'Mesa Mod Means Mainstream Market Modding Mecca

How much tech focus in hardware reviews? Hardcore tech focus? Like down to the real nitty gritty of uber enthusiasts; Ie: so-and-so is controlled by this controller chip that does all of this:... or just more generalised?: so-and-so does this: (list 1 or 2 bits of most popular stuff)?

 

Money and sponsorship have been involved for some time already and infact, far from killing the 'scene', modding has been going from strength to strength in recent times.

*n

 

this, i like. please do it.

 

<rant>

ya nick- but it is quite young still ... give it a couple years. I remember just over 3 years ago - cases came in 2 colors. beige and charcoal grey.

now search cases @ newegg, and there's a dropdown for color. and it has over 20 choices.
and for windows.
and material - not very long ago, SECC 1.2mm cold rolled steel was the ONLY choice.


another downside of being able to buy premodded cases ( and i feel this is relevant, as the money and sponsorship lead to more easily accessible premod cases and more public desire for non-beige boxes) is that to be impressed by amod, it has to be either totally non-pc looking, or has to utilize exotic build materials, or has to pimp the latest twitch&click bloodfest.

remember when it was the functionality that the mod added, or the original thought and experimentation behind the material selection that wowed you, and not the sheer number of lights and other bling bling?

i still remember the day phire posted about hacking a 5 port hub to fit in his empty cd-rom housing. blew my mind as to the sheer functionality of it. didnt light up, other than the activity led's.

or the day that eddie_dane posted the media pc - my entire (i think we were in either security or AD design) class spent 30 minutes over my shoulder peeping it. even my instructor was amazed. the lamination of wood and plexi was totally amazing - and quite original.

now all i tend to see are premod cases with store-bought stuff crammed into it. or YASBLL. (yet another sliver and blue lian li).

I guess that when the functionality and creativeness start to wane, that signals the death of something to me, not the sheer numbers of people with modded cases.

if that makes me an elitist, i'm sorry - it's just how i feel.

</rant>


p.s. - nicky, i'm not ranting at you, just near you - dont mean to single anyone out.

 

future

That was just 3 years ago, I remember when my dad came home with a Tandy, and nothing worked out of the box. A certian degree of modding was assumed. The concept has just changed. The "pre-modded" case rage started because of a legitiment need for cooling. So now it's so accepted that most people won't even buy a case with less then 4 fans. And modding has moved on. To silent, to built in, to the ideas that have been kicking around and will most likely be on the market in 5 years, look at water cooling. And since the technology is about to go through a big change, our needs will change and our ideas will evlove. I remember building a turbo for a moped in 9th grade and now I can buy a bolt-on-kit for my jeep. This is where business' start- I'm willing to bet that the guys over at Danger Den were in similar forum (BBS) at some point. Modding grows with the industry, and no one can argue that growth in this industry is a bad thing (go AMD).

I personaly like to see that more people are taking the PC out of the case and building into their surroundings. This is were crazy modders will contribute the most in the future. The wearable computer will never make it out of MIT with out you guys.

 

I think that, as with any enthusiast-driven community, it is the creative drive of its members which keeps it going. A lot more people are into it and so the few 'greats' as it were are much further spread out. The easily-obtainable items (cases and so forth) just mean that people have to raise the bar themselves.

Personally, I prefer seeing a functional mod to an aluminium box with blue lights inside it however I do appreciate the skills that go into making some mods...

*n

 

A-Men, brutha.

 

I think it has to be a balance, go too techy and no one will understand, too dumbed down and theres no point reading.
At the moment I usually find bit has hit the right balance, its nice when some articles go a bit more indepth, giving you a better understanding as to what the hardware actualy does.
But as said go too far and for most of us, we'd be as well reading binary for all that we would be able to understand.

Say in a mobo review, its good to find out what the northbridge is actually controlling, or the southbridge for that matter.
How this differs on the newer mobos, and the way the A64 chips work with integrated memory controllers etc

Things like, will I be able to overclock this mobo, and by how far, what methods are required to overclock.
What benifits are there to buying this piece of hardware over another, or over the one its replacing, does the additional performance ouyway the cost involved.
Will it improve my gaming experience, will it let me work quicker, will I be able to compress a movie quicker than before.

 

Fair enough. I better start on some movie compression benchmarks in vdub or something then
I spose if noone says anything, nothing is wrong

 

I lose a lot of people if I go techy, that's my problem.

From the feedback that I've been getting, our new video card format is showing something that is considerably less techy and more to what people are likely to see when they come along to play the applications that we are using for testing purposes.

 

Not the first time I've read something and thought what was that all about, but the new writing style you have adopted has allowed you to get the tech stuff over in a way people are able to understand, and I think thats the key.

