- One of the unforeseen consequences of self-isolation
has been that my kids can't go to school
and they can't go to their friends' houses.
So, ever since it started, my dinning room table
has been covered in kid's school assignments
and virtual play dates over Discord in Minecraft.
So in my usual fashion, I'm gonna be solving
both of these problems with technology.
We're gonna finally put a work desk into my kid's room,
and in order to make it as compact as possible,
we're actually going to build
the Minecraft gaming machine right into the desk.
So this MALM desk from IKEA was selected
for its actually very similar to a computer case pricing,
and the rest of the components we're actually chosen
well half by us and half by MSI who sponsored this video.
Unfortunately, with all the time
people have been missing at work,
this one is not in such an organized state.
So wish me luck here, ladies and gentlemen
'cause this is what I've got to work with.
(metal clinks)
(upbeat music)
Got some instructions for the desk.
Got a partially built up test bench
so we've got an MSI 5700 XT graphics card.
Dual fan, four heat pipe cooler with back plate.
Three display port outputs, factory overclock
and lots of performance for Minecraft.
Got a test bench with a black NHD15, some CPU.
I actually don't know what's in there.
And an MSI extreme gaming X570 ACE.
So the main features of this one
are that you've got four GEN4 M.2 slots,
active cooling on the chip set,
an infinity mirror here,
lots and lots of RGB lighting
and of course, very robust VRMs for overclocking.
TX-850 80 PLUS titanium power supply,
gaming keyboard, mouse and headset from MSI.
Some light Delrin.
Oh this is good, labels!
Front, back, mid.
Vertical GPU mounting kit.
Some 3600 megahertz, CL12 Trident Z RGB.
Cooling fans, power cables, Commander PRO for RGB,
RGB strips for Commander PRO.
Wifi antenna, Velcro strips
and then a variety of fan filters, power cables,
USB splitters and.
(sighs)
I guess I'll go get the desk now,
we'll just start throwing it all in and see what happens.
- [Yvonne] Do you need help?
- Uh, no.
It's better this way
'cause at least there's a camera rolling
if I fall down the stairs and die.
I swear it's genius.
Okay. (groans)
Yes. (groans)
Please tell me there are no obstacles on the stairs.
Oh my legs are gonna get trapped.
It smells like cat pee on the carpet here.
One of the objectives for this project,
was for it to be something
that could be easily reproduced at home
with minimal tools and no how,
so the modifications to the desk are actually pretty minor.
We've got an RGB strip
that's already in place here on the back
so we're gonna hook that up a little bit later,
and then basically on the bottom cabinet here
where there's gonna be a (groans) here you go.
There's gonna be a door on the front.
We've basically just got a couple of 120 millimeter intakes,
so that's just a hole saw and then a regular drill bit.
We've got a square hole that was cut with a jig saw,
and this little, like comb style cable management piece
and then around back, a single hole for a power cable
to go to one of our power bars,
as well as a 120 millimeter exhaust.
Other than that, it's just a matter of a few holes in here
and some computer hardware in there
and we should be pretty much good to go.
There's no manual but power supply first
is as good about as any we're gonna go ahead
and leave hybrid mode on,
I do want this to be as quiet as possible,
'cause this is a room where people sleep.
So I think it goes there.
I think this one goes right here,
and this one goes here.
Another way to mount the motherboard
if we don't care about getting it lifted up
of the bottom of the table
is to actually just put little 632
like inset things into the wood itself,
we actually showed this when I did a build
on the bottom of a desk,
way back in the day but what's nice about this
is it lifts up the motherboard
so that we can cable manage underneath of it
and all of that good stuff.
I will say this about case is that our intended to be cases,
they're a little more ergonomic to work in.
(whirs)
now you guys might decide to do yours
slightly differently but we will put the plans
for any pieces that we created for this build
in the video description.
This is one of the last times we're gonna have access
to the motherboard so actually the M.2 boot drive
is already installed in the top slot over here
but, now is a good time for me to throw in my memory as well
so this is 16 gig kit.
Is that lined up now?
Oh shoot I missed. - Almost, there.
- Figured it out.
The taller insets are a little, meh,
but if we loosen the screws going into the desk,
we can screw the motherboard into the mounts
and then put the mounts into the desk after the fact.
Wow, we got that one at the back.
That motherboard is down.
So now we're just gonna tighten this back down
but not too much.
Have you used the drill before?
- Hmm, yes.
- Okay perfect, you're gonna use it again.
So here's what you're gonna do.
This bolts need to go through this fan filter,
through this hole and then I'm gonna hold the fan
on the other side, this is gonna be our exhaust fan.
Yup, just press it just a little bit
and then it'll grab on to the right spot.
(knocks)
If I were to go back and have this care package re-designed,
I would probably ask
for a slightly different power supply mount,
I'm a little bit fussy about my power supply mounts
just because they are so heavy
but the way that this one's intended to be use
is we've got a hook and loop, fastener pair here,
and then it's kinda friction mounted
against the motherboard.
