Nik Louch

Deep Purple PC Build

PC Build - desk
PC Build - desk

I’m not a gamer, I don’t think I’ve been one since the 8-bit console days; I fondly recall playing (and being massively frustrated by) the lurid and surreal Fantasy Zone on the Sega MasterSystem – to the point of purchasing a rapid-fire dongle to try (and fail) to proceed in the game. As the 16-bit consoles came around and my brother owning a Super Nintendo, my interest waned, and by the 32-bit era I had almost no time for gaming – my tech interests had moved on to development, creativity and tinkering.

Over the last 2 decades I have owned a number of the relevant consoles at the time, predominantly playing more novelty games than hardcore first-person shooters or arcade titles. I enjoyed the games that you could play together such as Wii Sports and Guitar Hero, but whenever I ventured into Call Of Duty, Halo or other online multiplayer games, I missed the social enjoyment of split-screen gaming with actual friends actually there. Since 2000, the two games I have racked up the most hours playing both reflect this trend:

  • UltraStar Deluxe

    Let’s call it what it is: a PC clone of the PlayStation SingStar games – competitive karaoke. It’s a great little app, very open to customisation, massive library of songs, great interface and just so simple to use. It has low-end PC requirements (mine runs on a small-form-factor PC behind the TV), works with a large range of input devices (I am using SingsStar wireless microphones) and it’s just a bit of fun to fire up after a few drinks with friends over.

    More details available here…

  • It’s Quiz Time

    Another game that can certainly trace it’s lineage back to the PlayStation 2, an online quiz with interactions akin to Buzz. Using your phone as your controller, it offers a range of trivia questions – and it gets VERY competitive. Oddly, I have had almost no repetition of questions and the topics have remained pretty diverse. I have tried other quizzes, but none have come close to the polish that this offers.

    Get the Steam version here, but this exists on most major consoles and Mac.

Moving On From Console Gaming

There are recurring themes again – playing with friends and playing outside the confines of the usual gaming situation. But recently something has drawn me back to more commonplace gaming playing titles such as Forza Horizon 5, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Robocop: Rogue City and hilarious High On Life. Off the back of this, I wanted to delve in further and try a few other genres – Cities: Skylines 2 jumped out at me as something I Would enjoy, but my current PC was just not equipped to deal with the level of detail the game went into – hence, time to build something new…

PC Build - stack of hardware

I’ve been building PCs since the mid 90’s and while my job doesn’t require that hardware skill, I love the problem solving aspect that it used to require; it has significantly evolved now and has become a lot easier to put a PC together and get it running – but part of me misses the days of IDE channels, connecting CD-ROM drives to soundcards and installing Windows from a handful of floppy disks. It’s fair to suggest that building a new PC is a labour of love for me. It’s also fair to suggest that I now have greater means to build a more powerful machine than I did when I was in my teens – and to that end I decided to lean into this passion and build possibly the most powerful computer I’ve ever owned (comparing like for like historically).

None of the components are particularly noteworthy as “best you can get”, but they are all as high-end as I need them to be. The Ryzen 9800X3D is the go-to top-tier processor for gamers, the RAM, motherboard and so on are gaming spec, but there’s faster available if you REALLY need it. I think I probably went overboard on storage, but that’s commonplace for me – my NAS is also over-specced in that regard – better to have and not need, than to need and not have. I paid slightly over-the-odds for the 5070 Ti GPU, but on this series of cards, who didn’t?

Montech Case

PC Build - purple case

I feel the stand-out aspect of this build, for me, was the Montech King95 Pro case. Just one of the best built, sensibly laid out, feature rich and attractive cases I have ever worked with. Montech feel relatively new to the scene, I hadn’t heard of them before and the reviews suggested a newer entry into the computer case business, but I struggled to find one poor review of this case (or any of their others). The integrated fan controller, aRGB controller, the cavernous space behind the motherboard for cable management, the fact that the two different front plates (glass/mesh) are both included, the configurable fan mounting points – just an astonishingly nice case and a company that I will look towards for any subsequent builds. To accompany this, I also purchased their cooler and fans so maintain a cohesive look.

Corsair Keyboard

I guess the other point of intrigue is the keyboard. The Corsair K55 RGB Pro XT offers all the features I wanted alongside a name that defies hyperbole – Stream Deck integration, keyboard recordable macros, per-key RGB… But lacked something – it was wired. This is obvious, as it needs the power for the RGB, but what I mean is – the cable was attached, non-detachable – which in 2025 I feel is a bit weak.

I have never been great at soldering; in school I would end up with blobs of solder lacking the precision needed – but I decided I would try to mod this keyboard to have a detachable USB-C cable – I wish I had known the pandoras box I was opening… The internal connector was thankfully just a small MOLEX type and realistically just a 4-core cable – so a simple snip and solder to an awaiting USB socket should have done the job – except it didn’t. I don’t actually know why because (long story involving buying various cables, connectors and spare keyboards short) I tried one last time to do the exact same thing – and it worked. It literally was as simple as I had hoped, and my initial failure seems like a freak event that I was then unable to replicate. I real learning journey for me though, and the takeaway lesson was to buy a good soldering station (as opposed to a cheap wireless soldering iron), use helping hands tongs and a magnifying lens and I guess I can now solder sufficiently well enough.

Final Build

PC Build - stats

So, the PC – it’s fast, runs cool, looks great and is ready to game on. I’ve had a few hours on Flight Sim and Forza and am ready to try something more involving. It has a whole bunch of screens unnecessarily monitoring it’s stats, it has controllers plugged in that aren’t always used, but it looks epic and was a real joy to build. The plan is to use it for gaming, but also my quiz hosting (and writing) have a number of workflows that the Stream Deck and integrated keyboard just allow me to complete with greater efficiency.

To compile all this and source decent(ish) pricing, I used the massively recommended PCPartPicker website. It allows a user to select parts, see pricing but also ensures it notes compatibility – admittedly this is less of an issue now than it was in the 90s, but it considers aspects such as “how many PCI slots does your motherboard have, 2? So you can’t add that many addon boards” and so on. One of those web applications that serves a distinct purpose and fulfils it well.

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