I've had a rocky relationship with test benches. I have always loved the idea of
them, but usually, to put it bluntly,
they're just kind of I've tried to overcome this fact. I even found one
that I didn't hate as much as the others. You've probably never heard of
it. They're they're called Spotswood Techstations. They're uh yeah, they're
pretty obscure. And even resolved to use it for my personal computer. But that
was a bad idea. The bench wasn't that great. And in the end, we all knew it.
But I don't think I fully gave up until a while later when I made a video on how
to make your own test bench in under 2 hours for almost nothing that ended up
being nearly as good as what was on the market. Kind of depressing. So, when
HWBOT approached me about checking out the OpenBench table, I was a little
apprehensive. It wasn't cheap and I was
worried its features would turn out to be gimmicks, but I gave it a shot
anyways because if anyone is going to
have a chance at getting a test bench right, it was going to be competitive
overclockers. Let's see how they did.
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in the video description. The first thing that jumps out at you when you
start working with the bench is the build quality of everything. From the
heavyduty AL5052 aluminum body to the SS304 steel screws,
no punches were pulled when it came to
build quality, which is great as long as you can stomach the $150
price tag, which rivals some pretty wicked midtower cases that have like
side panels and front panels and rear P.
You get the point. But this is cool. If you don't want to shell out that kind of
dough and have access to a CNC machine, say at your school or workplace or
something like that, then there is an alternative. It's called the open bench
table for more than just the fact that it's open to the air. It's open source
as well, meaning that they welcome PC enthusiasts modifying, building, and
making their own versions of their published design. Okay, great. But
should you care? Let's talk features. First off, it's portable. The legs or
the stands along with all the other mounts, they fold within the main body,
allowing it to be flatpacked. And then it features a handle on one end, making
it a breeze to move around. Second, when you get to where you're going, you'll
immediately notice the completely toolless design of everything. All of
the screws that you'll need are cleverly stored in metal components or on the
side of the bench. And they're all thumb screws that even straight from the
factory are loose enough that you can legitimately remove them without
fetching any tools at all. Although I would recommend whipping out a
screwdriver just to make sure that certain things are absolutely secure
while actually building your computer. And there's more than just screws built
in. Literally everything you need is here, like your expansion card
standoffs, which work surprisingly well considering the issues that I've had
with very similar designs in the past where they would like wobble and fail.
Though, you may have some issues trying to plug in display cables like HDMI or
DisplayPort or whatever else. This is due to the need for them to be nonflat.
It's not that hard to avoid, however, if you're comfortable with just one
standoff per card. Just remove the top one. Speaking of standoffs, you have
your choice when mounting your motherboard of pinbased screwless
standoffs and a more standard system. I opted to go for a mix, mostly made up of
screwless standoffs, with a couple more traditional ones just in case I wanted
to lock things down with screws and whatnot. I love this because ease of use
is very important when it comes to a test bench, and not needing to screw
things in in this case is paramount. On to drive mounting. For me at least, this
isn't all that important on a test bench. I tend to just let them freeball
since SSDs aren't much of a risk from an accidental bump or even a fall to be
completely honest. But this time, I installed both the SSD and an extra hard
drive directly onto the bench, almost entirely because it just looked so damn
cool, like seemingly everything else on
this bench. When you're done installing all your hardware, it's time to do the
often dreaded task of cable management.
You'll be happy to know, however, that there are holes left behind when you
remove the various components, like the the little arms for the radiator that
attach it to the side of your bench in a surprisingly sturdy and attractive way.
But why are these holes a good thing? Well, if you just grab some Velcro
straps, you can use them as cable management loops to keep everything
absolutely tidy. So, you end up with what is, in my opinion, a very
attractive mix of revealing the work that you put into it while still looking
beautiful. So, it's portable. It assembles and disassembles elegantly. It
looks freaking amazing, and it's sturdy
all around. What's not to love? Well, despite how awesome it is, not everyone
is going to want to or be able to fork over $150 for a test bench regardless. I
absolutely love it and it will be replacing my old work test bench that
I've been using since 2011. But with that said, even I don't know if I could
justify the cost for a personal purchase, especially with the current
state of the Canadian dollar. What do you guys think? Let me know down below.
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to Linus.ctain.com octane.com and try out their savings calculator. When you
sign up at our link, you'll also get $25 in service credit or $25 towards a new
device. Thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do.
But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit the like button, or check out the
link to where to buy it or other test benches on Amazon cuz I don't know if
this one's on Amazon and all the other ones suck. Also linked in the
description is the merch store where you can buy cool shirts like this and our
community forum where you can like discuss things and stuff. Now that
you're done doing all of that, watch this video, which is where I DIY a test
bench that isn't as good as this one, but it's
still pretty