f13.net

Completely over the top, too extravagant, but so frakin' awesome (http://www.game-rigs.com/products/pc_cases.asp).

(http://www.game-rigs.com/images/gallery/pccases/full_l_l4d.jpg)

(http://www.game-rigs.com/images/gallery/pccases/full_o_lol.jpg)

(http://www.game-rigs.com/images/gallery/pccases/full_o_skulls.jpg)

Best one I've ever seen was built into a baby-sized coffin. No pics unfortunately, it was year and years ago.

Snake, next time your brain says "Man, this is so awesome, I gotta make a thread about it" and it's a picture of anything, put it in the awesome pictures thread, or like Useless Conversation. Because 1. You're probably wrong and, 2., well, there is no 2. You're just wrong. Moving this to useless news as it's just paint/a skin on a boring generic goddamn computer case.

wah wah wah.  Change your tampon.

Is this a joke thread?

I can, but it's not going to help you develop good taste.

So they're just a typical boxy looking case with airbrushing?

You need to internet more.

Ya... sorry man, but definitely not awesome.

Commodore (http://www.commodoregaming.com/pcshop/Country.aspx) (yes, that Commodore) do some nice ones if you really want that sort of thing. They did the WAR cases that GOA gave away last year at Leipzig. They also aren't decals, the design is silkscreened onto the panels and then baked in.

I so want to rag on schild for being a dick....but he's right this time.

For reference, this is an awesome pc case:

(http://larsenidealog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/steampunkcasemod222.jpg)

No, poorly done.

These are awesome cases:

Those are some shitty cases (http://www.game-rigs.com/products/desktops_etqwq4.asp).

(https://photos-1.getdropbox.com/i/o/0EixsaBNUYN0ClnKhCdVldRX7oa9pWlZGeAJfCvYnjc)
Look a the freaking jagged edges on a user accessible flap.

All the PCI slots are screw based, no thumbscrews, basic cooling (1x120mm fan rear looks like 1x120mm in front), no removable motherboard tray, very basic cable management, and full length video cards might be a questionable fit. Honestly its a bare bones $40 case with some decals.

They learned from the modelling industry that you can airbrush anything and make it look good. 

These two sites have the best cases. There is no debate.

http://slipperyskip.com/page23.html
http://www.datamancer.net/

For computers that still look like computers, I've liked the work these guys do:

http://www.kickbuttcomputers.com/gallery/select.asp

Exactly why I should have taken shop class or metal working class in high school instead of that dumb ass Psychology class.

An awesome PC case is small enough to fit on the desk, but large enough to contain any and all components and housing enough fans to bring the case to approximately absolute zero. Everything else is just window dressing wankery.

Oh god.  :ye_gods:

I would never, ever, have something like that in my house. Thats horrible. Those are like the computer version of "Spinners".

NO


I disagree. There's a difference between a well  designed case made of high quality parts and a box that holds computer parts.

Well Designed: http://zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=349
See Grimwell's horrifying link for the alternative "box."

Liquid helium gets expensive, too.

I though that this one would appeal to schild since it looks like his T-shirts.

That case both inspires and scares the shit out of me. I could lose myself in building a PC based around that case. I already just about lost it with looking at the water cooling option. I've never set that up before, so don't know what any of those parts do. But I want them. Oh yes...

Ok, closing that tab. I can't afford that right now.

I just wish that Zalman case came in a mini-tower version. I don't need anything quite that large, but is is gorgeous.

I love that Zalman case but even coming back down to a normal pricerange there are other cases that simply kick ass layout and features compared to iit (the art decal ones). I think the nicest case I had was lian-li one but it was noisy as hell with no vibration dampening but my god it was beautiful.

I'd love a "box" that was a box something like this http://www.yeongyang.com/yy-0221.htm
Considering that case is ~7years old, change out a lot of the mountings and shrink it 25-50% so its 3.5-4" on both sides what an amazing NAS cube it would be.

Nevermind, I'm in love http://www.lian-li.com/v2/tw/flashpage/v351/

Aesthetically I liked Sky's contribution best; although the Sentry Turret and Companion Cube boxes are sweet.

