- Very excited, I can already see some of the lights.
Alright, here we go.
- Oh, man.
Oh, the reveal!
Whoa!
That's crazy.
Today, we are tackling the Army West Point system.
I mean, seriously, check this thing out.
It took a lot of time and energy to get right
and here's how we did it.
But how are we gonna actually make this O11 Mini
look like a proper Army West Point system?
- Well, so we're gonna be taking a lot of inspiration
from actually the design and architecture
of West Point, itself.
- Which looks like a castle.
- It does.
It's basically built like a fortress.
The aesthetic that we're going for is something strong.
West Point has a lot of that stone architecture
with, you know, a little bit of detail around the top
and that copper roofing.
- The big challenge going into the system really is going to
be making sure that the aesthetic is on point.
I mean, if you look at West Point,
it really does look like a fortress.
There are hundreds of years of history in this place.
So, I wanna make sure that we actually can do something
that will do it really justice, but this is not
the easiest thing to do when you're building a gaming PC.
So for the components, we're going with about as high-end
as we can get at the moment.
So on the CPU side for this system, we are going Intel.
So this is the Core i9-10900K.
We also have an RTX 3090 from MSI.
Now, we will be water cooling the system.
However, the main snag has been that we actually don't
have our hands on a block for this RTX 3090 yet.
The one thing I definitely wanna call out
is the WD Black AN1500 SSD.
Now, this is not something we would typically use, right?
Our motherboard has plenty of slots
for like an M.2 SSD, we can load it up.
However, one of the very specific things
that the West Point team asked was to have a lot of space.
So some of the actual things that we'll be running on this,
specifically, one of those simulations
is like three and a half terabytes.
Should we start tearing the chassis down and seeing like
kind of like what it's going to look like?
- So one of the cool parts about all the Lian Li systems
is that they tend to be fairly modular,
- Yes.
- which means that at least when it comes
to modifying things or mounting stuff,
it's not a crazy ton of work to get there.
But I think we can actually dress up the glass a little bit.
So one of the cool design elements of West Point
is they have these giant, like arching windows,
a better placed into their stone architecture.
So what I was thinking is either engraving
or maybe even custom black vinyl going on the inside there.
So it's almost like a silhouette of the window shapes.
You're kind of looking through these windows
to the system inside.
- Okay, that will be cool.
Walk me through the piles of pavers.
So these are literally, are these like meant
for like models or something?
- Yeah, they're actually mostly meant for dollhouses.
That's at least how they're advertised.
- Are you trying to tell me you're building
a gaming PC for the Army,
- No.
using dollhouse components?
- No, I'm building a gaming dollhouse for West Point.
- Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Do you know how heavy that's gonna be?
What happens when this whole piece of glass
just comes flying down because it weighs a hundred pounds?
- You think that this is gonna weigh a hundred pounds?
- It will weigh 15 pounds.
- Pick all that up.
- Oh, it's super light.
Oh, okay.
Dollhouse, I get it.
All right.
Let's build a PC.
Hopefully, it comes out good.
- I'm going to be taking all of these little tiny pavers
and we're going to begin covering the whole front of this
to make a little brick wall.
You want a sample of what it's gonna look like?
It's an exclusive.
For right here, we've done the test layout
for the brick wall.
You can see, I keep it under my sandbags
that way it doesn't go anywhere.
I've measured out the size here on the cardboard
that this front panel is so you can imagine, you know,
kind of tiling them across like that.
(languid music)
(trap music)
- So it is time to get some actual PC building done.
Ooh, look at that!
Now that!
That actually looks pretty cool.
So this is, of course, the Z490,
specifically the tough variant
which I'm again, mostly thinking it looks cool
but also should give a solid performance.
So we did opt to go for the full ATX layout of the system.
Now, there are a couple of other configurations
that we could have gone for with this, specifically
when it comes to the slots,
you can do three five or seven slots in the back.
Now that would've given us more room and to be fair,
we'll have to measure to see what the actual clearance
for the fans is gonna look like.
But because the only things really installing
in the PCI slots are the graphics card.
And it's gonna be the actual SSD.
We're gonna have all of this space here
so we can easily add fans to the bottom
and it shouldn't really cause us any issues.
All right.
Well, I think we can actually just start getting to build.
We may not have some of our components
but at least we can start test-fitting things
and seeing the rough run of where
the water cooling components will live
when we receive them.
(mellow music)
Okay, so we have our motherboard, CPU, Ram, as well as SSD
at least temporarily installed.
Now there's one interesting thing about the O11 Mini
and that while it will fit in ATX board,
it actually doesn't technically fit it.
Because if you look on the side, it actually overhangs.
So what essentially is gonna happen here
is that we're actually going to run our cables
behind the motherboard.
So it is missing a couple of screws
which honestly should be fine even with the 3090
but since our cables are actually gonna come
out behind the board and we'll just wrap them around here.
And so-
(trap music)
- Why does this say one terabyte?
We ordered the four terabyte version of this, right?
Says one terabyte on the box, too.
Did I ordered?
(playful music)
(high pitch noise)
- Look at that.
So you ordered the four terabyte SSD
and they gave us the one terabyte.
Great!
Nothing like when we have no time to finish a build
and components are not showing up
and are showing up incorrectly.
So you eagle eye viewer probably noticed
the one terabyte logo on the SSD that we opened.
However, after staring at it and all of us
in the office playing with it for multiple moments of time,
no one noticed it.
So that's great.
We can still do a quick test fit
but we got to get this ship back and get the replacement,
ASAP!
(drilling noises)
- [Wes] Hello?
- We are making progress.
- [Wes] Good, I have some good news.
- Oh, is that our side panel?
- [Wes] This is our side panel.
- Oh, yo!
That looks really cool!
- Dude, check that out.
