Our readers here have some very spectacular looking rigs. Some of these are nearly hand made and have a certain industrial sexiness about them that we can't help but share with the rest of the world. This one in particular, from Neil, is a masterpiece of sorts.
Meet The Tank, a gorgeously crafted PC, a labor of love.
There were some very fantastic entries from last months Gorgeous Rig contest. One in particular stood out as what might be considered a work or art, and not in a typical fashion either. No it isn't made as a sculpture or in the guise of some mythical creature. No, instead The Tank embodies old-school industrial design. And for some reason, it's the raw, bare, cold and heavy metal look that's quite appealing. That's why we're featuring it this month, because this case is likely much better than yours.
Quite frankly it doesn't have to be a sophisticated plat du jour to be a beautiful creation.
What’s your name (doesn’t have to be real), and what do you do?
Hellooo my name is Neil and I am a handyman/brick and stone mason for a living, not my preffered occupation but I am also a Computer Engineering dropout so I don't have a choice lol
What brought you here to Wccftech?
I found Wccftech while looking for updates on the AMD 300 series and Fury X updates.
What do you mainly use this PC for?
I use my PC for general use but mainly gaming and it's also my control center for world domination.
How much have you invested in your PC?
I have invested roughly $650 in my this computer. The build is a combination of new and used parts, I used ebay to ninja bid at the last second on items like my CPU and GPU, $200 for both!
How often do you upgrade?
I upgrade probably once every 3 to 4 years depending on my financial situation and out come of the need vs want battle in my head.
What are your future plans with this PC?
I was planning on buying a second xfx 280x for crossfire however I plan on waiting till 2016 now and getting an Arctic island GPUs, specifically an R9 480X (if they release one) with HBM/HBM2.
My motherboard is an older X58 board and does not have SATA 3.0 6GB, to get around this I plan on purchasing a Kingston HyperX predator 240GB PCI-E 2.0 X4 SSD, it's read speed is well over twice as fast as a standard Sata 3.0 SSD and should really help breath some life into the system as a whole. I also plan on adding one or two more 120mm fan holes/grills in the top and or bottom of the case as I find two 80mm fans to be completely Inadequate. I also plan on using my metal working skills to create aesthetic RAM covers/sleeves that slide down snugly ontop of your ram sticks for the purpose of looking sexy. My first design is unpainted brushed steel with a long white LED strip on the front (matching my computer ofcourse), I would use the first prototypes in my computer and maybe try selling them one day and see if they go anywhere.
Rig stats:
Xeon X5670 6 core, OC'd to 4.4ghz, which gets me a score of about 12000 on passmark and just over 1000 on cinebench. The 5000 series Xeons are the equivilent of the first gen i7's. Most tech personalities say that Xeons and consumer grade CPU's are equal in gaming however with superior overclocking on the Xeon due to better binning and far lower TDP, I can overclock it and run it at a much higher frequency than a typical i7. I think the Xeon is definitely superior for gaming in this case. To bad newer Xeons cannot be overclocked, ohwell... Xeon master race ftw. I'll admit I'm a bit of a Xeon fanboy, I've built three other Xeon rigs, all LGA 771 to 775 modified core2 based systems.
Cooler Master Seidon 120v Liquid cooler in push/pull setup
Asus P6T X58 motherboard
XFX Radeon R9 280X GPU
EVGA Supernova 850 B2 850 watt modular PSU
Silicon Power 240GB SSD
16 GB G.skill Ripjawz Z DDR3 2400mhz Ram (clocked to 2005mhz)
Western Digital Black 1TB Storage drive
Creation of "The Tank"
So I started off my build by going to the scrapyard and finding some old square steel tubing that I sanded down and then cut up and welded together to make my "exoframe", I then took an old atx case from around 2004 and cut the inside of it out (motherboard tray, bottom and I/O rear). Turns out the tray was missing the plastic mounts that are required to mount anything to it so I cut it it out and cut out another motherboard mounting tray from another ATX case and welded it onto the back/bottom out of the other computer...UGH. Once that was done I welded the whole thing into my steel tubing frame and painted it black (taped off the frame).
I then cut two pieces of sheet steel for the top and front of the computer, cut a 120mm hole in the top peice for the water cooler radiator and painted it black, I also needed to jimmy up a 2 port usb connector on top. Using my table saw I then cut a $4 sheet of MDF for the right side, painted it black and installed the "power leeds" on it, and a 1/4 inch thick sheet if plexiglass for the left side. Both side panels are held on by 4 steel bars (from scrapyard lol) that are bolted into the computer frame using 2.5" hex bolts.This thing is a tank...hence why I call it "THE TANK". I then installed all my hardware and added a few touches. It weighs about 50lbs!
Also, this computer has no power button, I have installed two metal leeds on the side of the computer, when I touch both of them at the same time using a steel "key" the computer powers on, who needs buttons, they are so old school and out dated hehe :P.
