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This unique gaming PC was once a home theatre system

A gaming PC modder was hoping to create a custom horizontal rig and ended up using an old HTPC from the 2000s to build this rather unique system

A former home theatre system now turned into a gaming PC

A gaming PC doesn’t have to come in the standard tower shape, as this modder proves by managing to utilise a hollowed out HTPC for their custom setup. What used to be a home cinema system from the bygone era of the early 2000s is now something that’s more worthy of playing games.

Posting a video to YouTube, Val N’Taïn, who describes themselves as an indie game developer, initially wanted to make the best gaming PC in a horizontal chassis, instead of a typical vertical build. They tried and failed to make their own, but then they happened upon the empty shell of a Zalman HD135 home theatre PC, and they knew they’d hit upon something special.

For the next 14 minutes or so, Val N’Taïn takes us through the build process. Their first challenge came in making room for the Hydro PTM PRO power supply and GPU cables, by creating custom cutouts in the chassis of the Zalman HD135. Another section has them inserting an ASUS Blu-ray drive into an open slot, and a fan control Lamptron FC5 V3 fan controller into where an infrared sensor was.

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There’s no major details about the specs of this custom gaming PC, but you can see there’s at least an AMD Radeon graphics card. A final pan across the finished product also shows a Ryzen 7 sticker, which suggests this is the CPU that’s powering the whole thing. Another sticker on the front gives the impression it’s been built with an ASUS ROG motherboard, but we can’t say for certain.

There’s also been a number of Noctua fans put in, two of which can be seen sticking out the top of the case attached to the CPU cooler. And, of course, what gaming system would be complete without some state-of-the-art RGB lights? It’s pretty neat to see a piece of tech from the turn of the millennium get turned into a spiffing rig.

Learning how to build a gaming PC can be an irksome process, especially for newcomers. But to do so in an old HTPC that wasn’t made for gaming in the first place is something else. To some older readers, the video may even rekindle those heady days when vertical home computers were the norm. Such designs are largely a relic of the past, but perhaps there’s room for a return should manufacturers be keen.

Image credit: Val N’Taïn / YouTube