Aqua Tuning

Starting off with some gorgeous Phobya water-cooling kit from Aqua Tuning. Just looking at it all makes us hanker for a some liquid action.

If you're in the mood for something inspiring, then there is no better place to look than the works of CoolerMeister, aka Paul from Coolercases. The Cosmos S case is one of those designs that's remained cool even today, and with a Skulltrail Mobo and dual-loop it's even sexier. 

Of course if that is too subtle for your tastes how about a Quad GPU, EVGA SR2 in an extra tall ACTS840? Absolutely stunning. I've got an 840 myself and it's huge, let alone with extra height for a radbox.

There is plenty of colour and design choices too. Your imagination is limited only by your wallet. Of course for those of us with more modest funds there is still something in these pictures we can aspire to. Ahem.

Winners

We're always on the lookout for people to help here at OC3D, and with help from the excellent folks at QuietPC we managed to make a few people happy. Now due to toms awesome reporting skills being slightly hindered by the gallons of alcohol he seems to have consumed over the weekend he lost the note pad with all the winners names in! So we best just roll with the pictures and say a big thank you to Quiet PC - Scythe - Coolink - and BitFenix for providing the prizes we gave to the lucky winners.

  
Over the weekend we had many YouTuber's and forum members drop by to say hello, but we would like to name drop Bigbazz from the forums aka: Gordon Bastini. Tom also had the pleasure of spending Sunday evening with Kathryn Notley & her other half Aaron Doherty. I was told specifically not to tell you all her Facebook photos do not do her justice and Kathryn is actually really fit in the flesh!

Main Winner

Ian Swain was our main winner and so got a huge collection of shiny new hardware to turn his dusty old rig into one that anyone would be happy to own.

When we say dusty, we mean it. I'm sure we've all been there. Those standard case + hardware combos don't inspire us to clean them as often as we ought.

It was so dusty in there we half expected to find Miss Havisham. In the best traditions of not wanting to leave anything behind, he was welcome to have his dust back.

And now our resident screwdriver expert gets to work, gutting the old case ready to transplant the hardware into a shiny new Fractal.

Thank god that's the last we see of this case. Time to fill the new one with Noctua fans.

Continuing the Build

One of the things you always have to be aware of when moving from case to case especially if, as here, you've only got an OEM power supply, is that the cables are rarely very long. Even on a modest sized case such as this we needed to replace the power supply to ensure we had enough cable length to keep things nice and tidy.

It's always a good idea to get rid of the standard cooler wherever possible.

That's a vast improvement. Even before installation you know it's going to enhance the looks and performance compared to the dusty black number we've just removed.

Amazing how a couple of little changes can take a modest setup and really make it look the business. Equally amazing is how Tom always manages to find an attractive female assistant.

The Build Finishing Up

The final knockings, the always fun job of cable tidying.

The difference a little bit of time on the cabling can make to the overall look of the rig is outstanding. The secret is to tuck it all round the back wherever possible.

Doesn't that look good. Far better than the dust-filled thing we started off with a couple of hours ago.

So remember, not only do you get a fantastic time out at Insomnia, but you might be the lucky winner of a PC refresh. See you next year?

Here endeth the important bits. Click over for a little sillyness.

A Little Fun

If you don't mind a little public exposure and fancy yourself as a budding musician, the stage played host to an enormous bit of rhythm game goodness.

After Mr Strawberry turned blue on Saturday we managed to abduct the Aqua Tuning girl to double as a Christmas tree. Sure it's early but she'd look great standing in anyones lounge. The lighting looked so good on her we had to see how it looked on Strawbs. Not bad.

Although if he can pull off the lights that looked so good on her, maybe ... just maybe...

Personally I prefer the original. Although if he's wearing her costume then she must be wearing... be back in a bit.

You can discuss your thoughts about i43 and many others in the OC3D Forums.