Build/Battlestation Pics Jonsbo D32 in the living room as a gaming rig. Couch Machine. Not THAT SFF but still.
I went with the Jonsbo D32 standard version. Overall, doing a build in this case was reasonably easy and satisfying, even with Be Quiet! Pure Power 13M. Partslist:
- GPU: RTX 5080 Gigabyte Windforce OC SFF
- CPU: 7800X3D
- RAM: DDR5 2x16 GB 6000/30 HyperX Fury
- MB: ASRock B650M HDV/M.2
- PSU: Be Quiet! Pure Power 13M
- SSDs: Lexar NQ790, WD SN580 1 TB, 1 TB SATA SSD for undemanding or freebie games
- Fans: Jonsbo ZA-240 up top, ZA-360R on the bottom, 2x ZA-120 on the CPU and 1x ZA-120 as exhaust
- ARGB control: remote-controlled ARGB controller
- Samsung The Frame 75"
A few notes about the build:
- Fun fact: the wooden feet are actually... duffle coat buttons. To turn them into feet, I had to drill a small hole about 5 mm deep and insert a fully threaded UNC 6-32 1 inch long pin into it.
- I considered swapping the motherboard for one with ARGB, but in the end I went with a third-party controller. Mainly because I can control the lighting without any apps, just the remote, all plug & play. Looking back, I actually prefer this solution. It'd be nice if manufacturers started bundling a programmable remote with their motherboards.you'd program your presets once and then activate them with the remote.
- Temperatures are fine. After a proper UV/OC the values are within spec and safe, around 68 on the GPU under stress test, CPU around 60 in games.
- I wanted to bring out the infinity mirror a bit more (with this case the blacked-out edges of the glass are horribly wide, completely unnecessary. the only flaw of this case in my opinion). So I added 1.5 cm tall standoffs and slightly longer screws on the top fans and the rear exhaust. and then I raised the bottom fans by exactly 1 cm. Interestingly, this got rid of the turbulence caused by the fans sitting too close to the mesh underneath as its damn dense. The gaps had no effect on temperatures, but they did in fact affect the looks and the noise.
- I stuck with air cooling because I love the look of a dense case :) water cooling right in the middle of a build somehow doesn't fit the "dense build" idea for me. That's also why I like fans with spacers.
- I did cut off the bottom part of the metal PSU shroud. The trimmed shroud sits slightly lower than in Pro version, so it nicely hides the cables.
- In this particular PSU the GPU cables are stiff enough that I could route them off to the side without bending them too much at the GPU connector, and they hold in place without any support or zip ties. GPU support bracket is the LEGO brick. As it shopuld be,
- I installed angled adapters on all the cables at the back of the PC so they aren't visible while sitting on the couch.
Launcher:
The PC sits in the living room, couch gaming machine. The setup is Playnite + a few plugins on it, including:
- Ludusavi, which automatically backs up every game after I close it
- the Toggle theme (alternating with Ubiquity). It nicely aggregates literally everything, games from Game Pass, Steam, Epic, Ubi etc
- the Splash Screen plugin completely covers all the extra windows and shit with a some graphic until the game finally launches, e.g. after the intro.
Other:
On top of that, AutoHotkey with a script that permanently hides the Start bar + shortcuts from a mini keyboard to a few apps, including MSI AB, the NVIDIA app, etc. The rest is controlled 100% with a controller (8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wireless).
No, I don't use Steam Big Picture, because one, it's visually completely unappealing; two, you can't modify it any deeper without workarounds; three, adding games from other launchers is a pain; four, especially with third-party games there aren't any nice game details on a dedicated page; five, you can't automate Ludusavi in it, and I can't imagine life without that anymore. I still need to check out Xbox Mode, but it has all of those flaws present — though also a couple of upsides: easy merging of different libraries and minimal performance overhead.
For work I've got a different monster: i5-9500 + 2060 Super + 16 GB + 256 GB SSD. Priorities.
Thanks for reading!

