SketchUp MNPCTech Bit-Tech.net Case design contest VOTING thread!

Voting has begun! The top 5 winners will recieve a large poster of their final design after the render portion of the contest. The top 5 will also compete for the final prize pool by completing 4x rendered pictures by 15 January 2010!
Voting ends 31st December at Midnight GMT.
Vote away!


The Task

So you want to know how to enter and lay your claim to the (pending) great prizes and eternal fame the way Dark~3nergy and scooby did with their winning entries?
Simple!

Design a 3D model of a PC case, from scratch. The basic theme is a folding rig! (With mobility thrown in for flavour)

That's it! Use all your creativity, find all those ideas that have been lurking in your head for years, close doors and windows, and unleash your crazy side!
We greatly recommend using Googles free program Sketchup, as it is easy to learn, easy to use, and gets you good results fast. It's also recommended to use the sketchup component collection to get great and accurate models of all kinds of hardware. However, if you decide to be stubborn, feel free to use any 3D program you like.

The Rules
As this edition is all about letting your creativity run wild, we have decided to impose even less restrictions on entries then last time. Sadly, there still are some:

* Start your design from scratch. You are allowed to import a limited amount of models to fill your case with hardware, but the feature of your entry should be the case that you designed from scratch!
* For round one: No rendering! To keep the playing field even, we will not allow fantastic renders to enter, or even to be posted in this thread. Your entry should be screenshots of the actual 3D model ONLY.
* Final entries are to be announced in this thread. They should contain one main picture and up to 4 images from other angles to show off various features. Supplying the 3D model for download is also allowed.
* The deadline for your round 1 entry announcement will be December 1st, 12:00 PM (noon) GMT
* Voting method will be decided at a later date.
* Only one entry per person allowed
* To generate as much publicity for the competition as possible, we may use the 5 images of your entry to make a video presentation to be posted on YouTube.
* In case of a tie, both contestants will receive the same prize.
* Prizes will be shipped globally, so the competition is open to all!
* Feel free to post images of your progressing designs in this thread for discussion, but please keep it relatively clean. I hope the mention of "common sense" will cover the usual array of boring rules, so here goes: common sense, use it!
* Have fun! We will be checking very strongly on this point, as rumours have come to our attention that one of the previous winners in fact faked having fun in order to qualify. Consider yourself warned!


Disclaimer:
*Terms and Conditions: Items may vary from those shown in the images. Items will only be sent if the winner is willing to accept them. Postal insurance is available for a small additional charge. This promotion is not associated with www.bit-tech.net, or its affiliates, and they cannot be held liable for any damages as a result of this competition, and neither can confusis, or MNPCTech.
Disclaimer2:
I (confusis) will enter and moderate at the same time. My task will be purely to keep the thread nice and organise things slightly. If you see a conflict of interest, feel free to PM me.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Prizes:

First round, the top 5 places will go onto the second round and recieve a a2? glossy poster of their design

Final Round:

1st Place "Billet Pron by Mnpctech" Prize Package

1x Silver Machined Aluminum, 3/16" thick, 140mm fan grill with adjustable center

Product link
http://www.mnpctech.com/140mm_fan_grills.html



1 set of Silver Machined Aluminum Case Feet with diamond knurling

Product Link
http://www.mnpctech.com/Aluminum_Computer_Case_Feet.html




2nd Place "Quiet my PC!" Prize Package

2x 18" x 16" sheets of acoustical sound proofing material

Product Link
http://www.mnpctech.com/Acoustical_Foam_Sheets_PC.html



4x 7 volt fan speed in-line resistors

Product Link
http://www.mnpctech.com/7volt_Resistor_Computer_Fan_Mod.html



16x vibration dampening cooling fan grommets
http://www.mnpctech.com/FanGrommet.html




3rd Place "Custom window" Prize Package

1x 12" x 12" cast acrylic sheet (choice of UV green, clear, transparent red or blue)
http://www.mnpctech.com/colored_acrylic_sheet_casemod_window.html



1x roll of Scotch Tape #4010 super strength mounting tape
http://www.mnpctech.com/scotch_4010_tape_of_the_casemod_gods.html



The contenders:

Dark~3nergy:





Razerz:




"here it is: A 50's radio combined with a boombox and an aquarium (I toyed with the idea of having small plastic fishes suspended with fishing lines inside the water and oil )! The two side "speakers" contains a 120x2 and a 120x1 radiator. The narrow compartments after contains a pair of pumps and functions as the watertanks for the GPU and CPU/RAM loops. And the middle compartment contains the computer, with an gigantic combination of a waterblock and a heatsink over the motherboard, RAM modules, as well as the graphics cards. This is then submerged in oil to (hopefully) cool it a bit more.
Shot from the back showing a heatsink that maybe allows a bit more passive cooling, as well as the quick connect connectors for the waterloop. This is to allow one to carry the parts separately. Note also how I haven't made any holes for the USB/power/video/etc. cables. You have to imagine it uses some kind of high-tech wireless transfer for that "


