This is the Dreamwalker, a sleek and silent build sporting a delidded i5-8600k and a GTX 1080ti. I had dreamed about doing a build like this since I'd gotten into PC hardware by watching channels like Gamers Nexus when I started high school.

Fast forward to 2018 and I had gotten two jobs and finished school; it was time to build the PC I had always wanted before going to university the next year. I had a budget of around 2000$ USD and enough confidence from watching videos for years and making wishful builds in PCPartpicker. It was finally time to make the build I had always wanted.

Performance was extremely important to me but I also wanted something that looked really nice but not just caked in RGB light strips so that's why I garnished it with 16GB of 3200MHz Trident Z Royal Gold. Delidding the i5 and replacing the thermal paste with Conductonaut and configuring push/pull fans on my little 120mm radiator allowed me to comfortably push it up to a stable 5GHz overclock at 1.3 volts while still keeping the fan curve down. I had decided to put the most money into the GPU because I wouldn't be able to upgrade it for a very long time and it is a lot easier to keep the same mid tier CPU for a few years. I chose the AORUS Xtreme for its 3 fan design, massive cooler, high clock speeds and front facing RGB. To combat PCB sag and show off said card I installed a vertical GPU mount that Cooler Master makes for their cases. My motherboard, the AORUS Gaming 5, was chosen to compliment my build with support for anything I might want in the future (integrated wifi for university), just the right amount of illumination, and a powerful enough VRM if I'm ever able to install an i7 or an i9.

The Dreamwalker has a score of 9786 in Time Spy and charts top 100 on both Ice Storm and Ice Storm Extreme. http://www.3dmark.com/spy/6205338

I hope to add a custom water cooling loop and a Cablemod kit in the near future. I hope you like the build as much as I do as I won't be doing another one for a long time.