Building a SLEEPER Gaming PC!

Building a Sleeper PC: Overcoming Challenges with Unique Components

When it comes to building a sleeper PC, one must think outside the box and choose components that are unique and unexpected. I recently embarked on a project to build a sleeper PC using an older HP pre-built chassis, which initially seemed like a daunting task due to its bare metal interior. However, when the right panel was removed, it became clear that this was something special - not just another plain vanilla OEM build.

As I began working with some of the components I had on hand, I realized that there were likely more powerful configurations possible, but ultimately, I was limited by the available options. The 3060 TI graphics card, which I was using, was a good starting point, but I couldn't find a larger or more powerful alternative that would fit in the chassis. Furthermore, the CPU cooler, being as small as it is, limited my potential for a more powerful CPU.

Despite these limitations, I was determined to create a unique and powerful PC. The combination of the 3060 TI graphics card and an unspecified CPU resulted in consistently strong scores of between 11 and 12,000 in 3D Mark Time Spy. This suggests that there is no serious bottleneck between the two components, with the graphics card being slightly less powerful than the CPU.

I also want to acknowledge that building a sleeper PC can be challenging, particularly when it comes to cable management and airflow. The front panel connector, for example, was slightly different from the standard JFP1 header found on most modern motherboards, requiring only a simple soldering job to rewire it. However, other aspects, such as accessing space behind the motherboard tray, presented more significant challenges.

In terms of aesthetics, I must say that I'm extremely happy with how this build turned out. The stealthy design and misleading appearance are major selling points for sleeper builds like this one. If you're curious about building a sleeper PC or want to see another one in action, I recommend checking out older cases on eBay or other online marketplaces.

For future projects, I'm aiming for an even more extreme sleeper build - a full beige tower case. While the current build is still a great example of a unique and powerful sleeper PC, there's always room for improvement. If you're interested in seeing another sleeper build assembled, be sure to comment below with your suggestions or recommendations.

If you haven't subscribed to my channel yet, please consider doing so by clicking that red button. Engaging with the community through comments, Discord, and other platforms is crucial to creating content that resonates with viewers. Additionally, if you'd like to support me on Patreon or access links to components used in this build, they can be found in the description below.