Xtrafresh:




"I present to you Fresh Form Factor! It's a case designed to put maximum performance and features in the smallest possible footprint. It's capable of housing (and cooling) two high-end GPUs (ATI HD5870), mATX motherboard, and three full-size HDDs.
I had a number of goals when i was designing the case.
1) Make it as small as possible
2) present the components in an interesting way
3) include a couple of technical features that are uncommon in other mods
4) build in the strongest possible cooling to allow for some heavy overclocking.

I started off by taking apart a shuttle case, and see how everything is housed in there. I decided that the conventional placement of motherboards in such cases (flat on the bottom) is not very appealing to the eye, so i placed the motherboard at an angle.
Using a risercard, i placed the graphics card(s) at the other side, at the same angle. The rest of the design basically evolved from there.
I decided to watercool the components, because airflow inside the case isn't going to be optimal, so the large heatsinks for GPU and CPU that would be needed would simply not fit. I placed two single radiators in the front (two single ones next to eachother tit in tighter spaces then a single 2x120mm radiator, because the fittings on those are always length-oriented) and fitted two San Ace industrial fans to them. Together, these rads and fans can dissipate almost 600W of heat when the water is no more then 10 degrees above room temperature. Although this will not give me the ultimate holy grail in silence or temps, it's going to be a very respectable setup, with a fair margin more overclocking headroom then moost bigtower aircooled setups.
Did i mention i'm actually going to build the case? HighFlow.nl (a dutch computer cooling webshop) agreed to sponsor me, even though i never finished a project before and i'm VERY slow going.
I wanted to incorporate the sponsor in the design, without resorting to cheap-looking stickers or engraving anything into the windows. Instead, i took their logo and used the wave on the side of my case.
This is also how i got the idea for the very unorthodox DVD loading mechanism. It's just an opening in the sidepanel, where a DVD fits in snugly. You then roll it backwards, into the hidden slot-loading DVD drive.
The reservoir on the front also deserves a special mention. There's some UV-light and a black double helix inside. This should bring out the red fluid beautifully, while also acting as a good fillport for the loop.
Finally, there's the screen on top, which is a 7" mimo USB touchscreen. It will be used to display a samurize profile where i can control temps and fanspeed, media, RSS feeds, or just a cool graphic "

confusis:




"System:
Core2 Quad
EVGA board
3x GTX 295's
8gb Memory
Stackable! The conduit on the rear houses a powerlink.
The case is a solid copper CNC'd heatsink powdercoated black, linked to the 3 passive heatsinks on the gtx295's and the cpu. a couple of 80mm fans help a little but the aim was passive folding!


Editor22:





lenne0815:





Trance:



If i've missed anyone who made a final entry let me know!

 

cheers confusis! now let the votes roll in

 

gah, doublepost. Please delete on sight

 

Great work guys, Dark~3nergy you got my Vote .

 

thanks for sorting all that out confusis think dark might be walking away with this one...

 

again lol

 

Dark~3nergy gets my vote.
looks really well thought out, and i digg the LCD panel in the bottom
was a tie between dark and editor22

 

...

 

I didn't post them as the first round was 3d view only, not renders!

 

aw f.. i didnt get that ! i would have provided final 3d views aswell !

 

email them to me and i'll update, its only fair

 

cheers im right at it !! running max on my laptop is a major pain

pics are out to u !
just to make sure i up them aswell

 

lenne, are you by any chance an evil mastermind planning to take over the world? That is just wicked

 

Another vote for Dark~3nergy from me. Although it was tough to choose only one. I like them all:
Xtrafresh's tilted motherboard, and compact cooling
confusis' GIGANTIC heatsinks
Editor22's simplicity and unique graphics card cooling
lenne0815's sheer insanity!
Trance's "stealthed" case (as in a hidden computer, I don't know how to stealth a tank )
But the vote goes to Dark~3nergy for the futuristic and clean lines of the case.

 

I haven't voted yet but what he said goes for me too. This will be very tough.


john

 

actually im already beyond planning, can u feel the distant rumble under ur feet ?

 

I voted for dark. All the designs are excellent, however the simplicity and elegance of Dark~3nergy's design is awesome.

 

You missed that incomplete thing I posted for competition, and the pump top I added to the prize pool.

 

i only posted complete designs and i totally missed your pump top! woops!

 

Eh, I never did get to finish that, however I did get further than that, and I don't want all my hard work to go to waste...





(p.s. Dark~3nergy has my vote!)