Introducing Windfall. A small ITX custom loop build in an SSUPD Meshlicious in white. This build is for a friend upgrading from Old Faithful, an RTX 2070 build of mine in a Sliger SM550. Thanks also to cablemod who sponsosred this build and saved me from having to hand make my own SFF cables.

The Meshlicious comes with a lovely TG side panel. Performance wise this is a great case. Getting it to look aesthetically pleasing with a custom loop is a journey of frustration. From a high level this case has been made for quick and dirty CPU AIO builds. Stuff the parts in and shove the cables in wherever they will fit. I would have paid good money for an extra 4mm behind the GPU and motherboard. The ability to hide cables, pass through fan connectors would have made life a lot simpler.

It's got my an EVGA 2080ti buried in the back with an EKWB gpu block on it. These are all EKWB chrome fittings and their Quantum Kinetic FLT 120 DDC. I've pre-emptively refused to repaste the block in 18months. So... ah.. good luck with that. The only thing not EKWB is the tubing which is from bitspower.

The Cablemod SFF cables were great. They came in exactly the length I asked for which helps with the clean look of the build. The great thing about choosing your own lengths is that on the PCIE cables you can adjust for the distance (2cm) between two 8 pin headers so they run perfectly together. I'm also a little tired of making my own so this was really convenient.

So basically I just hung the reservoir on the spine. Take your ekwaterblocks Quantum Kinetic 120. Fit the D5 legs to the top and the DDC legs to the bottom. Put some pads under the DDC legs to protect your GPU and just hang it up. You can also see how little space there is behind the motherboard. Rear side m.2 would be a bad idea as well as an RTX 3090. Finally, the space behind the front panel PCB is really the only place to hide cables. The good thing about the reservoir is that it creates a little space to stuff things that you want to keep out of sight.

I like to include an analogue flow meter in my water builds. I never trust digital readouts. I'm really proud of the connections from the reservoir to the GPU. It was a surprise when it all fit together so neatly. This bent tube is in black sparkle, it's a lot closer to chrome than the older black sparkle colour I feel. I'd be very comfortable mixing an matching fittings for a little variety.

The PSU is a @corsair SF750, the CPU is a @amd Ryzen 3700x and the board is an @asrock_official B550 ITX/AX. The RAM is 32gb of @hyperx DDR4 3200

The Meshlicious is a fine case performance wise. You can't argue with its thermal abilities. Am I in love with it? No. And it's difficult to put my finger on why. Building a custom loop in this thing can be frustrating, the lack of cable management and hiding spaces behind the motherboard and GPU makes it difficult to get a clean looking build at the end. The little adjustments here and there that would have cost nothing but made it a lot more enjoyable when putting in a custom loop. And maybe that's just it. This is a case for a certain type of person. If you want just get an AIO, stuff your parts in there and slam the mesh panels shut forever then this is absolutely the case for you. But for me, the @ssupd_hq Meshlicious will stay in the friend zone.