Lian Li cases are like tin cans compared to Zalman.

The only comparable case to any Zalman stuff I've seen is this giant f'ing Coolermaster that's way too big to be taken seriously, but it's really nice.

That Zalman case I linked has more harddrive space than the Lian Li does for the whole PC by the way. As someone with 6 internal hard drives I'd like to use (2 of which I can't even use now since my case holds 4 and not 8), I can't see the appeal of that Lian Li. I do like the exterior looks though.

So, basically, you want this: http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=188 with less lights.

The nice thing about that giant Zalman, also cheap as hell. Like $159 at Frys. I don't need anything that big either, but I'm going to upgrade to it in November when I can get the new ATI 5870.

Wow, or you guys could just buy a Mac.

What? $159? Guess I know what I'm buying myself for my birthday ...

Edit: Does anyone sell the Plus version of that?

This is the best Zalman case (http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=233) it isn't pretty but it is awesome. And it can be yours for about a grand and a half.

I dunno, I like the one pictured here (http://www.datamancer.net/projects/engine/engine.htm). 

Mac cases are the closest thing, yes, but you'd have to rip out $2,000 in electronics. Suppose I could troll craigslist or Ebay for a broken mac.


I am not seeing a big difference. What am I missing?

Buy what? This is the case geek version of the T&A thread. With about the same probability of real touching :wink:

Said another way, who the hell buys this crap except the people who make them?

 :drill: holy shit

Tell me what you want to touch in the T&A thread and I will get you a price.

More cooling (for the HDDs mostly) and the Plus version has the hidden wiring run. And think it's not that much more expensive.

"Semi-permanent use"? Wat?

I like the outside AND inside of the new TNN cases more: http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=186

Those are proper awesome.

As in "leave it on and running for years" I think.

I'll hit you up with a PM after I put together my shopping list.

Pfft.

This is the most awesome case ever:

(http://cache.kotaku.com/gaming/images/case2.jpg)



And if someone already posted it, whatever. It's that awesome (the monitor is overdoing it though).

I just got the 1000GS. You can run the wires on the opposite side of the plate, I didn't because I didn't notice while plugging everything in but I will when I get a new graphics card. It's a pretty fantastic goddamn case (short of the fact I burnt out my power supply, but I replaced it with a Zalman :awesome_for_real:

Plenty available (http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=powermac+case&_armrs=1&_from=R8&_ipg=), they go for under $100.

And I've just learned that the mobo screwholes don't line up with the spots on a mac case. Nice.

Yeah, that should be simple hack though. I think that he fact that the peripheral ports don't match a standard AT mobo would require some creative mods.

Something like this would work:

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3387

There's also apparently issues with getting an ATX power supply to fit in there properly.

Wat?

sidebar: My gf actually has three of those 12gal Eclipses.

It's mineral oil.

http://www.hardcorecomputer.com/ProductCategoryDetail_catDesktop_productReactor1.aspx

I think that one looks better than the aquarium one.

Indeed.

Electric companies use a refined version as a coolant and an interface medium for heat sinks in high voltage transformers and switches.

It's also 3k for a distinctly ordinary PC or 9 grand for the XXTR33m version.

Soo.. if I spend 12 grand on this liquid-immersion cooled super PC, it still only lasts about 3 years before it's totally obsolete, right?

The thread is about looks, yo!

Their base machine is $3000.

Also, a real pro would make their own with a heat pipe and condenser/heat sink system suspended from the top of the enclosure.  Which, despite marketing by computer cooling specialists, is not actually all that complex.

I realize that. I went through their customize tool adding shit and wound-up with a computer that costs 12 grand.  (Granted the (3) 24" monitors didn't help)  So, yeah.. why?

I like how only their 10K model gets 4GB of RAM.

Dude, that's worked for Apple forever. Want another $30 worth of memory? Then buy the EPIC version for only $1000 more! You can literally charge more just to free people of having to tick an option when you're aiming at the sort of market that "Hardcore Computer" is.

http://www011.upp.so-net.ne.jp/kat2/pc/ern005/ekana.htm  :grin:
Semi-NWS...sort of. Maybe.

