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The Bendz featuring @singularitycomputers Spectre 2.0 case. I made this high end PC build for a friend and it has been an 8 month journey of delay and frustration. If you want a taste of some of the frustration of this case I invite you to go watch the @paulhardware series on youtube. Despite that, I can tell you no ego, this is my finest PC. I'll be rolling out photos over the next week highlighting all the pitfalls and pain of this once in a lifetime build.⁠

Learning to do the bends was not as easy as I thought it would be. I spent a lot of time collapsing tubing at first. Especially at the larger diameters. (16mm). I was never able to get the Barrow tubes to behave, and it wasn't until I saw that @modsbybenq was using @Bitspower tubing and I started freezing water in the tubes that I started to get nice curves out of my bender. ⁠

The case has a custom automotive paint job to match the raw industrial aesthetic. The aluminium frame and charcoal grey panels complement the copper and turquoise highlights. The cables and lighting colour was chosen to match the patina of copper.

The @aquacomputer RTX 2080ti GPU block is absolutely stunning. The first thing I did was strip the paint off the black front panel to have the raw aluminium add to the industrial aesthetic of the build. It was originally paired with a @Gigabyte RTX 2080ti Gaming OC which is a reference card except for one little fan header which they added just to be cool. So I had to have it replaced at a ($300) loss with the great EVGA RTX 2080ti XC Gaming. The PSU is the excellent @seasonicpsu Prime Ultra Titanium 850w.⁠

This shows some of the tight areas of the build. I knew the @singularitycomputers front distro plate would add extra complexity that I didn't need. Here you can see the @Bitspower flow meter with the 12mm Brass Tubing and @ekwaterblocks Torque fittings. Even with only a 40mm EKWB PE radiator there isn't a lot a space to work. ⁠The small curved tube in the back is where I had my first major leak. The first piece that I made had flattened a bit on the outer edge during the bending process. This meant that the O-ring couldn't grip tightly around the tube properly. I had to rebend a new piece and add an extra Torque fitting to reduce curvature. ⁠

The Bendz with the Benz in its new home. LG 38GL950g, lovely @Duckychannel MIYA with blues and a nice mouse and chair. This and pizza delivery would probably be lethal for me. Happy to see my friend put his new setup to heavy use. ⁠

I actually had to do the cables a few times before i was happy with them. The second attempt involved a copper braid that I'm going to revisit in a future build. I just couldn't get the copper to hold without oxidation. I'm very happy with the final cables (yes i know one of the PCIE clips is just short of home.) I think the turquoise works with copper and the grey fits with the metallic finish and charcoal grey of the case. Behind the GPU cable you can get a close look at the @MDPCX sleeving over the chrome @bitspower tubing. I really liked the texture and I plan to explore tube sleeving further in the next custom water loop I build. ⁠

The Bendz hanging out in its new home overlooking the harbour bridge in #Sydney. The @singularitycomputers Spectre 2.0 is an engineering marvel. Everything fits perfectly. I have not seen its peer in machining and finish. One minor issue is that the cable combs are easy to break. The greatness of their product is only matched by the horrendous state of their operations. If I give a company $2300, I should not be waiting 7 months for the product to arrive, especially after being told 6 weeks. It's bordering on criminal. I don't mind waiting for 7 months, but I shouldn't have to pay until you're ready to ship. And my experience is not isolated, @buildsbywill and @paulhardware waited months for theirs as well.⁠

These three @Noctua_at NF-A12x25s have had their frames repainted a blend of metallic silver and stainless steel finish to match the radiator. The fan itself has been painted an engine enamel flat black. They have been placed on an @ekwb PE 360 radiator that has had the external frame stripped of paint to show off the raw aluminium. I originally tried to strip the fins of paint as well, but I couldn't get the copper patina to match the colour of the CPU and GPU blocks. So they had to be repainted black.⁠

The motherboard is the x570 Gigabyte Aorus Master with an AMD Ryzen 9 3900x cpu topped with the @aquacomputer cuplex kryos NEXT AM4 copper CPU block. The RAM is the Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 64GB 3600MHz DDR4 kit which looks absolutely amazing. Again you can see the @Noctua_at NFA12x25 pwm fans on the radiator. .

The cables in the back of the Singularity case look great. They are sandwiched between the manifold and the cover. Just be careful when you are placing the cables in the cable combs, as the pins are easy to snap off. I had to superglue one back in at the end after I was done. I'm very happy how these turned out. This was the third attempt to get them right. (Orange first, then copper braid second). I feel that these have the best contrast the the copper blocks in the front. @mdpcx provided the 15 AWG wire, the pins, the plugs and the shrink wrap as well as all the tools. @paracord_galaxy provided the paracord.⁠

The profile shot so that you can see the @singularitycomputers reservoir built into the manifold. This drops into the D5 pump at the base of the reservoir. And this was the source of my second major leak. The instruction manual gives good advice on not tightening everything too much, as you can damage components by over tightening. As part of my final check of all the fittings in the loop I completely missed the D5 pump housing which applies pressure to an o-ring on the manifold. It was a quick fix but not before I had spilled coolant all over the new table. You can't see from this angle but the SSDs are are two Gigabyte @aorus_official M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen4.⁠

The view from above.

A close up of the front panel, The design is really clean and I love the way the little bits of Noctua brown colour peek out through radiator, I think it adds a little warmth to the build.