Submission from: US

How does your mod desktop bring the future closer to reality today – through either system creativity or lifestyle innovation?

I decided to take the "open case design" concept to a new level. Similar to the Ducati "Mostro" motorcycle design, this computer has very few components hidden. Here, the art of industrial design is combined with the high tech of the top of the line computer components, and this combination is as much fun to use as it is to look at.

Computer hardware does not have to be ugly, or hidden out of sight, or ignored. It can be as much of the interior design concept as a piece of furniture or a painting. By utilizing the Antec Skeleton open case design combined with top of the line water-cooling components, this computer becomes more that a utility box attached to a keyboard and a monitor screen. It becomes a work of art.

Describe how the processor inside your mod takes it to another level.

This water-cooled system is over-clocked at 3.7 GHz while keeping the CPU temperature near 45C and GPU temperature under 50C, thanks to the Feser "Monsta" Radiator and top of the line copper water blocks. This is a single loop system, with fans and temperature carefully controlled by the microprocessor driven pump from Eheim. By utilizing these components I am able to play every available PC game at almost maxed out settings, and perform work tasks by running a series of Windows 7 Virtual PCs. Using Intel's hardware virtualization technology, Core i7 processor and 12 GB of DDR3 RAM, I am running 2-3 VMs at a time, each dedicated to a particular task: Web Server, SQL Server, compiler, etc. Such setup makes for huge productivity gains and keeps everything contained within a single physical device.