Sapphire E3 Liquid Metal "Blizzard" Demo PC

Over the past few months I had been in contact with Sapphire. They had been wanting to do something with me but hadn't decided what yet. Then out of the blue it hits them:E3.

My Mission: To create a Crowd Pleasing from Scratch Demo PC for their new Flagship hardware Debut at E3.

The Problem: E3 was only two weeks away!!

Que Burning Fuse and Mission Impossible music...

I decided to suck it up like the man I was and go for it. I could sleep afterwards.
Who cares about my day job, Pffft, I could do that job in my sleep.
Time to test out that theory in practice.

First I needed a plan. It had to be simple yet eye catching.
Sapphire also wanted an add an element of Mystery to the Unveiling.
I had been dying to try out making an acyrlic case out of this two-way mirror material I had seen on the Net.


In Theory this would not let you see what was inside until the case was turned on and lit.
They liked the Idea and gave it a go.
Kewl..

I didn't have time to make anything super fancy. So I was going to have to go simple.
A cube??
I know its been done.. but I was hoping the Mirror acrylic would make it look more like a chromed cube.
I would also add lots of detail that would fit within the chilly theme.

Here are my initial Corel created rough drafts:


Even I thought that was pretty boring. Then Sapphire revealed to me the name of their new hardware.
I cannot let you know this until the unveiling at E3 but it has to do with cold so..
We frost.

Brrrr...Chilly

Sapphire of course makes Video Cards so I wanted that to be the Main feature of the PC. I wanted the design to draw you to the GPU.


With the planning out of way it was on to production. I ordered all the part necessary to
complete the mod and hoped they would all arrive in a timely manner.

Yeah right, what a joke.

I tried to put the negatives out of my mind and just concentrate on the case itself.
I ordered a sheet of 1/4" mirrored acrylic from my local Regal Plastics and began cutting.

( You will forgive me if there are some magical leaps in production
With all the rushing I neglected to take pics of every single step)

The cube itself was going to be 14" square.
I cut up all the sides and the needed holes for switches and fans, and finished the edges, after wich I began to glue them together with weld-on.

Here you can see my progress. I have 3 sides and the bottom perminately attached with weld-on. This left the back able to be detached for major maintanance, and the top able to be detached for minor maintanance.

Here is an overview of my work area.

As the days progresses this became ever more chaotic.

After I got three sides together I began placing the Motherboard tray.
It would sit directly on the PSU. So for spacing I had two PSU's placed inside to make sure the Mobo tray sat flat and even.


I used these acrylic cubes with threaded holes as mounts.

 

I wanted to create a lighted Mobo tray to subtly light up the top of the case and the frosted vinyl. To make it I used 1/2" lexan with 2- 3" holes drilled through it, mounted to a piece of the Mirrored acylic.
I lit it with a "lighted puck" I made from the drop and some white LEDs.




The top of the Lexan is covered in Frosted Vinyl to catch the light.
The holes around the edge of the MB tray are for IDE and PSU cables.

After everything was put back together I used and old dead mobo for a better idea of spacing.





Here you can see where my Antec Neo PSU sits an the soon to be hole for the
Mobo I/O ports will be.

Now that I had the mobo placement down. I could work on the Graphics.
The inside would also have frosted vinyl applied.


I applied the decals to the inside of the case and cut the hole for the Mobo I/O.



When these are lit up with the white LEDs from the Mobo tray they
should look very "Icy".

 

Now it was time to make some Fan holes for the top piece.


I wanted to stay with my cold theme I had going.
I created a design with corel of a Snowflake fan grill with the Sapphire logo inside. Then I had my buddy, and fellow "Austin Modder", Zapwizard cut them out for me on his handy dandy "Laser".


Even withe the plastic on you can appreciate how frikin cool that is.



and add to that some white LED fans...


I dunno about you but I get chills just looking at it.


Near the end of week one I had the case completely cut and ready for hardware.
(Which I didn' have...yet)

But I did have enough to put the thing together and work on lighting.
I tried a variety of things. Here you see me trying out two white cathodes (not lit) in the top section.
I thought that too much and opted for a single hyper light intead.

To light the bottom I had one blue cathode placed diagonally.



The low light shot on my camera makes the stand out more than they really do. The True life lighting is very subtle and classy.





(A decal in this side has been blurred as to not reveal any secrets. Shhh.)

The dark area above the DVD player bothered me so I created another "light puck"

This time with 3 Blue LED's


Ok, forgot to take picture of the light puck installed, but there will be some good overall shots later... Moving on


At this point in the Mod I have Everything in except the Mobo, Memory, CPU and Vid card. So the top section sits and waits for parts to arrive and another update.



stay tuned...

 

Beautiful job so far! Am building an acrylic cube myself at the moment, though with some different design implementations (obviously, since mine isn't quite built around the Sapphire theme). Great thinking on the design from an "Oh ****, only 2 weeks..."

I would expect nothing less from a colleague of the infamous Zap...you guys out there have some talent!

 

how about removing the blurring of the pics . just kidding.it looks cool n'icy
:edit: where did you buy that mirroring plexi

 

Well, E3 is just about to start (conferences anyways)



It's bound to be finished already, so where's the rest

 

Really nice!

 

Looks Brilliant

 

wow can't wait to see the finished product

 

He said he got the plexi from Regal Plastics.

I have only seen bits and peices of this PC in person, but mirror-plexi rocks.
Hehe, I know the blurry little secret...
/Off topic
Mr.Red (another BT member and AustinModders) was also working on a VIA PC for E3, he finished in time but apparently it's going to be part of a contest rather then a demo PC at the event.

 

I love the snowflake fangrills. What a skills (and nice tools) you guys have. Looking forward to see the case finished.

 

very, very nice so far cant wait to see it finished, I was expecting all white but the blue fits and does make it chilly.

Gd work mate

 

Looks nice

 

links please

 

That would be www.regal-plastics.com
But I didn't get it online. I actually called them here locally and ordered a sheet. Then went and picked it up.
It is some very cool stuff to play with, just very pricey.

Yes, The PC is done and in Cali right now. It will be set up in the Sapphire booth tommorow. I still need to finish uploading pics of the rest of it so I will have an update as soon as I do that. I also Can't "release" certain info until Wed. when they do the unvieling. Then I will "un-blurr" the pics for everyone to see what the cool new hardware is.

 

Wow shel, now I know why your MSN name is always 'Busy Modding' Looks like you've been keeping busy. Glad to hear that. Anyway I'm also happy to hear you're recieving some much needed recognition!

Happy Modding!
-Brad

 

well, thats looking good man, keep up the good work

 

Dammm!!!

This is why you have ern't my respect as the internets best custom case maker sheldog.

Its always exciting to watch your creations come to life , the clean proffesional way you go about your work is amazing.

 

very pro indeed!

more!!!!

 

Woow , looks very good But how much costed all the materials?