Small form factor PC refresh
The "small, but powerful, gaming machine" has seen a few new parts over the years but one of these parts (a new nvidia RTX 3080 ti founders edition) eventually pushed it beyond its cooling capabilities. My slim case was not well designed for handling the new flow through airflow design adopted by the newer RTX cards and any heavy usage caused the entire thing to fill with heat until eventually the PSU would call it quits. Ripping the top off of the case and adding a few extra USB fans helped to cool things off a bit but it was not a pretty sight, and the temperatures were still uncomfortably high...
Finally, considering the difficulty I had getting hold of this new GPU and its status as the most expensive piece of my computer, I came to the realiziation that it was time for a better solution. A solution that was both prettier and smaller... Eventually I landed on the dan & lian li a4-h2o. At 11 liters (compared to the 14.6 liters of my old case) this thing was not only smaller and cooler (both literally and figuratively) but it was also a breeze to build. I cannot recommend it enough.
The new build actually runs so cool that it has put overclocking back on the table. With a new 5950x and 3080ti both running at peak efficiency inside it has put this mini-machine back in super computer territory, at least until next year.
