be any headroom for overclocking, that’s for sure.

So, let’s look at the main heat-generating components. First up is the Ryzen 5 2600X. Now, this is a fairly solid all-around processor—it’s got a TDP of around 95W, and it comes with a beefy six-core, 12-thread setup, and a healthy clock speed that we can drop with the voltage if need be. For just gaming, it should be more than enough at 4K and beyond. On top of that, it also comes with streaming protection, so if Netflix and co ever get their butts in gear, we might actually be able to manage 4K streaming over this thing as well.

As for the GPU, we went with a fairly high-spec RTX 2080. We could have gone with a Ti model, which would have realistically been better for those 4K frame rates, but the Ti also comes with a 250W TDP—the RTX 2080, on the other hand, has a TDP of just 215W. That’s a fairly substantial drop in overall power draw, making it ideal for our slim 360mm-rad setup. Outside of that, and to minimize the number of cables we’d need, we picked up a 1TB WD Black SN750 PCIe SSD. That was actually a mistake on our part. We assumed it would be like the latest Corsair Force PCIe 4.0 drives, and it would be easy to remove it from its heatsink. Oh boy, were we wrong—you need specialist torque screwdrivers, which are smaller than any we could find at the local hardware stores, but more on that later….

1 GPU STRIP-DOWN

IT’S ALWAYS worrying when you have to strip down a graphics card to attach a waterblock. There’s so much that can go wrong, it just doesn’t bear thinking about. Just take your time, be careful, and make sure you don’t overdo it with the screws. Asus’s GPUs are fairly simple to take apart: Remove the backplate screws, those surrounding the GPU, and the card slowly pulls apart. Just remember to unclip the fan cables and RGB cables. For this build, we took advantage of a Phanteks waterblock for the first time. It doesn’t come with a backplate for the Asus graphics card, so instead we reinstalled the GPU backplate after we’d finished. That means we still have the Asus ROG RGB logo illuminating the back of the card, entirely controllable in software.

2 CASE DISASSEMBLY

WITH THE GRAPHICS CARD blocked, it’s time to strip down the case. The Phanteks Shift X is a pretty easy chassis to disassemble. The two tempered glass panels have thumbscrews at the top, near the rear I/O (which is also where the power button is). You simply pop up the top rear I/O panel—it’s on a spring mechanism—loosen the thumbscrews, and slide the solid glass windows up and out. Stick them in the case box for safe keeping. The front and rear brushed aluminum panels follow a similar procedure. There are two thumbscrews either side, situated at a horizontal angle instead of vertical, then they just slide off. Inside you’ll find an accessory box with drive trays, screws, and a nifty little box. We’ve also removed the power supply cover here as well.

3 MOTHERBOARD PREP

NEXT, IT’S TIME TO MOVE on to the motherboard. This presented a number of problems. First up was the block itself. Phanteks is fairly new at the waterblock game, and rather frustratingly, the block has two cables that you need to attach to control the RGB lighting at the top and bottom, and then find a way to route around the board. And then there was the hard drive. As we mentioned earlier, we didn’t have the necessary tools to remove the heatsink, so that left us with just one option: Simply don’t reinstall the stock motherboard M.2 heatsink. Ultimately, that does mean you lose out on a little RGB, but let’s be honest—does that really matter all that much? We don’t think so.

4 RADIATOR FITTING

INSTALLING THE 120MM RADIATOR was a nightmare— the shot you see below isn’t even the correct orientation yet, as the ports are facing the power supply. We ended up moving it 90 degrees clockwise, so the ports face the window instead. This enabled us to mount our pump in a better position, to allow for easier tubing runs. You may have also spotted that it’s not a Corsair power supply. We intended to use a Silverstone Strider, but even as an SFX power supply, it was too tight against the power supply cover. In the end, we went for the Corsair SFX PSU as it’s a bit shorter than this one. We’ve also removed the kettle lead pass-through cable, as it’s almost impossible to plug it in while attached to the case. You first to plug the pass-through into the PSU, then reinstall it to the case.

5 RESERVOIR RUMBLE

AT THIS POINT, WE STILL hadn’t figured out that the Silverstone power supply was no good, but it was all about fitting that front radiator and getting the reservoir into position. We’re actually using a separate bracket from Alphacool for this—as it’s got channels down, you can orient them in different ways to give you better clearance and move the reservoir up and down as needed. It’s not the cleanest look in the world, but it works well when you’re trying to suss out those tubing runs on the first pass. We’ve also installed the LED RGB Alphacool ring. It’s quite old-school in a lot of ways, as it isn’t compatible with motherboards, and instead plugs in via Molex, then has a physical wired remote to control color and illumination patterns.

6 PUMP POSITIONING

BY NOW, WE’VE REALIZED that having the radiator ports facing the PSU is a no-go, so we’ve reoriented it to the correct position, with the ports close to the glass window. And we’ve also taken the opportunity to mount the pump to the top of the radiator, raised off it—this time, with the included Phanteks pump mount that came with the case. You can mount the bracket directly to 120mm fan mounts on a case, making it perfect for our bottom radiator. We’re still tinkering with the positioning here, and it turns out that the pump itself is too close to the window to allow for the 90-degree fittings that we’re inevitably going to need to install. Fortunately, the pump mount bracket has multiple slots to which you can attach the pump.

