Thanks for joining us past the cut! Let’s get into what building a completely RGB gaming PC is like!
Build Process
Putting the computer together was a fairly simple affair. After installing the CPU, cooler, and memory outside of the case, the first thing that threw me off was that the Gemini T does not use traditional stand-offs for the motherboard. Instead, it uses a series of raised bumps and a single standoff in the middle for aligning the board. There was nothing in the manual about the lack of standoffs, but thankfully a helpful Reddit thread cleared up that these bumps in fact were the standoffs.
After that, I went about installing the fan and CPU radiator. Everything was going well until I realized I’d made a big mistake: I forgot to plan on a second radiator for the GPU. Doh. After a little reworking, everything installed very easily. Well, mostly.
The Gemini T turned out to be a quirky case. In installed the GPU’s radiator on the side panel and the Helor on the top panel. Either due to its design or perhaps longer ends on the radiators, each wound up blocking off fan mounts. With the GPU installed, none of the front panels fans could be filled. With a the Helor’s 240mm up top, I could fill out the third fan slot up top.
Functionally, it doesn’t make much difference. With both the GPU and CPU being water cooled, going over the top with airflow is unnecessary and things stay nice and cool. Still, it leaves some gaps in the lighting that I wish could have been filled. It also seems like something Cougar could have planned on, at least on top where simply threading holes a little further back would have easily allowed for a third fan.
TOO MANY CABLES!
The biggest challenge was the sheer amount of cables. The case, sadly, is not friendly for cable management. The PSU shroud is easily removable, which was nice, but once everything was fed through, there were very few hooks for using cable ties. There is also no fan hub to direct all of the cables to the same place, so I wound up needing to run a molex cable from the power supply to keep the interior clean (a fan controller is a future buy), but that was one more cable. On top of that, each fan also has a second LED cable which has to feed into a central box. The end result was a system that was an absolute nightmare to cable manage with hardly any room to do it on the Gemini T.
After a good hour of tying cables down, I thought I was done. I swung the door closed and… it bounced right back open. As it happens, the doors close with very tight tolerances and unless your cables are tight the magnets can’t get a good enough grip to keep the door closed. In the end, I wound up spending $1.25 at my local hardware store and got some small magnets to sit on top of the ones pre-installed on the case. This completely solved the issue. My only regret is not doing this in the first place.
Final Product
And here it is, the final system. It’s gorgeous. The slightly dark tint on the window keeps the RGB from being distracting. Instead, it’s just a looker of a case system. What’s more, it doesn’t need to be a rainbow fest. For some reason, my motherboard wouldn’t recognize the LED controller, but there is a connection and wide support, according to the box, so I suspect this is just a matter of a BIOS update on my board. Even without it, however, Cougar has pre-built dozens of different lighting effects and static colors into their lighting kits to give you a huge amount of options. The case does not sync but can easily be made to coordinate using a color selector button on the front panel.
Performance-wise, I couldn’t be more impressed. Even with the fans running 100-percent, the system is very quiet. Once I get the fan controller in place, I’ll be able to turn them down from max speed (a byproduct of being connected directly to the PSU) and suspect the system will be nearly silent.
Gaming on my Massdrop Vast with its 3440x1440 resolution is a dream and the RTX 2080 XTREME WATERFORCE stays whisper quiet while staying locked to its boost clock. I’ve rarely seen it pass 65-degrees, even after hours of gaming and putting together videos. At this resolution, the R7 2700X also goes toe to toe with Intel’s much more expensive offerings while being much better for video editing.
Final Thoughts
Taken as a whole, I really enjoy this build. The darkened side panel tempers the RGB effect enough where it’s bearable to leave spinning rainbows without feeling completely overdone (and this system is totally overdone). It’s not the most practical - heck, it’s not even close - but a scaled back version of this system could be accomplished probably shaving close to $1000 off the total with very little lost. This is the tip of the RGB high-performance spear, so to speak, but you could definitely accomplish something similar within your own price range.
Still, if I were to do it again knowing what I know now, I’d definitely take more time to creatively manage these cables. Going full RGB uses a lot of extra wires and makes keeping a clean build much more difficult. You’ll want to bear that in mind, picking up a fan controller along with your RGB controller, and be thinking of where you’ll route both sets of wires from the get-go. That level of lighting is next-level in more ways than one and it’s not all good, even if it’s also next-level customizable.
We hope you enjoyed reading through our RGB adventure. Thank you again to our sponsors, and, we promise, no unicorns were harmed in the making of this gaming PC.