I had my mic turned off but putting in
the front power button was a bit of a chore,
so because the desk is so thick,
I couldn't really get access to the ring at the back
but basically, with a screwdriver,
I was able to kinda hold it in place
and now that it's screwed in,
this is a good time for us to go ahead
and route the power switch
'cause the more stuff we install on the bottom here,
like, you know graphics card and all that,
the less access we're gonna have to the motherboard.
Modding a pc power button is pretty simple.
You can just salvage these from any broken case
and then just extend them using wires
so all we need is a power switch
and then power LED that's built in
to our power switch up here.
MSI actually has not only 12 volt RGB,
they have five volt addressable RGB and then they even have
one of Corsair's stupid proprietary connector ones
built right into their motherboard.
That's pretty sick, we're still gonna need a Commander PRO
because I'm gonna have a separate zones
for the strips and the fans,
but that's still sick.
Now is as good a time as I need to put in our RGB
and fan controller so the one trick
is we need to make sure it's below this shelf.
The idea is that this shelf and this drawer
are both still completely accessible
and the computer is just built in to the bottom here.
So, I'm gonna go ahead and put it there
with a little hook and loop fastener.
The USB plug goes into the bottom
of the motherboard down here,
and the only other plug that needs is a SATA power connector
that I'm gonna go ahead and run all the way
under the motherboard.
Now we just run another one of these short CableMod cables
and plug that in. (groans)
I was been this much time on my back since I was in college.
Ey.
Just kidding we all know I didn't get laid in college.
I'm not sure if it's your intent
but it makes that kind of thing more awkward
when you don't reply.
My kids are all downstairs watching Wild Kratts now
so I guess I'll have to put this in myself
but here's a tech tip for you guys free of charge.
It is really, really important for this fans
to have filters on them 'cause they are intakes
and they're gonna be right next
to this carpeted floor right here,
carpet can be just an absolutely nasty dust trap
and we have an intake next to carpet,
it pretty much must be filtered
or your computer's gonna be disgusting.
Just full of cat hair, dead skin cells
all that kind of nasty stuff.
Another nice side effect of this
is that it makes this holes look so much better,
this are from Silverstone, they're actually magnetic.
Now we're at the point where it's time to wire up
our RGB strips but unfortunately,
there's no hole at the back
so I'm gonna have to put a new one.
I don't want saw dust all over the motherboard.
Can you grab a vacuum?
You suck, I'll drill okay?
- Oh, man.
- Did you catch it all?
- [Yvonne] I ain't sucked at all.
- [Linus] No?
- No. - Wait, what really?
Oh yeah I can see it from through here.
That's pretty bad, oops.
There we go, and I've got the RGB
and the front power switch through that.
Now I can bring those down really nice and tidy.
(clacks)
Good job.
Now, I've got all of the LED strips
on the bottom of this shelf.
In, in, in, in, there you go.
Oh I almost forgot the most important part,
the graphics card.
So we're using this aluminum rod,
see it's threaded on this end.
We've got a washer here
so I'm just gonna run this through the entire desk,
just gonna be nice and strong. (hums)
There it is.
Then, just gonna tip the whole thing.
Then we throw our washer and a nut down here,
tighten that up and that's it.
That's the graphics card mount.
Nice.
(slides)
Doors on.
(upbeat music)
Its got power, ready?
Fans are all spinning and we've got a post.
For the keyboard, MSI sent over the Vigor GK50
with low profile mechanical switches
and as you can see, full individual key RGB back lighting.
It's not if I wanna plug in the wifi or what have you.
You just throw that in there
and then on the other side,
there's actually a little cable management shelf,
so, we can chuck my wifi junk up there.
For the mouse they sent over their Clutch GM50 mouse,
this has a PMW-3330 optical sensor,
it's super lightweight, it's got RGB lighting
and it's got 20 million click rated omron switches.
The Immerse 50 headphones were provided
for their durable metal construction.
40 millimetered neodymium drivers, detachable microphone
and of course, RGB lighting.
Oh yeah and there's inline, volume and mute controls
and all that good stuff.
And finally, the cherry on top
is their Optix MAG272CQR so this is a curve gaming display
with a 165 hertz refresh rate,
it's 2560 by 1440 resolution,
it's rated at one millisecond response time,
it's got freesync and what else do you want?
Oh yeah it's got RGB lighting of course.
(techno music)
Now that we've been in-game for a while,
we're ready to take a look at our thermals.
It's running super quiet even with the door closed,
I've got my mic right on me
and you can barely hear this thing in the quiet profile.
We are boosted up to 4.35 gigahertz.
60 degrees!
No, 53.
As for our GPU, with all that fresh air coming in
right next to its intake,
it actually hasn't gone over 60.
Minecraft is mind you a pretty light game
but that's all this machine was designed to do
and it looks like it's gonna do it just nicely.
Well hey, it's running so mission accomplished right?
So thank you to MSI for sponsoring this video,
thank you to you guys for coming along for the journey.
I think it actually worked out like shockingly well,
this is clean and speaking of clean,
well MSI sponsored this video
so I don't have like another sponsor to talk to you about
but maybe you could check
one of my previous desk PC builds
where I strapped the whole computer to the underside.
That was pretty cool too. (clicks)