
Who doesn’t love Transformers? Matt and I grew up at a time where the franchise was starting to get big, the cartoon was on the TV and the toys were in the shops! It’s only gone from strength to strength since with some fantastic live action adaptations. We were a little taken aback when we received an invitation to create a mod PC build to celebrate the launch of Transformers One. It’s an animated origin story for the Transformers: don’t worry I won’t be mentioning any movie spoilers! It sounded like fun, we’re quite excited to see it go back to its roots. The resulting PC will be given away to one lucky participant! This year the movie is Transformers One,
Planning

The scope of the project was simply Transformers themed, to tie in with the movie. The solution seemed obvious, whatever we made had to reflect Optimus Prime - though we did briefly consider a Bumblebee concept. The next step was to watch some footage of the film and find a way to translate it into a PC build - not an easy task, we’re not robotics specialists! Inspiration struck when watching a trailer, there is a bright blue circular light emanating from Optimus’ chest. To use this we needed a circular case, so we took to the internet! We found the MCORB by Mars Gaming. They’re not a brand we’re overly familiar with, but it had to be worth a look, so we ordered one in.
It arrived the next day, it looked the part, but we were going to need to paint some of it, but it's riveted together…….. It made for solid construction, but might cause us a headache! More on that later. It came in red with a black ring around the edge and a black back panel, the colour was perfect! We needed some silver in there and decided to remove the base and paint it. Around the edge there is space for 9 x 120mm fans, if we set the RGB correctly, then blue light would flood the chassis, combine that with an AIO pump set to the same colour and we’re halfway there! As standard the MCORB only supports a 120mm radiator, we’re going to need to go bigger, so we’ll have to get hold of a bracket and mount to the rear of the case.The fans are each mounted in an unusual blade style housing, we wanted to paint us a few of these with autobot logos and perhaps have the movie logo on there too. To finish it off it needed to look ‘battle worn’.
Parts List

RAM and M.2 provided by Kingston Technology, all other parts provided by ASUS.
Preparing an Autobot

Getting this thing to the state we wanted it in was not simple, nor straightforward! We needed to remove the base section first, which meant taking a drill to a brand new, mint condition case…… It wasn't a pleasant feeling! We had to drill out 16 rivets to get the base and IO panel off. It was slow and careful going, we did not want to damage anything, and managed to get it done without injury.
Next was more severe, cutting out a hole big enough to slot a radiator, it went well luckily, though the cutting disk sent sparks everywhere - always wear eye protection kids!
On to measuring and drilling in anticipation of the radiator mount, we had chosen the back to keep it out of the way. There was only one space on the case we could do this, we’d have liked to have mounted it higher to help with circulation, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Finally we had to remove 4 x fan housings to have logos applied, again we had to drill out rivets to get them off - it’s much less scary the second time around!
Transforming the Exterior

Once more, we opted to turn the studio into a makeshift paint booth, lining the wall with dust sheets and getting to work. To get the graphics right on the fins we cut vinyls, Matt seems to have a vinyl cutter on hand - that’s not a normal thing to have laying around, right?….. He always seems to have exactly the right thing for any job, who knows where he keeps it all!
The metallic paints used left glitter hanging in the air, we both left the studio shimmering. It was funny getting home late at night and explaining to my wife why I’m covered in glitter.
After a short trip home for a sleep it was back to the studio to reassemble the case. Matt turned up with a box of perfectly sized, black hex key bolts to replace the rivets. They looked like they were purpose made for this - seriously, how does he have these things lying around? Reassembly went well, though some of the bolts were a little fiddly to get in - the case wasn’t really designed to have the rivets replaced.
To end the mods we just needed to add the battle worn effect. We got out a file, Dremel, sandpaper and anything else abrasive we could find and got to work.
Upgrade Time

Mods complete, it’s time to bring the build to life. It was not an easy build by any stretch!
The motherboard assembly was like any other, but then we had to post the radiator through the hole we’d just widened and get it attached to the rear. This was no mean feat, it was a tight space with little room for manoeuvre. After that we could attach the Noctua fans. We went with Noctua here as the fans are pulling air through the rad, rather than pushing, and the space to draw air at the back was a little tight. Noctua have always performed incredibly, so they were an obvious choice.
Attaching the case fans with the mobo already in was troublesome, they’re at awkward angles and we’d restricted space. If you were going to use the MCORB, perhaps try fitting the fans first!
The ROG Thor 850w PSU we’ve chosen is big and bulky, but as power supplies go it’s a gorgeous unit! The screen on the side lent itself well to the Transformers theme. Getting it attached was, as you’d expect by now, difficult, as space is limited. The more pressing issue was how to manage the cables. There is no channelling for cables or anchor points to help. Luckily we had foreseen this and had cut our own channel in the back which helped a little, but we had all the PSU cables to deal with plus a total 12 fans, 2 fan control boxes, a USB splitter and the connections from the AIO! Luckily I love cable management and found a way to keep it tidy - it took a few hours to get it all perfect!
Roundup

We love doing mod builds, and this project was a real challenge. The planning was relatively straightforward, we found the idea and stuck to our guns. The build, including filming, modifying the case, prepping the studio for paint and the finishing work on the case took an incredible amount of time and effort. It’s the first project where Matt and I have worked opposing shifts to get it over the line.
Building the PC once we had all of the mods completed was not smooth sailing either with a lot more hurdles to overcome, but, overcome them we did. The result is something to be proud of! The completed build gives off Transformers vibes and we hope that it takes centre stage in its winners set up!
Check out the full build video below.
Blog post written by Sam Thwaytes
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US Links
Case: https://amzn.to/483qQ25
RAM: Not Available
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MOBO: https://amzn.to/483r3SV
Cooler: https://amzn.to/3XDWrm0
Storage: https://amzn.to/3Y3O0Sm
Fans (Lian Li): https://amzn.to/3N2NU7n
Fans (Noctua): https://amzn.to/3XMW7kN
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Mouse: https://amzn.to/3TPMxg2
Monitor: https://amzn.to/4e7IIu7
UK Links
Case: https://amzn.to/4f1ZjQT
RAM: Not Available
RAM (alternative): https://amzn.to/4gJPXuq
MOBO: https://amzn.to/4eJy5yg
Cooler: https://amzn.to/3TQNkx7
Storage: https://amzn.to/3N5hVmR
Fans (Lian Li): https://amzn.to/3N7zoLE
Fans (Noctua): https://amzn.to/3zEiTDu
Keyboard (alternative): https://amzn.to/47JXF3R
Mouse: https://amzn.to/4eM4155
Monitor: https://amzn.to/4778eh2
There is something I don't understand and it doesn't fit me well, how did you manage to connect the power cable from the outside? Because well the back wall is full of wires that of course I still don't understand where they came from, and there is still another piece of information that I don't understand.