The All Transparent Gaming Setup

Quick Overview

The LTT team successfully built an all-transparent PC using acrylic panels for the case, clear components like the motherboard and water blocks, and clear tubing, showcasing the difficult but rewarding process of custom transparent hardware construction, which was made possible by laser-cutting custom acrylic parts for components that lacked readily available clear versions.

Key Points: The project involved building a PC entirely out of transparent components, including custom-made acrylic case panels, water blocks, and clear fans. The team used a laser cutter to create custom transparent side panels for the LTT Transparent PC, etching branding like the LTT logo onto the acrylic. Transparent water cooling tubes were used, which required careful heating and bending, with the team noting that PETG tubing is generally superior to acrylic for this purpose despite acrylic being used in this build. The build featured a Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, ASUS ROG Strix B850-A Gaming motherboard, and a Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 AMP Extreme Infinity GPU with an Alphacool water block. A major challenge was finding transparent components; for example, they sourced a transparent Pulsar X2 Super Clear edition gaming mouse and a clear-cased Seasonic PSU demo unit, but had to custom-make a clear casing for the PSU they eventually used. The final result successfully demonstrated the aesthetic of transparency across all major components, even incorporating clear keycaps and white sleeved cables. The team acknowledged that clear acrylic is brittle and prone to cracking compared to PETG, as demonstrated when one of the originally clear-handled screwdrivers cracked after being dropped.

Context: Linus Tech Tips undertook a challenging PC building project focused entirely on transparency, aiming to use as many clear or translucent components as possible, including a clear acrylic case they designed and manufactured themselves using a laser cutter. The video documents the sourcing of clear versions of common PC parts—like RAM, mouse, and water cooling blocks—and the custom fabrication required to achieve the fully see-through aesthetic, often contrasting the clear materials with their opaque, standard counterparts.