Briefcase Turned into Liquid-Cooled Gaming PC with Built-in 23-inch Screen

While gaming laptops are naturally the best choice when it comes to gaming on the go, they do come with a set of drawbacks, including the smaller displays that some people might not really enjoy.

Redditor thegarbz is one of them, so instead of spending their money on a gaming laptop, they created a gaming rig that’s essentially a briefcase fitted with all the internals to play games far from home. Including a 23-inch display, that is.

The project started with a standard Pelican 1525 case that can fit a 23-inch monitor just perfectly, as the redditor themselves explain.

So what they used is a Dell P2319H that meets all requirements to be installed in a case.

“The Pelican 1525 case fits a 23" monitor perfectly. I say "a" monitor as from the 45 I researched I found 4 with low profile bezels and buttons that are not on the base which would have fitted into the case. Out of those 4, the Dell P2319H was the only monitor with a beveled bottom edge and buttons accessible from the front,” the reddit user explains.

Tech specs

When it comes to the hardware used inside this custom-built PC, the spec list includes an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 processor paired with a Nvidia RTX 2070 Super FE, 16GB RAM, and Gigabyte B450-i Aorus Pro Wifi motherboard. In terms of storage, there’s a WD 256GB NVMe SSD, which the creator admits is not enough but isn’t necessarily a problem since “I am one of those single game completionist types.”

The watercooling system plays a key role in this 12.1 kg portable computer. Thanks to a custom watercooler fan controller with temperature display and PC link, Alphacool hardware and EKWB Classic Supremacy CPU and RTX 2080 GPU blocks, the device reaches 38 degrees Celsius with fans running at 40%. In full stress mode, temperature goes up to 72 degrees Celsius for the CPU, with fans running at 70%.

“The case top increases water temperature by 2C but reduces VRM temperature by 4C as it forces more air to flow through the case. The only forced air in the case comes from Noctua fans,” the redditor notes.

There’s obviously no battery, and a special keyboard is required, with the redditor explaining that they plan to create a 3D printed mount inside “for storage purpose.”

These are the full hardware specs of the gaming rig: