Building a PC is a major feat, and everyone’s experience will be different. With so many PC component options, it can be hard to decide which pieces are worth picking up or are compatible with one another. You also have to consider what your PC looks like, whether that's having a flashy GPU or a large tower with a clear panel so you can see inside.

I’ve built countless PCs in the past, for myself and others, and it's an unspoken rule among tech enthusiasts that everyone will come to you for PC advice and help building their own rig. My most recent venture was a new PC for myself, and I was deep in content creation at the time, so I decided I wanted to make the prettiest, camera-ready PC of all time. Where did that choice get me? Not very far.

The flashiest of PCs

The functionality of my new rig was not at the forefront of my mind

When building my PC, I was deep in the trenches of content creation and relying on tech influencers on TikTok for information. While I’m not calling these influencers unreliable by any means, their needs differ from those of a layperson. They typically have gorgeous machines with beautiful parts, which can set you back a pretty penny.

I decided, as a budding influencer, that I wanted the same thing but without the garish price tag, so I skimped out on some of the PC components you should never cheap out on: a mid-tower and fewer fans. I opted for a selection of parts that would look stunning when all fit together, with very little consideration for functionality. The performance of my rig would be great with an Nvidia RTX 4080 FE and 13th Gen Intel processor, and the style would be show-stopping with a cooler featuring a screen and RGB strimers.

The downside is that I didn’t really consider how all this would fit together, especially since my case wasn’t full-size. Everything arrived, I excitedly put all my parts together and did the butt-clenching process of posting my PC. The screen turned on, and I thought that was the end of the hard bit; little did I know it was just the beginning of my problems.

Onto gaming

With everything seemingly normal, I queued straight into a ranked game

Instead of doing the smart thing and monitoring my temperatures, I decided to just go straight into a ranked game and lock in. With my headset on and the volume turned up, I clearly wasn’t paying much attention to my PC’s screaming. Halfway through my match, suddenly my PC switched off.

While my rig looked flashy, gorgeous, and photogenic, it was barely clinging to life after 10 minutes of gaming. My computer was overheating thanks to the cramped case, and my singular fan was struggling to clear the hot air. It was heating up so much that the outer shell was hot to the touch, and the moment I powered it back on, it sounded like a rocket ship ready for takeoff.

A high-quality cooler and a fan just weren’t enough. While my lovely setup can easily handle simple tasks like browsing, gaming puts significantly more stress on it. When a PC gets too hot, it shuts off to protect its components from permanent damage, and this was repeatedly occurring in my system. Your case should be set up for optimal airflow, keeping its temperature relatively stable regardless of the load.

An all-in-one cooler can do its fair share by taking heat away from your CPU, but it doesn’t help the rest of your components. So, if you plan to game, more fans and a bigger case are the best way to go.

At first, I wanted to troubleshoot; I tried leaving the side panel open for more airflow, but I had too much crammed into my mid case for this tactic to help at all. I checked that my fan was mounted correctly and that my all-in-one cooler was running correctly according to our PC airflow guide, but the issue persisted.

The obvious solution here is to move my PC into a larger case and add more fans to ensure optimized airflow. My components needed some room to breathe, and extra fans could ensure the heat was properly expelled.

The reluctant resolution

My dream of an aesthetic PC wasn’t dead just yet

I opted for a larger tower, which was still gorgeous in its own right. I didn’t pick up more fans as I really didn’t want to ruin the build's aesthetic. As I moved everything over and ensured my PC still switched on, I felt a bit of relief. I monitored the temperature again and booted up a game, but instead of jumping straight into a ranked match, I did the smart thing and just ran around in the practice range.

While my temperatures were quite high, they weren’t PC shutting off levels anymore, which was a relief. My next step was getting rid of some unnecessary elements taking up too much room, in my case, so I said goodbye to my strimers. After getting rid of them, my PC was finally able to expel the hot air effectively and stay relatively cool.

I carried on gaming on my PC, and it was fine, if you could say that. It continued to run hot and would shut off if I tried to game in 4K, which wasn’t too much of an issue for me, as I stick to 1080p, anyway. Realistically, this issue could be resolved by installing more fans to ensure that all the hot air is being expelled fast enough, but I still am not ready to give up the appearance of my PC.

Moving forward

My aesthetic PC lives on, but at a cost

I’m clearly putting my system through its paces, and it continues to struggle, scream, and whine while I’m playing more intensive games or rendering videos, but it’s fine because it looks great, right? One of the benefits is that it acts as a nice heater in the winter, which is perfect.

If there’s one thing to take away here, it’s that functionality should always come first, or you risk completely damaging your PC and the components you probably spent a lot of cash on.