Mods are a wonderful thing, giving us computers crammed into all sorts of shapes and sizes. Few have looked quite as clean as this military-inspired gaming PC that takes the term ‘glass cannon’ a little too seriously.
Custom builders at Mai PC created a computer shaped like a modern tank. The mod swaps armoured plating out for a frame made of glass and either carbon fibre or another material with a carbon fibre decal on it.
The front features three USB ports plus two audio jacks, alongside power and reset buttons. There’s also a small display that seems to indicate temperature. Since I can’t see it in the shared pictures, I assume the motherboard I/O is accessible from the rear.
Unfortunately, I don’t have clearance to know the specs, as they’re kept top secret and confidential. I have donned my spy cap, though, so we can do some sleuthing. At a glance, I spot a Thermaltake PSU and Asus ROG Strix LC II AIO cooler.
The motherboard is a curious one. Although the only photo I have is obscured, I reckon it’s MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon X99. The words ‘Gaming Pro’ lit up in RGB, combined with quad DIMM slots on either side of the CPU, show it’s definitely a workstation model. If correct, this means the newest processor under the hood would be an Intel Broadwell-E from 2016.
Strangely, all ten visible fans are intakes. The six at the bottom draw air in through vents where the tank’s tracks would be. Although the four at the top are blocked by glass for some reason, this is still extremely positive airflow without a single exhaust in sight. It must all flow out of the turret.
Seeing the US flag on the Redditor’s post, I assume they took inspiration from the M1 Abrams. Bad choice, since it doesn’t have a water boiler to make tea like the Challenger 2. But jokes aside, the result is very neat, and the attention to detail is excellent. No matter the material, that carbon finish is exceptionally well done, though not the best choice for an armoured vehicle from a survivability standpoint.
From what I can tell, this build was first crafted around August 2023 but gained popularity this month with Reddit user tylerbam99 posting it in the PC Mods subreddit. It’s one of the more unusual from Mai PC, but has me excited to see what’s next.
Now, when the time comes to play games on this beast, there’s only one way to control them: using the Tank Simulator 2 made by 马鹿Blyat.
