The build idea started when I saw the case of my dreams here in Kuwait. I ordered the case around March just as the pandemic started and before lockdown. Lockdown and various partial curfews came and went and no case. 3 months had gone by and nothing until I stopped being patient and called the store and low and behold that same day my beauty arrived.

In those 3 months I managed to order most of the parts I needed from stores like Overclockers UK and Titan Rig which I have to say were really quick at getting my shipments out to me. Id have to wait about a week to 10 days for my parts and id have to pay an arm and a leg for the shipping but its my hobby and other than my family I don't really spend any of my hard earned cash on anything else.

Now the distribution plate came out just as I was waiting for my case. It was mighty expensive and to be honest I spent many sleepless nights pondering the value of it all. I mean who in their right mind would spend double the price of the case for some plexi and (yes the pump hikes up the price) but I have some pumps at home 'laying around'. But anyway, I knew I needed the look to complete my vision and I just did it. On a side note I was going for chrome plated tubing initially, however after seeing one of GFF events videos where he used frosted tubing I got excited and it was a way to save some cash.

I had also ordered some EK Dye and I was going for a very azure like blue (Probably lockdown dreams of distant tropical islands). However, during the test leak phase I realised that with DRGB and the way frosted tubing lights up, dye was not necessary and to be honest, preferred. I never used dye in my builds before but was getting itchy to do something taboo. (Imagine cleaning that distro plate of blue dye! Yikes!) I'm so glad its just distilled water after all.

Most of the hardware parts were from the previous year and so this year was more of a rebirth for this build. Case, case fans and distro-plate were the main features and parts that I had purchased in 2020.

As for the board, the Maximus XI Extreme is a great board except for the Aura Software/ Armory Crate stuff. my LED panel on the IO shroud used to have the CPU Ghz in big big numbers/letters so I could read it. After some time that stopped working. I tried all the forums and nothing could have it working like how I had it for the first 4-6 months. 9700K is perfect for my uses and gaming therfore I chose the 9700K because I thought I could overclock it better , I can get 5.1Ghz stable no problem with pushing the voltage but I have stopped that because I need the stability and honsetly 4.8 - 4.9 Ghz is more than enough for World of Tanks and the Division/Division 2 :p

On a side note, I was actually going to go for 16mm fittings and tubing because I always wanted to go bigger. After doing all the cuts and so on I found the bends performed worse in the tight runs into the radiators with thicker /wider tubing. On top of that when I leak tested, I was getting some leaks near the ports on the distro side because the fitting collars were hitting the stop caps on the empty ports. Luckily for me experience in this field has taught me to always have a plan B. So I used my 13/10 fittings from an old build and I had already ordered enough 13/10 frosted tubing at the same time for those "Just in case Moments" like the day I went to complete it. By the way during all of this time for troubleshooting I was using my PC to game (just out of the case and with a different gpu).... where there is a will there is a way.

The case is an absolute joy to work with for anyone looking into it. Even the HDD drive cages are heavy duty and top quality. I went for the aluminium and black inside colour which I believe has the best contrast.