1 PLANNING AND DESIGN
Stuart Tonks explains his ideas and how he made them a reality.
WESTERN DIGITAL
I’ve been working with Western Digital for a while now and have been using its SSDs, HDDs and NVMe drives since as long as I can remember. The company reached out to me to create a one of kind themed system that would be featured and given away in APC magazine. For me, this was a fantastic opportunity to talk about modding and the sometimes tricky challenges I face for the APC readers. I don’t expect anyone to try and replicate this build – but there may be ideas and tips here that may spark your imagination to do something similar yourself, even on a small scale.
The theme for the build was to create and design a system based around Western Digital’s new WD Black SN750 NVMe M.2 SSD. The performance of this SSD is top notch, so combining this SSD with other quality components meant it was a box that could look the goods, and deliver in-game. I wanted to go that little bit further and adapt the case into this theme and showcase the actual SSD in plain sight. As you can see, the whole front and right side of the chassis is a complete replica of the tiny WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD’s unique surface, colours and texture.
PRACTICALITY RULES
If you’ve followed my work, you probably know I’m a sucker for monstrous over the top custom water-cooled systems. For this project, I decided to tone it down a bit and think more about the practicality of a machine to be used regularly, rather than do a completely over the top mod that would be fragile and high maintenance.
As someone will eventually win this complete PC, I had a few challenges on hand. Firstly, I wanted to create a relatively small system that didn’t take up much room – yet be a gaming powerhouse. It’s 2019 and small form factor systems are becoming the norm. Not just that, but also silent systems are becoming more and more popular.
With those decisions out of the way, I had to toss up between either completely custom water-cooling the PC, or going with a more basic AIO setup. I went with the latter for a few reasons. Not everyone is comfortable with a custom water-cooled system. The on-going maintenance, changing of parts and the thought of something leaking can be horrific to many. Plus having the system eventually being shipped to the winner, going with an air-cooled GPU and closed loop cooler means this PC will travel safely.
KEEP IT CLEAN
Then there was the whole appearance factor. PC modding of the years has grown significantly, and the creations from around the world are mind blowing. But in saying that, not everyone wants a spaceship or a monster-shaped PC sitting on their desk. I’ve also found after the many builds I’ve done that sometimes it’s the less modified ones that grab the most attention.
Clean and sleek builds are among the most popular on my social media channels, so taking that clue this is the direction I went with here. It is a design that still preserves much of the clean aesthetics of the Nzxt chassis from the main viewing side, but from another angle completely transforms to take on the unique and great looking feel of the modded theme.
“The theme for the build was to create and design a system based around Western Digital’s new WD Black SN750 NVMe M.2 SSD. The performance of this SSD is top notch, so combining this SSD with other quality components meant it was a box that could look the goods, and deliver in-game. ”