Lastly, I want to express my gratitude for building with me. This project was definitely out of the box for me, but it was a lot of fun to do. More content is coming soon, so stay tuned!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enin our last video I hinted at the possibility of a sleeper PC what's a sleeper PC well something that has a bunch of newer components inside of an older case from the outside it wouldn't look like much until you take the side panel off and you reveal the glory that is within and I think we've got great candidates here for one we're going to build our first ever true sleeper PC on this channel and I'm sure it won't be all that straightforward stay with me shop AliExpress's biggest sale of the Year singles day starting from November 11th to November 17th find your favorite tech gear including everything you'll need to build your next gaming PC I found some Corsair Vengeance ddr4 at a sweet and low price and no it didn't take very long to arrive AliExpress often has name brands at competitive prices making them perfect for Budget builds without immediate deadlines and with her offer code all on AE you can save an additional $25 off orders of 100 or more during this sale Not only was I able to find this 16 gig dim at a great price on AliExpress but I also spotted this Western Digital SN 770 nvme a pcie Gen 4 drive with ultra fast reads and rides storage like this is compact easy to install and comes with great manufacturer warranties for peace of mind for years to come and thanks to AliExpress's great prices you may be able to purchase a larger capacity Drive than you otherwise would have buying locally in my opinion it never hurts to shop multiple places before placing an order on anything and in the case of PCS it can mean the difference between a 500 gig storage drive and a 1 tbyte one or 16 gigs of ddr4 versus 32 and if you shop during AliExpress's biggest sale of the year you could save even more in the process between November 11th and 17th again use code all on AE to save $25 on orders of 100 that's all on AE a o n AE to use at checkout and act fast these singles Day sales are only running for a limited time at the heart of every true sleeper PC we have a good case and what I mean by good is actually a bad case it has to be old not necessarily bad in the airflow sense it can be a good airflow case it just has to look old maybe even ugly you want it to mislead whoever looks at it from the outside right you don't suspect really good components to be inside of something like this because it doesn't have the gamer kind of flare to it it doesn't have that modern Sleek look and that's the entire point I could have gone with something much older than this perhaps even much uglier but I like how compact this one is so before you jump to the comments and say well Greg that's not actually a true sleeper case I argue there are even modern cases out there that you could build sleeper PCS in they just have to be misleading that's my only goal here is to make it look a lot worse on the outside than it actually is on the inside now this HP protes case is definitely not the cleanest we're going to take this thing apart even further than it already is and wash it outside with water like we do in our pcdc playlist I want to make sure all these cables and things are cleaned I want it to look as good as possible here on the inside but I don't want to spray paint anything I don't want it to look you know like really clean on the inside I still want to preserve the look of the case I just want to stuff it with a bunch of really high-end components and clean up cable management along the way one of the other reasons why I like this case apart from its size the fact that air flow isn't totally bad we get grills up and down the entire front panel here so uh it won't get too toasty in there but one of the constraints of a smaller case is Hardware support while air flow is expected to be actually decent we are going to have issues with graphics card fitment we'll have issues with CPU Cooler fitment and AIO is pretty much out the window in this build because we don't have anywhere to mount a 120 or a 240 mil combo and that's why we've chosen what we have here this is by no means the most powerful Hardware combination imaginable not even close but it is still fairly modern and it will still kick butt in games today which I'll show you later in the video starting first with our CP we've got a ryzen 57600 here I wanted to go with a lower TDP chip so that we can run a lower profile CPU Cooler with it but still reap the benefits of a newer architecture speaking of low profile we've got a pure rock LP here 100 W TDP looks super sleek this is going to bolt directly to our socket I think this is going to look really good and it's going to keep our CPU temps in check while not taking up too much space inside of our smaller case system memory is pretty straightforward 32 gigs of Corsair Vengeance ddr5 RGB even though we're not going to be able to see the RGB why not for our motherboard an azck B 650m it needs to be an matx board because again of the constraints of our case and to round out the platform have about a 1 TB Gen 4 in vme WD black this is the one you probably just saw in our pre-roll picking the right graphics card was challenging I immediately ruled out anything in the high-end 40 series lineup it's just there's no way any of those bulky coolers are going to fit in this prodesk I did want to throw in a 7900 XTX but that card was far too long for the prodesk and so I eventually settled on the 360 TI this card not only looks really good but it does have some silverish accents as well which I think is going to help kind of blend in that very shiny metallic finish inside the case it also is not extremely overpowered or anything it's not going to run extremely hot in our case and just requires a single eight pin we just have to use this silly little adapter here and rounding things out our power supply this is a perer power 12m a 1,000 watt unit which is definitely overkill for this but I wanted at least something to be Overkill here it's compact so it fits nicely in the prodesk it's also fully modular and 80 plus gold efficiency rated and I think that just about wraps up the parts list now it's time to assemble things inside this case but before we get ahead of ourselves I want to prep the case by again disassembling it as far as it will go we're going to remove this rear smaller fan here we're going to deep clean that we're going to take the front panel off and we're going to wash the entire case I'm going to remove excess stickers and things that uh that you could argue actually add to the sleeper profile of the chassis but uh I want them removed we do have some paint chips and things that we're not going to be able to fix without a respray but we're not going to go overboard here I just want it to look old but you know not disgusting I think we're going to go with a time lapse for this section I'll try to pick some music that doesn't totally offend everyone watching it's always tough you never please everyone but uh I think I think I know what you're looking for something a bit spicy but not overwhelming here we go e well then I've got to say this turned out a lot better than I expected from my first ever I think official sleeper build really didn't run into too many issues I think the parts that we chose fit nicely it was still a bit difficult to squeeze the graphic card in we definitely couldn't have gone much bigger than this and even Cable Management turned out quite nice thanks to this uh large bar here that's guess an integral part of the chassis the only RGB in this build is actually in the ddr5 and I don't mind that it actually glows and reflects nicely off of the uh bare metal interior of this chassis so when you have the right panel off it does kind of give you that like sense that this is something unique it's something special it's not just your plain vanilla run-of-the-mill OEM build that is assuming you knew nothing else about electronics and had no idea that any of this was actually Overkill now speaking more to that there are likely much more powerful configurations you could squeeze into this I was more or less working with some of the components I had on hand and I I unfortunately couldn't again pick a larger or more powerful graphics card it just I didn't have anything small enough that was more powerful than the 3060 TI and everything that was was just way too big to fit in here on top of that the CPU Cooler uh being as small as it is limited Us in terms of our CPU potential as well we could have gotten a more um beefy top flow sty cooler that would have fit in here no problem but I didn't have one on hand and I wanted to get this video out before the holiday start cranking because we have several other projects in the pipeline along with some fixer flops and potentially pcdcs also coming back so yeah really happy with this and if you're curious about performance in 3D Mark time spy this combination of Hardware consistently scores anywhere between 11 and 12,000 and you can see that our graphics and CPU scores are very similar to each other the CPU at least in this test is slightly less powerful scoring slightly lower uh than the graphics card but this suggests overall that they're a very healthy combination there's no serious bottleneck here and we're still scoring better than over 60% of all submitted results so it it's not a bad system by any means and I'm not trying to downplay how good this Hardware combination is I just want to make it clear that in my eyes at least it doesn't matter if it's the most powerful thing or not it's still a sleeper build so long as the exterior of the build suggests that it's something much weaker than it actually is I think in this case when you remove the right panel most folks are going to be pretty shocked they're not going to expect something like this inside of an old HP pre-built I do still need to rewire the front panel connector it is slightly different in this case than it is like the standard jfp1 header you'll find on most modern motherboards including this one so just a very simple soldering rewiring to get those pins lined up with the board and we should be a okay there for now though I just have to jump things to get it started um but I I've got to say I really appreciate the challenges here like they're not insurmountable by any means the front panel thing is that's a very quick fix uh Cable Management like I said I was actually able to kind of make use of this bar here so I was able to hide most of them wasn't too challenged ing but not being able to access space behind the motherboard tray does present its own challenges and so you kind of have to work around those constraints same with the cooler same with airflow depending on the older case you choose but I definitely definitely want to try this again probably sooner rather than later I really actually love the way that this looks I think it's so stealthy so misleading in such a good way um I've definitely got the itch now so if you guys want to see another sleeper build assembled on this channel recommend some older cases in the comment section I'm not sure if you can hyperlink in the comments but uh if you find maybe an old eBay case or something that you'd like to see us build in we'll certainly give it a look I'm probably aiming for a beige Tower next time that's that's true true sleeper right this is still sleeper but if you want to go to the extreme sleeper end of things you got to go with a beige full tower I think there's no way around it so that's the next step and if you find one that you want us to build in again comment it down below thank you so much for watching this one if you haven't subscribed already consider clicking that red button if you want to get engaged in the comment section below or via our public free to access Discord server that's Linked In the description as well and if you want to support us on patreon that's also down there along with links to most of the components that uh we've used for this build some of it's older so it might link to eBay instead of Amazon but you guys know the drill again thanks for watching I hope you guys enjoyed this one this was definitely out of