Build of the week: Open-air testbench

As the former head of PC Gamer's hardware coverage, Bo was in charge of helping readers better understand and use PC hardware. He also headed up the buying guides, picking the best peripherals and components to spend your hard-earned money on. He can usually be found playing Overwatch, Apex Legends, or more likely, with his cats. He is now IGN's resident tech editor and PC hardware expert.

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

This custom open-air PC from Reddit user GodZ-ilA is as gorgeous as it is vulnerable to dust. To keep a rig like this spotless, we'd have a can of compressed air on our desk within arm's reach. But the resulting purity? So worth it.

The open design makes this a prime build for swapping out parts for testing purposes. The small box base was built from U-Channel and 2mm aluminum sheets, with a few pieces, such as the backside’s perforated metal, salvaged from an old side panel. Hard drives and the PSU live inside the box, while the motherboard and everything else sits on top.

As an added bonus, GodZ-ilA also built a USB volume knob with a matching black and white aesthetic. A full guide of that build is available on Instructables. Congrats on the prettiest test bench we've seen, GodZ-ilA!

Components:

CPU: i7-4770k
Cooler: Phanteks Cooler
RAM: 16GB Hyper-X Black DDR3
Motherboard: Asrock Z87M Extreme4
Graphics card: EVGA GTX 750Ti SC
Storage: Samsung 950 Pro 256GB, Intel 520 126GB, WD Caviar Green 1.5TB, WD Scorpio Blue 1TB, Seagate Constellation 2 1TB 
Wi-fi card: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I
Power supply: SilverStone Modular 600W