That is both awesome for the artistry, and creepy for the whole...well...thing actually.  :ye_gods:

Why was I able to price a $9000 Dell XPS system?

Or: this argument would have merit if there was any fucking sanity at all in bleeding edge computing.

You were? For a Dell?  :ye_gods:   :uhrr:

I really need to just start selling shit to stupid people.

If you choose all the options including software, you can price a $16,000 Dell XPS.

To paraphrase Robin Williams*

A $16,000 Dell XPS is proof that you have too much money.

* He was talking about cocaine at the time, and I believe I heard this recently cited on NPR.

Yeah...  If you know what a SSD is, and what RAID-0 is, you're probably stabby at the moment.

You mean apart from the 800 MB/s read/write speeds you get with quad-striped SSDs? SSDs in RAID isn't pointless, it may be a waste on home computers (who am I kidding, it's awesome), but it's certainly not pointless.

Edit:
A few words fell out.

I like how for 9 grand they can't even be assed to go for Intel ssds.

lol. legit funny.

For the low price of $1400 for a whopping 320 Gb of storage. :why_so_serious:

Comparatively, you could take that $1400, get a terabyte of storage at 100 Mb/s and a pallet of beer to soothe you during those long grueling load times.

:facepalm:

Even you have to admit that buying several SSD's to run in RAID-0 is kind of fuckstupid at the moment considering that the practical limit on SSD bandwidth is due to the drive itself and will in all likelihood jump to the SATA/600 spec in the next generation or two anyways.

From a practical standpoint platters are still superior if you like drinking beer and will accept the extra two seconds of load time. :heart:

I am not understanding your arguement against Raid 0 with SSDs. Its still two feeds to the raid card/motherboard controller, regardless of the limit on the bandwidth on the drives themselves...

 I dunno, this is still pretty cool. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs)

What Engels said. 800 MB/s on quad-striped is practically very viable. Or 2 GB/s... (I remember seeing that one, but I had forgotten about it. OH YUM.)

The problem was that your original argument that RAID0 improves access time to the physical media was wrong. RAID0, regardless of the underlying physical media, has never been there to improve initial access time. Typically it degrades the access time very slightly compared to a single drive, but more than compensates for it by hugely improving read and write speeds.

If you want to improve initial access time, you might be able to set up a RAID1 to do that, but then you're typically only getting single drive read and write speeds which largely defeats the purpose (given the purpose is overall speed), unless you're serving very small files that are faster to read than they are to access. Even then you haven't actually improved the initial access time, just the time between physical seeks. It still takes t time to access a file, but you can get up to (n - 1) accesses "for free" as they're done asynchronously.

I was actually confusing my RAID stripings, so yeah.

SSD's are up to ~3 GB/s in RAID-0, by the way.  Toms Hardware has an interesting write-up.  As I said though, the drives themselves are the limiting factor on the bandwidth, barely approaching the upper bound on what the original SATA spec calls for (300 MB/s).  All the infrastructure is in place for 600 MB/s drives with the SATA2 spec, and there is supposed to be a SATA3 spec coming some time.

Or: early adopters of new technology always get fucked.

Lately, I've been going for "simple and quiet".  Decals, kaleidoscope LED's, cooling systems that cost more than an entire PC should, it's all just gotten tacky.  Made my youngest boy a system around a glossy black case with a ginourmous 10 inch blue LED fan, the second oldest girl got a cobalt blue case with a pattern screen cutout taking up half the side panel and purple LED's inside, built both systems, soup to nuts, for $500 total and they're both more computer than either will really need for the next few years.

Most of these cases are the equivalent of car-show hot-rods, so prettied up you need to keep them inside another Lucite box, so nobody scratches them.  Or insane performance enhancements that get 3% more horsepower for 300% more cost.

--Dave

Yeah, I just built a new setup and the case had that blue light with the fans.  I don't get it.  Then again, I'm quite old  :oh_i_see: