Modding Mod of the Year 2013

Really nice builds, congrats to all contenders!
I voted for my favorites (2 scratch builds of course + one case mod)
I love to see those builds where modders put so much hard work and thoughts in their projects.
I watched my "veteran-favorites" for a long time through their processes and that is why voted for them - truly amazing ideas, tons of hard work and time spent on them.
I'm really happy to see that peeps still love modding and give so much affords to express themselves through their builds.
Well done everyone! Now, let's see who wins this year

 

Don't agree with that at all. Just as the winner of a mod of the month can be nominated, so should the winner of any other competition. It's about showcasing the finest work featured on bit-tech's forums throughout the year.

 

That's a bit like saying a film can't win an Oscar because it won a BAFTA...

 

Hands down the MOTY 2013 for me is "The Microprocessor" from Ace.

It should've won the intel NUC competition, but unfortunately Aces design-idea didn't make iit into the final round. So he bought the NUC himself and created a truly stunning case for it, and as I said in the worklog allready... this should be the case intel delivers the NUC with by default!

Anyways. Lot's and lot's of watercooling pr0n again, if you're interested in it

 

The metaphor was perfect actually, you just don't seem to understand that mod of the year is an over-all contest for all the great mods featured on the forum, regardless of whether they have won or were nominated in SEPARATE contests during the year. That's kinda the point actually- a best of the best- your 'champions league' of mods is exactly what MOTY is all about.

Winning 'best actor and best supporting actor for the same role' is a poor metaphor since people aren't being put forward in the same contest twice- these are all separate contests so to feature in more than one is perfectly okay.

I'll be sure to finish off the wiring & do some final photos of my own mod sooner or later, be in with a chance of winning the 2014 contest(s)...

 

The Samurai Sacrileguim by abbas-it.

Because quite frankly the workmanship and attention to detail blow anything else I've ever seen out of the water.

True craftsmanship.

 

Thank you, bit-tech! Good luck to all nominees!

-adamski07

 

No, that was you when you first posted. I simply addressed the flaws in your view point and comprehension of how the contest(s) work.

No, that's hypocrisy- when you call people something but do the same thing you accused them of ( I made no such insulting remarks though, which makes you the one casting insults, no one else ).

Irrelevant. This is not a football league- the mods were chosen by the members of this forum from a massive list- there is no fairer method I can think of.

Everyone had their chance to be nominated, your point is moot. It makes absolutely no difference whether a mod already won a previous contest ( in 2013 ) since THOSE WERE SEPARATE CONTESTS- this is simply the contest for the best overall mod regardless of month, style, theme etc etc. This is the issue you can't get your head around for some reason and I can't understand why. Like I said, everyone had their chance to be seen and selected for this contest already- don't like it? Find another forum.

See my previous point, and the same point that Combatus made- not seeing why you had to be told the same thing by 2 or 3 people before you accepted it, but hay-ho...

 

My personal issues with the MOTY and even the MOTM comps is that I am sure that many of them are sponsored (especially when they have company logos plastered all over the place like many of this years entrants) and have access to specialised and professional materials and equipment. I used to be far more interested when I felt that a mod was what someone did for themselves as their own personal project and not as an advertisement for their professional skills (L3p D3sk from 2011 for example and the Red Harbinger which is based on it - http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2013/08/12/pre-order-your-red-harbinger-cross-pc-desk/1)
Where do you draw the line between a 'mod' and a professional build? I mean we already have the 'Dream PC' annual article and the end results are far too similar between the two articles. Especially when they feature in consecutive months. To me the whole thing comes across as 'Oh that's what can be done when you throw money at it'. Have you never noticed that Hyper or even Supercars never win 'Car Of The Year' awards and how often does the Year's big budget movie win any oscars?

As for who should be entered, I think it should definitely include the winners of MOTM but I would do it like this... Each of the 12 MOTM winners get a direct entry with a further 4, 6 or 8 entrants to be given 'wild cards' from other notable projects from the community. Although personally I do not see how MOTY could ever be won by a project that didn't win MOTM... That lacks any logic what so ever in my mind, so maybe MOTY should be limited to the 12 monthly qualifiers.

 

I don't exactly care if the people have a mill or a CNC, the biggest problem for me is all the watercooling going on.

Watercooling isn't necessary these days, if you don't do benchmarking-orgies. A stock LGA2011 i7 paired with a custom-cooler GTX780 is totally enough for playing all modern games with max settings and you don't need any watercooling for that to build a silent rig aswell.

So yeah, I only vote for air-cooled mods that have a good idea behind it, instead of givng my vote to a modder who is throwing thousands of dollars at all this watercooling-gear to make an impression.

Oh, and the smaller the better ofc. I don't wanna see those big rigs anymore as the days when Zuse invented the PC and needed a whole room to fit in are over.
And yes, my own rig is still much too big for my taste and I wish I would've bought another mITX-system instead like I had before.

 

@SchizoFrog and @jrs77

I disagree to both of you. I believe that modding isn't about the tools and/or how many companies is supporting you. That is given that you did good on your previous project that these companies believes in you and give you free stuffs. I still see a lot of personal projects that are far better than sponsored ones. Having the most sponsors doesn't make the greatest modders. It always ends up with the attitude of the modder.

jrs77, please take note that modding is about what you've done to the system and not what you have in the system. I could use low end hardware without watercooling and still make the best out of it. Modding is NEVER about hardware. It is about design, innovation, skills, quality, and attitude of the modder. All the time, when people ask me about modding. I would always tell them not to worry about what he has on his system. Just create, innovate, and inspire other people with your project. Always exceed yourself on everything you do. That will take you somewhere in the community, I am sure of that. If you tell me that you would only vote for a project because it is nor watercooled, then you dont know exactly what modding is.

