Overclockers UK Infin8 Nebula Gaming PC Review

Interior and Cooling System

At this price the interior needs to be something special; the Phanteks case is edgy enough to carry the exterior but given the large side window and lofty price tag, we're glad to see Overclockers UK has clearly spent some time considering the aesthetics. The vast majority of this revolves around the extensive water-cooling system.


This comprises a duo of radiators, with a monstrous XSPC RX360 in the roof with a single row of Noiseblocker fans, with a skinnier EX240 in the rear - both easily enough to cope with an overclocked CPU and a couple of high-end GPUs. There are masses of EK silver CSQ fittings, while the graphics cards are cooled by a pair of EK FC980 GTX full cover waterblocks plus their respective backplates connected using an EK-FC Terminal Dual Parallel interconnection.


The cooling system is powered by an XSPC-branded Laing D5 pump along with an EK X-top, while Overclockers UK has opted for a Bitspower Z-Multi reservoir. The system is filled with Mayhems X1 Clear coolant - quite tame compared to the company's pastel or dye coolants that we're used to seeing in both retail water-cooled systems and the feats of eye-candy in our forums, but the clear coolant really benefits from the addition that also makes everything come together, which is a pair of RGB LED strips. They do a great job illuminating the interior and the cooling system. The lower strip appeared to have come away at the base, but it's actually held in position using two cable ties. While we have only provided photos of purple illumination, the LED strips can be toggled between 10 colours in total using a small button on the front I/O panel. The colour will match that of the case's external LED strips too, since they're all connected to the same controller.


There's some additional subtle illumination from the Asus Maximus VII Gene motherboard, which we'd probably pick ourselves if given the choice for a micro-ATX build, and this does explain why there's no discrete sound card too - the on-board audio provided by the Gene isn't quite up to par with the latest Creative X-Fi's but it's much better than you're average on-board audio.


Powering the whole affair is a hefty SuperFlower Leadex Gold 850W PSU, and given the mass of cables involved, a fairly good job has been done of tidying them too. The rear of the case could certainly be a bit neater, though, and we'd say it was adequate - we've seen better and at this price you'd be within your rights to expect a little more in terms of ninja cable tidying. That said, the main interior is super clean and as that's what you and envious onlookers are going to be focussing on we're not too hung up about this.


Illuminated and in a dimly-lit room, the Nebula looks fantastic. In fact it looks so good, we had the side panel off just gazing at it for most of the testing. With our modding roots, we're well aware of the latest aesthetic trends and the obvious omission is acrylic tubing, which is pretty much a standard for a properly pimped-out water-cooled PC these days. However, Overclockers UK gets around this by mounting everything close together in view so despite the fact that standard flexible tubing is used, there's only very short and limited lengths of tubing on view.