Mod of the Month - May 2009

Project CheckMate

by E.E.L. Ambiense
Worklog: Here

E.E.L. Ambiense is no stranger to MOTM and has been nominated twice before with his 'Building Better Worlds' in February 2008 and 'Lumière Noire' in April 2008. Both mods did extremely well but maybe it's third time lucky in bagging that number one slot with Project Checkmate?

The case of choice here is a slightly unfamiliar Lian Li A05 although Lian Li cases themselves are proving to be quite popular this month. The initial idea juices started flowing at the tail end of last year but despite a long lull until recently (or AFK as E.E.L. Ambiense calls it! [surely that should be AFD, Dway From Dremel? - Ed.]) the project has picked up speed, certainly enough for us to notice it. Oh and in case you're not entirely sure what the project's name refers to, Google 'Chess'.


Above we can see the design concept render of the Lian Li A05 in what is planned to be its final form with some rather funky looking grills with hexagon shaped holes. Not happy with the tarnished glossy black finish on his Swiftech MCR 320 radiator, E.E.L. Ambiense decided to opt for the only other colour featuring in the mod - white! We quite like the contrast between the casing and the black fins though.


It looks like that Swiftech radiator is heading for the top panel. Above we can see a very neat blueprint for three 120mm fan holes in the roof of the Lian Li A05 along with the screw holes using a 15mm spacing to line up with the fans when they're mounted to the radiator. Moving swiftly along and the fan holes have been cut by the looks of things without any problems. Good job, although mind you're fingers on those edges!


Next up is the grill filled with lots of lovely little hexagons. We're guessing he didn't do that with a Dremel... It's a unique design that we've only really seen on fan mounts in cases due to the fact a hexagon based grill is the most efficient design allowing for maximum strength and throughput of air. With the white lights of the Akasa 120mm fans shining through it looks the part too.


Deciding whether or not to have a reservoir or T-line is quite a popular conundrum. Personally I prefer to have a reservoir but E.E.L. Ambiense decided on a T-line with the concept for the installation shown above (we're assuming it won't connect straight to the GPU block else things might run a bit dry!).

The fillport has been mounted in the rear panel which should provide fairly easy access for filling and top ups. A very neat job too. We've also been spoiled with a video again, check it out here.

If you'd like to pledge your support to E.E.L. Ambiense's latest creation, head over to our forums.