I mod to put the next generation modders at the right path. This is where I am struggling right now, educating people that modding isn't about having the most expensive hardware inside your case. There are many good modders around that I'm pretty sure deserves more than what they get.

Believe me, i know a lot of modders who have access to powerful machines, have a lots of sponsors, but they are lack of skills and knowledge in modding. They didn't even get in here. I was surprised when one of my friend pm'ed me of being nominated for MOTY 2013. To let you know, I mod in a small garage. With just a rotary tool and few other beginners tools. I don't have many sponsors as well like the other modders, but I am on the list.

-adamski07

 

Thanks for the nomination!

 

Congratulations to all that have been nominated! Some extremely tough competition there.

I am kinda shocked mini moto isn't amongst the nominees. But overall a great bunch of projects right there.

 

I agree. The best mod I have seen this year was Project Zoe, which was a small, part air-cooled PC which was completely hand-built.

Things are very different since I did my first mod (Metaversa); at the time there were no custom cases, there were perhaps two companies that made radiators for water cooling (the rest being heater cores stripped from old car heaters), and pumps were aquarium pumps running on mains voltage. You had to remember to switch it on before the PC or wire in a relay (I found a 12V car turbo cooling booster pump instead). Tubing was laboratory or garden hose tubing. Blocks were often home made --there were only a few on the market, by DangerDen and D-Tek Customs (the market leader being their Spir@l block). Mine were developed by a hobbyist CNC'er who sold a small production batch. There were no fancy-schmancy programmable fan controls, no flow sensors, no temperature sensors etc. All this stuff was often home-made as well from existing components. Barbs were bought from plumbing companies. I once did a group buy of flow sensors meant for drink dispenser machines, which could be connected to fan headers on a mobo and thus read by Speedfan. I introduced some stuff in that build that is now mainstream, come to think of it.

Now a lot of stuff comes off the shelf that I could have only dreamt of: Bitspower fittings, acrylic tubing, reservoirs in all shapes, pumps that are incredibly small but powerful specifically designed for the purpose, radiators in all sizes, fans that are increasingly sophisticated in design, beautifully CNC's water blocks designed to fit specific components, lots of control and sensor options, all ready to fit and plug in. We have self-adhesive LED strips (just cut to length), Arduino boards, coolants in all colours of the rainbow. And then the components themselves: from bulky CD-ROM drives to slimline slot loaders, from big 5¼" HDDs to teeny-weeny SSDs, from huge SMP motherboards to the mini ITX Asus Impact with up to three times the number of cores that my old Opteron 250 sports.

It has made things a lot easier for modders, yet also a lot harder, because it is harder to still be original and not make your PC look like you just assembled a showcase of off-the-shelf parts like any other. The bar has been raised considerably. So there is still a lot of demand on the modder's creativity. Just buying off-the-shelf custom parts is not enough. Just CNC-ing some parts is not enough either (and once these machines become cheaper and more mainstream, as already is happening, that won't impress the way it used to); it has to be original and unique. It's not about the tools or the components. It is about the creativity. All mods are worthy.

 

I don't really understand these complaints. Do people honestly think that those who have worked incredibly hard to receive sponsorship in order to continue their hobby, shouldn't be eligible? That logic is very questionable in my book. Mod of the year in my opinion is not about accessibility, it is about pure design and craftsmanship, no matter who gave you your hardware or how deep your pockets are.

I used to jump up and down in anticipation of the MotY competition, not because I though I could do that, but specifically because I would be shocked at how amazing the entries are. I never believed that I would ever be in with a chance, even a mod of the month entry seemed remote. I don't want to see easy builds that are in there simply because somebody doesn't have a workshop. I want to see the best of the best, as voted by the readers.

This is clearly shown to be working as there are builds of all varieties in there. I mean there are two NUCs, a Raspberry Pi and two low power media PCs in the competition this year. That says to me that people value variety, and don't just like extreme hardware. It's one of my favourite parts about Bit-Tech, over places like reddit; people often look past the hardware here and go straight for the design and execution.

As for watercooling, of course there's going to be a huge bias towards it. Personally I don't like air cooling much outside of the tiny media devices. Despite people claiming it's not necessary (which in itself is a stupid point to make as modding as a whole isn't necessary), it takes a lot of creativity to watercool something exceptionally. Anybody can connect tubes and voila, but spending the time to mod an existing case to be exactly what you want or pushing the idea of what watercooling can be (p0pe's build for instance, such an original use of milled channels) is hard. Frankly, air cooling is simple. You can only do so much before you start getting in the way of the performance (reshaping a heatsink for instance), the rest is mostly teeny aesthetic sidegrades. There just simply isn't as much flexibility in the cooling itself, even the heavily modded coolers in the Coolermaster yearly competition look like simple heatsinks, despite so much work going into them.

Personally I love seeing so many watercooled builds in the competition. People here take it for granted as Bit-Tech has such a WC bias, but they really are phenomenal. Just pop to the likes of OCN, Hardforum or reddit (sadly even my own /r/watercooling subreddit), people just throw money at computers and expect them to be godlike, when really all they've done is fill a wardrobe with PC bits (looking at you caselabs). Bit's standard is simply so high when compared with most of the other forums (I know there are exceptions, they are simply that, exceptions).

Throwing money at something does not make it beautiful. Excluding those who have already been successful does not make you righteous.