A custom liquid cooled gaming PC built for PDXLAN Fall 2024 as a raffle prize.

Built by Titan Rig in collaboration with Alphacool and Gigabyte.

The foundation of this build is centered around the Alphacool Apex Pro Skeleton PC case. It’s a flexible open-air setup with plenty of room for liquid cooling and includes a distro with pump. Made from carbon fiber and CNC-milled aluminum, it’s incredibly lightweight yet sturdy enough to handle high-end liquid cooled builds.

We would like to offer our apprciation to Gigabyte for providing a Z790 AORUS ELITE AX motherboard which is a perfect match for the Apex Pro Skeleton’s clean industrial aesthetic along with their Eagle OC RTX 4070 Ti and AORUS ELITE P850W 80+ Platinum Modular PSU.

We went with the Alphacool Core 1 Aurora CPU block in Carbon to match the case’s carbon fiber look and the Eisblock Aurora RTX 4070 Ti Eagle OC water block with backplate. The polished nickel and acrylic on the GPU works well with the distro and adds some contrast. Alphacool also gets extra points for making sure the carbon patterns matched on the case frame and CPU block!

The Apex Pro Skeleton has flexible radiator mounting options with two 360 mounts in front and up top, and a single 120 mount in the rear. The open design also allows for placing radiators and fans on either side of the mounts. This is great for thicker radiators and push pull configurations. We went with an XT45 360 up top to fill up as much space as possible while leaving room for the custom MDPC-X sleeved EPS cables, and a ST30 360 up front to maximize visibility through the distro. The radiators were paired with Alphacool’s Apex Stealth Metal Fans which were a perfect match for a clean industrial look.

Alphacool Eiszapfen PRO HardTube compression fittings and 13mm OD Eisrohr PETG tubing were used throughout the build, with a mix of black and chrome finishes to enhance the contrast between the dark and polished nickel components. The updated PRO fittings feature a stronger, easier-to-use o-ring design and include PETG inserts. A variety of Alphacool adapter fittings, including 90-degree adapters, 10mm and 20mm extensions, offset fittings, and Eiszapfen plugs, helped achieve the clean tubing layout while sealing unused G1/4 ports and simplifying the drain setup.

After leak testing, it was time for the most satisfying part of building any liquid cooled PC – filling with coolant for the first time! The loop used almost 2 liters of Alphacool's UV Red Apex Liquid. It's red is unique variant of red with a fucshia color shift that really pops with the otherwise monochromatic color scheme.

With the build complete we love how it came out! Alphacool has created fantasic chassis to compliment their wide range of liquid cooling hardware. The build was well received PDXLAN, and congradualtions to the raffle winner and to PDXLAN for rasing over $47,000 for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation!

Winner of the build at PDXLAN Fall 2024