Copper water-cooled gaming PC mod gives off serious steampunk vibes

Because of their shared roots, it’s no surprise that the majority of custom PC designs and mods lean more toward sci-fi and cyberpunk aesthetics. Of course, there’s a wide variety of styles and themes that can be adopted, but sometimes it takes a bit of imagination and a lot of hard work to pull off a successful design. That’s especially true if you’re attempting to use a style that uses plenty of copper pipes and brass colors.

You know what else in computing uses lots of pipes? Water cooling systems! Of course, modern water cooling designs make use of flexible tubing that happens to also mix well with those “gamer” aesthetics, but there’s no hard rule that they can’t be made with metal pipes you’d more closely associate with water. That’s the principle behind this rather striking custom PC design that uses plenty of metallic golden brown surfaces, giving it a rather distinctive look that would make it at home in a steampunk setting.

Designer: Billet Labs

Designing a computer in a fictional Victorian-era style wasn’t exactly the original purpose of this gaming PC mod. It was, at first, meant to showcase the MonoBlock, a water-cooling block designed for a mini PC form factor that exuded a somewhat brutalist aesthetic with its all-copper construction. Once the project got started using copper pipes all around, however, it almost took on a life of its own.

To call this a massive undertaking would be the understatement of the year. Unlike many mods and hacks that could use 3D printing to save time and effort, every pipe and almost every block in this build was made by hand, with only the main aluminum PC case enjoying the benefits of CNC machining. It definitely takes more than just plenty of skill but an even greater amount of patience to pull this off, though the results are probably worth the months of work put into it.

That result is a head-turning aluminum block at the bottom, a metal radiator block above, and half a dozen copper pipes bending their way around to connect both parts. One of those copper pieces is a cylindrical reservoir that holds water mixed with coolant chemicals. After all, this is a water-cooled PC, and it would be a complete failure if it couldn’t push and draw water through the gaming PC to keep it performing at its best, even in high loads.

It’s definitely impressive how this contraption actually works perfectly, though the DIY nature of the project and the metal tubing might not inspire complete confidence, especially since you’re literally putting water near electronics. There’s no doubt, however, that it’s a beautiful work of art and engineering, one that thankfully offers something new in a market filled with neon RGB lights and black motifs.

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