Maybe we should track the best gaming desks like we do for gaming chairs and everything else. If we did, this beastly liquid cooled setup that OverclockersUK put together would be in contention, assuming we were to toss out any sense of affordability or responsible spending. That's because it costs £11,299.99 (over $14,000).
I spent more on my car several years ago, but not much more. Depending on your negotiating skills and the specific model, you could walk out of a Chevy or Ford dealership with a brand new vehicle having spent less. So what justifies that kind of price tag in a PC?
The novelty of a motorized desk pulling double-duty as a case is part of it. So is the fact that this setup is water cooled. As to the actual hardware, here's a look at the specs:
- Lian Li DK-05X
- Intel Core i9-7900X
- Asus ROG Rampage Extreme X299
- 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4-3200 RAM
- 2x Asus GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
- Samsung 960 EVO 512GB NVMe SSD
- Samsung 870 EVO SSD
- Samsung 870 EVO SSD or WD Black 7200RPM HDD
- 1600W 80 Plus Platinum PSU
- Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
The processor is "cherry picked" and overclocked to at least 4.6GHz (which is pretty average for a 7900X, not to mention it's a previous gen part—eg, not the i9-9900X). A full custom liquid cooling loop keeps the CPU and both GPUs from overheating. Less clear is the actual storage arrangement—there's no mention of the size of the secondary SSD, and I opted not to buy this thing to find out.
This is not a new entry, but one that was brought to my attention by Intel, which is feeling the heat from AMD and its third-generation Ryzen lineup right now.
“Most of our flagship systems are hefty beasts, swallowing up the space on your desk because they rarely fit under it—nor, really, would you want to hide such stunning bits of kit under a desk," OverclockersUK systems manager Scott Bentley told Intel. "So we started to look at alternatives to the standard super-tower or monster cube style systems. The best way to build a high performance, hero PC without taking up a load of space on the desk? Put it in the desk!"
Bentley says the system was originally built for a gaming content creator. Hence the decision to build around a binned Core i9-7900X, which he says "offers a good balance between multitasking, multi-core workloads, and clockspeed-hungry gaming workloads."
Implementing a full liquid cooling loop was not easy. To do it, OverclockersUK crafted three separate custom acrylic passthrough plates to mediate the flow of the liquid, rather than having long runs of tubing running the length of the desk.
"The final design includes a central fluid distribution plate, which handles the flow of fluid to and from the pumps, reservoirs, and radiators," Bentley said. "Located just under the glass, in the middle of the chassis, it doubles as a bit of a centerpiece for the build. There is then a third plate, floating above the motherboard, which moves the fluid from the distribution plate to the components."
It's pretty insane, but believe it or not, the price actually pales in comparison to another system OverclockersUK sells—the 8Pack Orion X2 that I wrote about earlier this year is still available for £32,999.99 (over $41,000).