 

Perhaps a user submitted section would be good, if you buy say a new PSU, a couple of pics and a write up then a check over by Bit-Tech to go on the site etc; would work for various other things aswell. Personally i feel there's alot of Project Logs that are Bit-Tech Front Page material, for example, Hypercube, Metaversa etc. I think popular mods like these are attracting visitors, it was only the other day someone registered and described Orac which he'd seen on a magazine. Tbh, i come on the forums to look at mods, i personally think you need more mods on the site

 

yeah, I think that is what is important

i.e. showing people what the tech actually translates to in terms of what they see on the screen

 

from a commercial point of view you could look at modding in the same way as fashion.

extreme clothes on the catwalk get toned down and turned into next seasons fashion in the highstreet.

In a similar way extreme mods get copied and mass produced by case manufacturers and sold to end users.

the main difference is that fashion is a bit more glitzy, where creations take place in paris and millan, where mods take form in hardcore garages and sheds around the world!

many big manufacturers have got involved and from a sales point of view we have seen modding products as a huge growth area over the last year.

an exceiting time for the modding community as there is such huge growth, even magazines such as PC Extreme and Custom PC follow the subject.

I am not much of a modder myself as I dont have the time but i enjoy keeping upto date on modding and overclocking at use sites and forums such as these to do just that.

I like bit-tech just how it is, i am sure improvement will form organically, but i dont see any ened for any big changes.

you guys seem that tv show 'pimp my ride' on sky, bascially they customise cars/bikes for rich peoples, how about a pc modding tv show, now that would be intersting!

 

I like bit-tech a reasonable amount- The opinion columns are great- they're one of the things that really sets bit tech apart from other mod sites, like hardocp or my fave modthebox.

You have fewer hardware reviews (which is good- there are already maybe 20 million websites doing reviews) and lots more opinion, projects and news.
What I would like to see come back is modding guides. GUIDES! When I started reading mod sites 2 years ago all any of them had were awesome guides for led this, led that, put fans here and there.. and that's what drew me in to one site or another.

So I think - good columns, less hardware reviews and more guides.

PS- how did you guys miss the foxconn heat guzzler? I think 2 or 3 other websites noticed it was made of aluminum, not copper.. it was just tinned or plated or something. You fellahs thought it was alright..

 

"Modding for modding's sake" has to prevail - it's fine and dandy building themed projects but the fund of knowledge to create such projects will stagnate unless there's the 'geeks' pushing the boundaries.

The modding community should embrace the challenge.

 

As a long time reader I think the hardware reviews are pretty much spot on in terms of the balance between hardcore / easy to understand. Personally I don't read the coloumns as I just don't find them interesting (although I did read this one). The balance between hardware and modding seems to have shifted a little too much towards hardware especially graphics cards recently.

I'd also like to see more mod guides, as someone mentioned there used to be loads of guides on how someone with very little tools could create something in their shed / bedroom / kitchen. The don't have to be anything really complex just little things people could do.

 

When I first started to look around the Internet for inspiration, it was due to an article in a magazine. I usually do not buy magazines, but that day I had a couple extra bucks, and getting ready for a long trip. I was getting ready to build my own gaming rig and needed some ideas. A place to start. A place where I would be able to see where the future was going so that my rig would last more than a 6 months. A pc magazine had a tri-fecta of purpose built pc's. I remember one was for video editing, compiling; one was for gaming; and I can't remember what the last one was for.

This article was so well written, that I had a great idea of what not to buy, and what would limit me in future. From there, searching the web about a video card that had a built in windows interface to overclock itself led me on a research trip on overclocking. After a couple of days of browsing mind numbing websites that were all basically the same thing with a different name, I fell onto bit-tech. What a great website this was/is. Reviews of modded, and un-modded hardware. Real world relationship comparisons. This made me memorize the address.

Modding, guides to modding, what it looks like, and what it performs like after-mod. These peices of info made me start telling my friends about it. I try to check in twice weekly. And often find myself spending hours just reading over project logs, and guides.

My hat's off to everyone in the community. Such a diverse group. From across the world, to age, to background. Also to the Moderators for keeping such a, (for the better part of), flame-less forum. It makes it so much easier/enjoyable to read along with everyone else on these boards.


As to any suggestions; I would like to see a page/thread/small advertising space dedicated to a current best performance vs. cost area. Something that would compare say 1-3 systems built with different parts that would show the latest, cost effective systems. Take a poll, on what the forum members are going to spend on their next pc. How much will we spend up-front and at once, and then how much we are going to put into the machine after a couple weeks after the initial purchases. Take that info, and you have the budget for your 3 pc's.

 

I suppose the obvious thing is to have hardware reviews that centre around the modding scene, i.e. cases, cooling devices, lcd displays. Rather than the latest offering's from Intel/AMD or Nvidia/ATI.

Also, a few guides on building materials, like properties of different plastics or what paint to use for what surface. Though I think generally having millions of guides defeats the object somewhat - it's no fun if you're spoon fed through the process and there's no challenge.

Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank GOO for his tireless work every morning of bringing all the latests tech headline to one place for easy viewing. Without them I'm sure i'd only be a once a week visitor rather than a twice a day visitor.

 

So choosing the right CPU and Video Card for a case mod is deemed to be a subject that doesn't warrant the time spent working on it?

More and more people are building custom computer cases, so I would argue that people are not quite as interested in cases as they might have been a couple of years ago.