This is my home build I'll be using primarily for content creation for my YT channel, Middle of Knowhere: https://www.youtube.com/c/MiddleofKnowhere

I'll also use it for graphic design and gaming. I do want to try my hat at streaming as well.

I've titled it Northern Lights as I want to kind of emulate the Aurora Borealis, as best I can, with the RGB as opposed to just puking rainbows at you. ASUS' Aura Sync and Corsair's iCue allows me to customize the colors and lighting according to my mood or design choices. The solutions aren't perfect, but the control they give is very nice.

I went with the Ryzen 2700X for price to performance and high core count. I decided on an Asus ROG board for its feature set and ease of overclocking. I bought the GTX 1080 during the tail end of the price craze and was able to buy it for MSRP at Best Buy.

This is my first water cooled build using hard tubing. I'm using EK Water Blocks parts for the fittings, CPU mono-block, GPU block, two radiators, the DDC pump, and 12mm OD tubing. Non-EKWB parts include a Primochill slim radiator on the side of the case, a Bitspower reservoir, DDC pump heatsink and RGB top, XSPC black chrome plug fittings, and finally two Singularity Computers reservoir mounts.

Overall, I had a fun time making the build and I learned a lot about bending tubes through trial and error. Key takeaways: buy way more tubing than you think you'll need and be super patient when it comes to bending.

The Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic was fun to build in and not too difficult. I definitely recommend this case to anyone wanting to do a liquid cooled build and who wants to show off their parts.

While this build took me months to complete, I thoroughly enjoyed doing it. I haven't fully OC'd the entire rig yet, but the 4 sticks of RAM are overclocked at 3000MHz with CL of 13-13-13-30. Unfortunately four sticks at 16GB each won't OC to their rated 3200 speed; although, I've gotten two sticks to that speed at CL14. I've not yet OC'd my CPU.

Check out the time-lapse build video: https://youtu.be/gMODMXXU4CA