Build of the week: the L3p Steigerwood is a home theater dream machine

Every Monday, Build of the week highlights a unique rig from the web’s most dedicated PC building communities.

Rather than a flashy experiment in exposed components or a massive desk project, the L3p Steigerwood from professional modder Peter Brands is an exercise in extreme restraint. "Even before I got into modding and liquid cooling 7 years ago, building home theater PCs with everything connected was already a hobby of mine," says Brands. "So after all these high end liquid cooled gaming pc's and desks I really wanted to do a stylish liquid cooled gaming HTPC for the living room."

It’s an impressive build primarily for how much Brands was able to fit in such a small space. Built to accommodate home theater setups, the Steiger chassis doesn’t have Tardis dimensions—there’s only 15.4 x 17.1 x 3.25 inches of space to cram in all the components listed below. Together, they won’t melt Arma’s face off, but it’ll play just about anything without sacrificing too much. According to Brands, you can push the PC a little harder than normal despite the tight fit. "When stressing the 4690K and GTX970 Mini at the same time the temps stay around 60 Degrees Celsius which isn't too bad." With most living room TVs are still stuck at 1080p, that makes the Steigerwood a capable monster.

Where it really goes over the top is in its water-cooling system. All those bits and pipes weren't been easy to cram in there. Brands says, "It took me around 100-150 hours in total to figure it all out and get it working." All that work was worth it. Just take a look at that Overwatch setup. Ideal.

For more information and pictures on the L3p Steigerwood and other projects, check out his build log, website and Facebook page.

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L3p Steigerwood components:

Chassis: Steiger Dynamics Era
CPU: Intel i5 4690K
Mobo: ASUS Republic of Gamers Maximus VII Impact
GPU: ASUS Republic of Gamers GTX 970 DirectCU Mini
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB 2400Mhz
SDD: Corsair Force LE 960GB
PSU: Corsair SF600, CableMod Custom SF600 Cablekit
Cooling: EK Water Blocks & Pump/Res Combo, Bitspower International Co., Ltd. Fittings & Pipes
Other: Nanoxia Rigid LEDstrips, Parvum Systems EK-RAM Top

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James is stuck in an endless loop, playing the Dark Souls games on repeat until Elden Ring and Silksong set him free. He's a truffle pig for indie horror and weird FPS games too, seeking out games that actively hurt to play. Otherwise he's wandering Austin, identifying mushrooms and doodling grackles.