Ultimate PC AND Console Gaming Battlestation
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
994 words · ~4 min read
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after seeing us build one of the internet's most epic battle stations
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Intel reached out with a sponsorship and a challenge
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build a new diy desk project even better
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than before highlighting the 8th generation core i7 8700k
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in a ba gaming rig so we set out this
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time with a small form factor origin chronos
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the plan a gaming setup that lets you have it any
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way you like switching between pc gaming
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and console gaming with ease and with a throwback to that analog feel
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with physical buttons oh and RGB naturally
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thinking it would be easier to augment an existing desk rather than build one
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from scratch we used ikea's build your own desk tool as a starting point and
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chose a mixture of wood finish and pure white for a modern look that would also
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effectively bounce our RGB lighting around before we dive into the diy
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action let's meet the gaming pc that Intel provided for this project origin
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pc's chronos complete with custom paint job it rocks the up to 4.7 gigahertz
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Intel core i7 8700k and all six cores of
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it are tamed by origin's own frostbite 120 liquid cooler which allows it to
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really stretch its legs despite the system's small size
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so we modified the cabinet portion of the desk so that it could hold not only
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our kronos but also an xbox one x and a
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ps4 pro oh yeah and all of the circuitry needed
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to switch between them so we picked up these led toggle buttons on amazon
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this HDMI switch for changing our inputs and an arduino uno to act as the brain
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for the whole thing to make room for all these goodies we decided to remove the
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cabinet's top three drawers and then to shift the rails down on one of the two
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large bottom drawers so we could swap it out for a small one
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then using some white wood paneling that we got from home depot we made three
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custom shelves that we fastened to the cabinet walls by simply drilling new
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holes and inserting those small wooden dowels that are often included with ikea
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furniture pro tip by the way you can take as many of those as you need from
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the bins at ikea customer service ultimately we didn't end up with a ton
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of extra space around each system which isn't great for thermals so if you're
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following along at home then you might choose to keep just one drawer at the
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bottom instead of two or you can do what we did and integrate some cooling fans
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at the back this allowed us to keep the storage space at the bottom and the more
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finished look of the tight compartments
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but hold on a second if there's so little space above the
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chronos where are all the switches and wiring going to go huh oh ye of little faith
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there's a spare three and a half centimeters up there now this is not
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quite enough for a fourth shelf given that the shelves themselves are almost
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two centimeters thick but what if we salvaged some of our
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discarded cabinet pieces to make a custom super low profile drawer
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we remounted our spare rails and gorilla glue on a new facade that would hold our
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switches et voila all the desks hardware in a compartment
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no taller than the trim piece that we were going to use anyway
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so it's going great so far but let's be honest this wouldn't be an LTT project
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without at least a dash of jury rigged jankery
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so let me assure you this is an LTT project
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to seamlessly switch from pc to xbox to playstation we needed each of our
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physical buttons to correspond to an input on our HDMI switch one each for
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HDMI 1 HDMI 2 and HDMI 3. problem is we could not find an HDMI
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switch that hit individual physical buttons for each input instead they all
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have one button that cycles through the inputs
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however they do come with remotes and the
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remotes have individual buttons so our plan then was to connect our arduino to
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the remote and then just point the remote point blank in our HDMI switch
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inside the cabinet problem solved or at least it would have
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been if we hadn't accidentally connected a 5 volt power supply to a 3 volt remote
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and completely destroyed it in the end we soldered the
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HDMI switch directly to the arduino and relied on software to send the
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appropriate number of button presses depending on which input you're starting
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on anyway after all that it was just a matter of using a hole saw to bore cable
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management holes so we could you know plug stuff in because that's important
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and so we could wire up our RGB strips
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which we opted to stick to the top side of each compartment way at the back for
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a sexy gentle glow then we added wood trim with a bit of
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overhang to hide the RGB strips wrote this arduino script to control the
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switches and the lights and put the whole thing including an ultra wide
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monitor together ending the console wars and ushering in a new era of gaming a
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peaceful era of gaming once and for all
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not bad for a total of 420
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so thanks santel for sponsoring this build and thanks to you guys for
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watching if you disliked it you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like
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get subscribed maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured
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at the links in the video description also down there we're gonna have our merch store which has cool shirts like
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this one and our community forum which you should totally join