the box for me but um I had a lot of fun doing it so more to come for sure my name is Greg thanks for building with mein our last video I hinted at the possibility of a sleeper PC what's a sleeper PC well something that has a bunch of newer components inside of an older case from the outside it wouldn't look like much until you take the side panel off and you reveal the glory that is within and I think we've got great candidates here for one we're going to build our first ever true sleeper PC on this channel and I'm sure it won't be all that straightforward stay with me shop AliExpress's biggest sale of the Year singles day starting from November 11th to November 17th find your favorite tech gear including everything you'll need to build your next gaming PC I found some Corsair Vengeance ddr4 at a sweet and low price and no it didn't take very long to arrive AliExpress often has name brands at competitive prices making them perfect for Budget builds without immediate deadlines and with her offer code all on AE you can save an additional $25 off orders of 100 or more during this sale Not only was I able to find this 16 gig dim at a great price on AliExpress but I also spotted this Western Digital SN 770 nvme a pcie Gen 4 drive with ultra fast reads and rides storage like this is compact easy to install and comes with great manufacturer warranties for peace of mind for years to come and thanks to AliExpress's great prices you may be able to purchase a larger capacity Drive than you otherwise would have buying locally in my opinion it never hurts to shop multiple places before placing an order on anything and in the case of PCS it can mean the difference between a 500 gig storage drive and a 1 tbyte one or 16 gigs of ddr4 versus 32 and if you shop during AliExpress's biggest sale of the year you could save even more in the process between November 11th and 17th again use code all on AE to save $25 on orders of 100 that's all on AE a o n AE to use at checkout and act fast these singles Day sales are only running for a limited time at the heart of every true sleeper PC we have a good case and what I mean by good is actually a bad case it has to be old not necessarily bad in the airflow sense it can be a good airflow case it just has to look old maybe even ugly you want it to mislead whoever looks at it from the outside right you don't suspect really good components to be inside of something like this because it doesn't have the gamer kind of flare to it it doesn't have that modern Sleek look and that's the entire point I could have gone with something much older than this perhaps even much uglier but I like how compact this one is so before you jump to the comments and say well Greg that's not actually a true sleeper case I argue there are even modern cases out there that you could build sleeper PCS in they just have to be misleading that's my only goal here is to make it look a lot worse on the outside than it actually is on the inside now this HP protes case is definitely not the cleanest we're going to take this thing apart even further than it already is and wash it outside with water like we do in our pcdc playlist I want to make sure all these cables and things are cleaned I want it to look as good as possible here on the inside but I don't want to spray paint anything I don't want it to look you know like really clean on the inside I still want to preserve the look of the case I just want to stuff it with a bunch of really high-end components and clean up cable management along the way one of the other reasons why I like this case apart from its size the fact that air flow isn't totally bad we get grills up and down the entire front panel here so uh it won't get too toasty in there but one of the constraints of a smaller case is Hardware support while air flow is expected to be actually decent we are going to have issues with graphics card fitment we'll have issues with CPU Cooler fitment and AIO is pretty much out the window in this build because we don't have anywhere to mount a 120 or a 240 mil combo and that's why we've chosen what we have here this is by no means the most powerful Hardware combination imaginable not even close but it is still fairly modern and it will still kick butt in games today which I'll show you later in the video starting first with our CP we've got a ryzen 57600 here I wanted to go with a lower TDP chip so that we can run a lower profile CPU Cooler with it but still reap the benefits of a newer architecture speaking of low profile we've got a pure rock LP here 100 W TDP looks super sleek this is going to bolt directly to our socket I think this is going to look really good and it's going to keep our CPU temps in check while not taking up too much space inside of our smaller case system memory is pretty straightforward 32 gigs of Corsair Vengeance ddr5 RGB even though we're not going to be able to see the RGB why not for our motherboard an azck B 650m it needs to be an matx board because again of the constraints of our case and to round out the platform have about a 1 TB Gen 4 in vme WD black this is the one you probably just saw in our pre-roll picking the right graphics card was challenging I immediately ruled out anything in the high-end 40 series lineup it's just there's no way any of those bulky coolers are going to fit in this prodesk I did want to throw in a 7900 XTX but that card was far too long for the prodesk and so I eventually settled on the 360 TI this card not only looks really good but it does have some silverish accents as well which I think is going to help kind of blend in that very shiny metallic finish inside the case it also is not extremely overpowered or anything it's not going to run extremely hot in our case and just requires a single eight pin we just have to use this silly little adapter here and rounding things out our power supply this is a perer power 12m a 1,000 watt unit which is definitely overkill for this but I wanted at least something to be Overkill here it's compact so it fits nicely in the prodesk it's also fully modular and 80 plus gold efficiency rated and I think that just about wraps up the parts