For our first Friday Feature of 2024, we’re kicking the year off with an absolute banger from Grimm’s Workshop, who apparently has a speciality of case modding, custom sleeved extensions, and water cooling. This tiny ITX build is filled to the brim with aesthetics and performance, so let’s take a closer look.
Favorite Features
- Performance - Despite the tiny form factor of the Mechlicious case, this build is packing some serious gaming and productivity performance with the Intel i7 13700K and an RTX 3090. There’s also 32GB of DDR5, and a massive 4TB Gen 4 NVMe drive. A build like this can play all of the latest AAA titles in 1440p with a higher refresh rate, and will be able to do that for several years to come.
- Aesthetics - With cases like the Mechlicious where there’s no tempered glass side panel, builders can get away with sub-par aesthetics because you’ll only see them when the case is opened up. That’s not what Grim Workshop was thinking here. On the surface you’ll see the full mesh side panels, but when you open them up you’re greeted with an ultra clean all-white design with custom water cooling. This entire build looks amazing, everything is perfectly cable managed, and the color coordination is on point.
- Water Cooling - To be 100% honest, I don’t exactly know what I’m looking at with some of these parts. I’m personally not an expert on the latest custom loop pumps, fans, reservoirs, and connectors, but what I do know is that all of these part look amazing and I’ll take Grimm’s word for it that the hardware stays nice and chilly. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend a build like this to a first time PC builder because there is some routine maintenance required with custom loops, but if you know what you’re doing, this could be a great option for you.
Price to Performance Value
Builds like this aren’t meant for “FPS per Dollar” value. You won’t find custom water cooled gaming PC prebuilt from the bigger manufacturers for a comparison. Instead, this build is all about delivering amazing performance and aesthetics inside a tiny form factor, and that value will certainly appeal to specific types of gamers.
First Upgrades
Nothing. Don’t go near it. A build like this is 100% good to go and shouldn’t need to be upgraded for the next few years. It’ll be a somewhat tricky time whenever the buyer is ready to upgrade, but that scenario shouldn’t need to happen for several years from now.
Conclusion
Sellers like Grimm’s Workshop are going against the META a bit with builds like this, and I’m all for it. Sure, I’m constantly writing about the 5600/6700XT builds with the minimal and clean aesthetics because they’ll sell super quickly, but a build like this is a work of art and needs to be highlighted as well. It might take a bit longer to find a buyer for art like this, but whoever buys this will be super happy with it for years to come.
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