7 FITTING INFURIATION

THIS IS THE POINT we found out it wouldn’t all fit. It’s always smart to keep a few fittings out to see if you’re going to run into any conflicts, and this is a prime example. Pump in, radiator in the correct position, reservoir sorta right, angled fitting in. Will the glass panel fit on? No. Back to the drawing board. Infuriating doesn’t quite cover it. Especially as a lot had to be removed to move it back. This was also the first time we began to get an idea as to what tubing runs would be going where. Unlike most cases, where you can easily plan your tubing runs, the Shift X has a split compartment, with each segment consisting of half the case. With the motherboard on one side and the graphics card on the other, deciding how to position your tubing runs can be difficult.

8 CABLE AWARENESS

FINALLY, WE COULD TURN OUR ATTENTION to the motherboard itself, and it was clear fairly quickly that there were going to be some major issues here with regard to cabling. In fact, between that top-left corner and the fan, we’d somehow have to run an eight-pin power cable, plus all the fan cables, and the RGB cables. And then, of course, there were the tubing runs to fit in, too. The most obvious route—and something we’d eventually commit to—was to go straight through the top plate, around the rear I/O, and then down to the graphics card, although that would require some significant cutting and a pass-through to get working.

9 GRAPHICS CARD INSTALLATION

WITH THAT SORTED, we moved on to the graphics card. As standard, the graphics card mounting solution, rather bizarrely, runs the GPU with its backplate facing the window (we’re guessing for better airflow). However, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for a liquid-cooled waterblock that you want to display, so instead we had to flip it—to do this, you need to remove the GPU bracket entirely. It’s mounted on the back of the motherboard tray with a couple of screws. So, take it out, flip it upside down, remount it, and you’ll be good to go.

10 THE PERFECT FIX

SO, FITTINGS IN, let’s crack on with the tubing. This is what we ended up with for the reservoir and pump setup. As you can see, the pump is still gravity-fed (though you do need to get past that center fountain tube in the res first). It flows down and around into the bottom radiator, and then up into the 240mm radiator, where it then goes around the back into the graphics card, through the block, around the top of the case, down into the CPU, and then back into the reservoir to repeat the cycle again. At least, that’s the plan. We love the look of the frosted tubing here. Alphacool really has nailed it with this stuff, and with the pastel pink coolant as well, this stuff will shine. The only downside? There are no LEDs in that pump, and it could really use some.

11 FINISHED FRONT SIDE

THIS IS A GOOD SIDE-ON SHOT of where we were heading with the tubing design at this point. And if you’re thinking, “But you always said a single 90 bend is best,” yeah, you’d be right—that tube connecting the reservoir and the CPU is a stroke of luck. Getting the angle right was the hard part, because you’ve got one straight 90, then a separate one going to the reservoir. Fortunately, we were saved by fittings. There’s a snakehead on the CPU portion, and two 90s on the reservoir that allow us to adjust the angles by just enough so that even if we’re out with the length or where the bends are positioned, we can readjust the fittings to compensate.

12 I/O PASS-THROUGH

ON TO MORE DUAL-BEND TUBING RUNS— this was the hardest to get right. We cut through the I/O grille at the top and attached a pass-through. Bizarrely, it had one side longer than the other, so we used the clean side on the top of the case, near the I/O, and the threaded side near the CPU, because the top panel wouldn’t close once a 90-degree fitting was attached, as it came into contact with the power switch. So, we rotated the fitting, which gave us enough clearance. The tubing run is not as straight as this photo makes you think, but it bends nicely, then provides a clean line to the graphics card. It took a few attempts to get right, but it does the job perfectly, although installing I/O cables was a heart-wrenching moment, as they had to slide beneath the tubing.

13 GRAPHICS CARD DISPLAY

WITH THE TUBING COMPLETE, the cables plugged in, and the coolant power-cycled, the build was complete. We did a quick and dirty install of Windows to configure the RGB lighting, and it looks really good. The graphics card, in particular, with its integrated LED lighting, really pops. We set it to white, to make it shine, as it highlights everything else without submerging it all in pink. There’s a little air bubble, but over time it will move to the reservoir, and we can replace it with some good coolant. This build wasn’t as seamless as you’d think, though, as we’d forgotten to tighten the two plugs on the other side of the GPU block, and coolant dripped on to the PCIe power connectors, which was as terrifying as it sounds. But after it dried out, it worked flawlessly.

14 RESERVOIR GLOW

HERE WE HAVE A FINAL showpiece shot, showing off the Alphacool reservoir. It’s filled with Mayhems Pink Pastel coolant, and illuminated by means of the LED ring situated at the bottom. You can move that up and down, depending on what you want, and the light will shine out in both directions. It’s quite effective, but we’ve decided we prefer it located at the bottom, just so it illuminates upward in that cool gradient glow. As well as that, we’ve also kept the ROG logo on the backplate of the GPU red. It’s actually picking up a little of the light from the pink coolant, too, which gives it that edgy pink-red gradient effect as well.