list now it's time to assemble things inside this case but before we get ahead of ourselves I want to prep the case by again disassembling it as far as it will go we're going to remove this rear smaller fan here we're going to deep clean that we're going to take the front panel off and we're going to wash the entire case I'm going to remove excess stickers and things that uh that you could argue actually add to the sleeper profile of the chassis but uh I want them removed we do have some paint chips and things that we're not going to be able to fix without a respray but we're not going to go overboard here I just want it to look old but you know not disgusting I think we're going to go with a time lapse for this section I'll try to pick some music that doesn't totally offend everyone watching it's always tough you never please everyone but uh I think I think I know what you're looking for something a bit spicy but not overwhelming here we go e well then I've got to say this turned out a lot better than I expected from my first ever I think official sleeper build really didn't run into too many issues I think the parts that we chose fit nicely it was still a bit difficult to squeeze the graphic card in we definitely couldn't have gone much bigger than this and even Cable Management turned out quite nice thanks to this uh large bar here that's guess an integral part of the chassis the only RGB in this build is actually in the ddr5 and I don't mind that it actually glows and reflects nicely off of the uh bare metal interior of this chassis so when you have the right panel off it does kind of give you that like sense that this is something unique it's something special it's not just your plain vanilla run-of-the-mill OEM build that is assuming you knew nothing else about electronics and had no idea that any of this was actually Overkill now speaking more to that there are likely much more powerful configurations you could squeeze into this I was more or less working with some of the components I had on hand and I I unfortunately couldn't again pick a larger or more powerful graphics card it just I didn't have anything small enough that was more powerful than the 3060 TI and everything that was was just way too big to fit in here on top of that the CPU Cooler uh being as small as it is limited Us in terms of our CPU potential as well we could have gotten a more um beefy top flow sty cooler that would have fit in here no problem but I didn't have one on hand and I wanted to get this video out before the holiday start cranking because we have several other projects in the pipeline along with some fixer flops and potentially pcdcs also coming back so yeah really happy with this and if you're curious about performance in 3D Mark time spy this combination of Hardware consistently scores anywhere between 11 and 12,000 and you can see that our graphics and CPU scores are very similar to each other the CPU at least in this test is slightly less powerful scoring slightly lower uh than the graphics card but this suggests overall that they're a very healthy combination there's no serious bottleneck here and we're still scoring better than over 60% of all submitted results so it it's not a bad system by any means and I'm not trying to downplay how good this Hardware combination is I just want to make it clear that in my eyes at least it doesn't matter if it's the most powerful thing or not it's still a sleeper build so long as the exterior of the build suggests that it's something much weaker than it actually is I think in this case when you remove the right panel most folks are going to be pretty shocked they're not going to expect something like this inside of an old HP pre-built I do still need to rewire the front panel connector it is slightly different in this case than it is like the standard jfp1 header you'll find on most modern motherboards including this one so just a very simple soldering rewiring to get those pins lined up with the board and we should be a okay there for now though I just have to jump things to get it started um but I I've got to say I really appreciate the challenges here like they're not insurmountable by any means the front panel thing is that's a very quick fix uh Cable Management like I said I was actually able to kind of make use of this bar here so I was able to hide most of them wasn't too challenged ing but not being able to access space behind the motherboard tray does present its own challenges and so you kind of have to work around those constraints same with the cooler same with airflow depending on the older case you choose but I definitely definitely want to try this again probably sooner rather than later I really actually love the way that this looks I think it's so stealthy so misleading in such a good way um I've definitely got the itch now so if you guys want to see another sleeper build assembled on this channel recommend some older cases in the comment section I'm not sure if you can hyperlink in the comments but uh if you find maybe an old eBay case or something that you'd like to see us build in we'll certainly give it a look I'm probably aiming for a beige Tower next time that's that's true true sleeper right this is still sleeper but if you want to go to the extreme sleeper end of things you got to go with a beige full tower I think there's no way around it so that's the next step and if you find one that you want us to build in again comment it down below thank you so much for watching this one if you haven't subscribed already consider clicking that red button if you want to get engaged in the comment section below or via our public free to access Discord server that's Linked In the description as well and if you want to support us on patreon that's also down there along with links to most of the components that uh we've used for this build some of it's older so it might link to eBay instead of Amazon but you guys know the drill again thanks for watching I hope you guys enjoyed this one this was definitely out of the box for me but um I had a lot of fun doing it so more to come for sure my name is Greg thanks for building with me\n"