Extreme machines

Don't like your PC's beige box? Think the chip's just too darned slow? Join
the DIY enthusiasts who have turned customisation into an art form. 

Michael Pollitt reports

08 October 2003

http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/features/story.jsp?story=451100

The Independent

There's a new breed of PC user around: the modders. Opening the cover of
their PC - which most people quail at - is just the start for them. They add
extra components, boost the CPU beyond the manufacturers' stated
specifications, even cool their processors with water rather than air. Their
PCs may also have illuminated interiors, spray-painted designs and cut-away
acrylic windows. Why? Because they can. And because they want to.

If you're a typical PC owner, you might add more memory to your machine; the
adventurous may install a bigger disk drive, replace the graphics card or
build their own systems. Thanks to the PC's modular design, it's not
difficult. But most have an off-the-shelf model from a firm such as Dell,
Compaq or IBM that's guaranteed and comes with technical support. It's
boring, but safe.

Modders are different. They want better, faster, more attractive -
everything that's cool. Modders think nothing of spending months turning a
PC case into a piece of art, or turbo-charging the system for ultimate
performance. The newest, fastest processors and graphics cards are de
rigueur: AMD's new 64-bit CPU gets a loving review on bit-tech.net, a major
modding site.

It's a growing interest that's spawned several websites, received specialist
magazine coverage, and boosted sales for manufacturers, who have been
especially happy, because modders buy expensive cutting-edge products. But
why alter the appearance or performance of something that is perfectly
satisfactory? Ask Carl White of themodhouse.co.uk. He set up the online
retail business in January after several years' modding experience while
working as a builder. After a bricks-to-bytes career move, he now supplies
modding components full-time.

When he started modding, he says, "I ended up with four computer cases, I
just couldn't do enough. You're expressing yourself, putting a part of you
into your case and knowing that it looks good. I didn't overclock [speed up
the processor] straight away, though, it took me two years to become brave
enough."

As a former builder, Mr White is adept with tools and has avoided disasters
that might befall less-experienced modders. He says that good planning for a
typical two-month project is important. His favourite project was modding an
expensive aluminium PC case: "I cut a shaped window into the top, a side
window and added cold cathode lights and LEDs. It's fantastic."

The system, based on an AMD processor, is overclocked and will shortly be
water-cooled. Overclocking means setting system speeds above the factory
ratings, usually through simple but risky adjustments. This causes
processors to generate more heat, which is dispersed via bigger heatsinks,
variable-speed fans or through water cooling. Voided warranties, burned-out
components and damaging water leaks don't worry serious modders.

Currently the owner of several modded PCs, White spends around £300 per
month on modifications and new hardware, occasionally selling his creations
to make way for fresh challenges. The latest involves a transparent PC case,
lights and clear UV-reactive paint. He discusses projects via the online
forums - good places to pick up the latest trends. "UV-reactive products and
extreme cooling are the next big thing. For example, you can add cable
braiding that glows under UV lighting while cooling is used for overclocked
processors, graphics cards and the Northbridge chipset on the motherboard,"
he says.

Another modder, Dave Williams, undertakes demonstration projects for a
modding website under the nickname "Macroman". An electronics engineer and
now a systems analyst working in the glass industry, Williams has been
modding radios, building hi-fis and upgrading washing machines (by adding
new programmes) since childhood. His PCs have been modded for convenience
and cosmetic reasons over the past six years. His most successful project is
a black-mirror finish PC that reveals an illuminated interior when powered
up. Photographs of the stunning Macro Black are on Bit-tech. net, which gets
around 200,000 visitors a month. If you're inspired by Williams's ideas of
perfection, then it's not expensive to begin modding standard cases. Extreme
modders will build their cases from scratch.

"You can spend £100 modding a case or you can spend hundreds of pounds.
Modding appeals to a very wide range of people. Although most are in the
14-24 age bracket, we have people in their fifties and sixties doing it.
They just want that stamp of individuality," says Williams.

So big has modding grown that it even has its own publication. Live
Publishing's PC Extreme claims to be the first magazine to be targeted at
the serious PC hobbyist. The group editor Dave Cusick says the title
provides "the most extreme modding guides in the business", as well as
hardware reviews and features on topics such as overclocking. Manufacturers
are keen to advertise in the magazine, which was launched last December. "We
get lots of e-mail from readers saying how glad they are that someone's
launched a magazine like this. There have been websites on these topics for
two or three years, but we broke new ground by bringing this stuff to the
news-stand," says Cusick.

Another title is Dennis Publishing's Custom PC, and there are new "extreme"
sections in PC Pro and PC Format. The websites bit-tech.net and hexus.net
cover the subject in depth, with forums containing numerous modding
projects. Cusick says manufacturers are responding to modders' demands.
"We're already seeing 'pre-modded' cases with windows, cold cathode lights,
that kind of thing, and we'll see more in the future. Most come from smaller
system builders at the moment, but the major manufacturers will soon catch
on."

At Novatech, the Portsmouth-based PC builder, sales of pre-modded cases,
lights and other components are growing, says the purchasing and product
manager Kriss Pomroy. The company is also introducing pre-modded PCs built
to customer specifications using an online configurator. "We're bringing the
benefits of modding to the mass market," says Pomroy. "I expect our business
in this segment to increase 10-fold over the next 12 months."

Will modding change our view on how computers should look? PC Extreme's Dave
Cusick thinks so: "Ultimately modding is likely to have an even bigger
influence on PC-case design than Apple's iMac did. PCs don't have to be
boring beige boxes, they can be attractive as well as useful."

Meanwhile, the modding phenomenon gathers speed. More extreme modders have
used small motherboards inside bespoke cases that look like toasters,
ammunition boxes or radios. Yet despite outlandish appearances, such systems
still function like conventional PCs - or perhaps better - and they're
coming to a desktop near you. 

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