If you’ve ever spent a fun night blasting your way around Nuke in Counter-Strike 2, then you may well recognize this atomic CS2 PC build. Based on the big nuclear bombs you have to defuse in the aforementioned level, this system is aptly called Atomic Nuke, and it has a glorious lift mechanism that sees the PC’s insides rising out of the top, like a surprise person jumping out of a big explosive cake, or something.
Built by Taiwanese modder extraordinaire AK, who also created the fantastic space station PC build we featured in February, this machine was painstakingly created with 3D-printed components, which AK spray-painted to perfection. Inside this PC build, which AK created in collaboration with Asus ROG and Nvidia GeForce, you’ll find some of the greatest PC gaming hardware you can buy right now, including a mighty GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card.
It’s well worth watching AK’s video of the machine in the video above, which not only shows him gradually assembling the build, but also shows the lift mechanism in action.
The whole machine is also enormous, and you really get a sense of the scale of it when you see AK putting it all together. AK tells us that the main materials used in the build are metal and 3D-printed parts, with the internal metal structure being CNC milled for precision.
Meanwhile, the massive outer shell is made from 3D-printed parts, which were spray painted by AK, and finished with hand tools, including a Dremel and a scalpel.
This was no light undertaking either – the video that details the build process above might be only eight minutes long, but AK tells us that it took him 60 days to construct this build, from start to finish.
The hardest part, according to AK, was getting the lift mechanism working, which required a lot of trial and error. We also love the control pad, which looks just like the remote in the game.
It incorporates calculator parts, old-school gray ribbon cables, an LCD, a 9V box battery, and a big red vandal switch. Throw the switch, and the control panel wirelessly switches on the PC, rising out the top of the bomb with a big red glow.
To top it all off, there’s even a full water cooling loop made with Bitspower parts inside the rig, keeping the Core i7 14700K CPU in check. Meanwhile, the graphics card is air-cooled, courtesy of Asus’ distinctive red and blue ROG Strix cooler.
Atomic Nuke specs
| CPU | Intel Core i7 14700K |
| Motherboard | Asus ROG Strix Z790-F Gaming WiFi II |
| Graphics card | Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 OC |
| RAM | Viper Xtreme 5 RGB DDR5 |
| Storage | Viper VP4300 Lite M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD |
| PSU | 1,000W Asus ROG Strix Aura |
| Cooling | Custom water cooling loop made from Bitspower components |
AK tells us that he’s “very satisfied with the final result,” and we can’t say we blame him. This is an outstanding piece of modding work, and we salute AK’s craftsmanship skills. AK, you’re (ahem) the bomb.
If you consider yourself to be an expert PC builder, you can submit your own custom PC build to us today for a chance of being featured on PCGamesN in the future, and you can also join our 500k-member Facebook group to discuss this build.