Isn't it sick?
- That looks so cool.
So we've got a USAA.
We've got the logo as well as duty, honor, country
and 1802's when West Point was built?
- Was founded, built.
Yes, somewhere in there.
It's a very important date.
The fact that we can now laser etch these side panels
takes these builds up to another level.
This side panel looks sick.
Like, it just looks amazing.
Like it is nice and in your face
and I think it's going to be super well complimented
by the framing of the stonework around it.
I'm just crazy excited to get started on the stonework.
- Now, of course, this project is sponsored
by our friends over at USAA.
Now, if you don't know,
USAA is a member-owned financial services company
that offers insurance products for the military community
and their eligible family members.
They also sponsor the athletic departments
of the three military academies that we're building PCs for.
Now, I have family in the military
and a lot of them do rely on USAA every single day.
So if you're interested, definitely be sure
to check them out at the link in the video description.
All right.
How is the Army USAA build looking, my friend?
- It is looking very good.
So we haven't made a crazy amount of progress.
It's just a lot of prep work to get us situated
for doing our water cooling run later.
It's a lot of the little things
like getting our power supply in, running all the power,
but I'm taking the approach of actually going neat
from the start, as opposed to what we normally do
which is just kind of plug everything in, check everything
and then do the cable management later.
I want to see about doing it this way
mainly because this already looks very clean
- [Austin] Yeah.
and I want to continue that streak.
So, in a build like this
that is slightly smaller form factor, size matters.
- [Austin] It always matters, Ken.
- It always matters.
So what I found was this CPU block
that also acts as a reservoir.
So it's an all-in-one set up
so we don't need to have another tank here.
It is actually just as space-saving as you can get.
This is actually made
for really small form factor like mini ITX builds
that won't have any space for a reservoir.
We do have a little bit here,
- [Austin] A little bit, yeah.
- but I want to use this free space to give us
a little leeway for our water cooling run.
And then tomorrow, we'll actually do the real thing
- [Austin] The real thing!
- The real thing!
- All right, we are making good progress on the build.
So today, Ken was able to do some more
of the cable management.
We now have all three of our eight pins
for the 3090 plugged in.
We also ran a couple of LL120's on the bottom.
So we have a long discussion
about how we want it to do the airflow.
One of the issues we're gonna have here
is actually the amount of cooling
that we're gonna get out the top.
We could build it in a manner
that would give us a little bit of airflow
but honestly, it's not gonna be a lot.
So realistically, we're just gonna go ahead
and seal up the top.
- Sealing up the top honestly makes my job a lot easier.
Not only do I not have to implement any sort of riser there
to let air flow come in or out at the top
but the top roofing detail can actually be right up against
or at least very close to the stonework
on the side panel and the front.
I hope that doesn't become so hot
that all of my adhesives starts melting
but, you know, that's not really my department.
So you just kinda pass it all off.
- When doing these custom PC builds,
we're finding that a lot of the times with aesthetics,
we need to compromise somewhere.
So what we're doing is we have a rear fan as an intake
and we have our radiator out the back
that will spit all of the hot air out of the system,
which I think should be fine, hopefully.
We'll see.
- All right.
Now, let's fire up the system
and hope that everything works cause I will tell you what,
if our processor but its specifically, if that graphics card
is not 100% functional right now, we are in deep trouble.
We probably should have waited or we shouldn't have waited.
I'm sure we'll be fine.
I'm sure it'll be fine.
Why would, why stress when you can just pretend
everything's fine and it'll work out just fine.
Alright, so we've got ourselves all 32 gigs
of our Corsair memory showing up.
Obviously, one fan connected and then we've got our 10900K,
everything seems to be fine, so, okay, cool.
I feel good at this point that we can shut the system down,
tear it apart cause we need to pull out the motherboard
and start on our water cooling.
- The wonderful thing about
the way we're doing water cooling in this Army build
is that it's actually not that complicated.
Our CPU block, that is also our pump and reservoir
from Barrow, actually does a lot of the legwork
both in footprint and it makes our run pretty simple.
I mean, there's still gonna be some weirder tubing runs
with this, especially with how big our GPU is.
I mean, obviously, we'll see with water cooling
and especially with how newbie we are with this.
It can be a little hit or miss
and we're always learning stuff along the way,
but I think it should be fine.
(trap music)
(marching music)
- [Austin] Oh, what a cool walk-in.
Look at these guys.
- All right, guys.
This is the moment we've been waiting for.
Very excited, I can already see some of the lights.
All right, here we go.
Let me not mess this up.
Whoa!
That's crazy.
Yeah, I feel like I'm in my barracks building right now.
- Oh, man.
This is great.
- It's yellow.
- Yeah, black and gold.
- Can we pop this thing open? open the,
- If you want to, I don't know how.
(laughing)
- [Camera Man] 32 gigs of Ram, four terabyte SSD,
and the 3090.
- Oh my God.
- 3090?!
- Look, everyone's excited about the 3090
- Austin, honestly been a really big fan for a long time,
and see this come to fruition is just absolutely unreal.
The fact is that this PC represents not only
like what we are as a club, but the history
of West Point and the people that stand behind us as well.
So we really appreciate being able to embody
all of that support.
You know, it really is a piece of work, a piece of art.
(laughing)
- It's a piece of work.
(laughing)
It was so cool to be able to build a gaming PC
for the future leaders of the military.
I'm so grateful for all the work that you guys do
that hopefully, this is one small token of thank you.
You're able to get many good years of gaming at it.
- Of course, this Army build was the first
of three USAA builds that we're doing.
And I'm really happy we started with this one
because I think that we have some crazy,
crazy ideas coming up too.
And I'm super excited to work out all
of the challenges and interesting unique designs
that Wes has because you know
that they're gonna be crazy because,
Wes is crazy.