Extreme machines

Don't like your PC's beige box? Think the chip's just too darned slow? Join the DIY enthusiasts who have turned customisation into an art form. Michael Pollitt reports

There's a new breed of PC user around: the modders. Opening the cover of their PC - which most people quail at - is just the start for them. They add extra components, boost the CPU beyond the manufacturers' stated specifications, even cool their processors with water rather than air. Their PCs may also have illuminated interiors, spray-painted designs and cut-away acrylic windows. Why? Because they can. And because they want to.

There's a new breed of PC user around: the modders. Opening the cover of their PC - which most people quail at - is just the start for them. They add extra components, boost the CPU beyond the manufacturers' stated specifications, even cool their processors with water rather than air. Their PCs may also have illuminated interiors, spray-painted designs and cut-away acrylic windows. Why? Because they can. And because they want to.

If you're a typical PC owner, you might add more memory to your machine; the adventurous may install a bigger disk drive, replace the graphics card or build their own systems. Thanks to the PC's modular design, it's not difficult. But most have an off-the-shelf model from a firm such as Dell, Compaq or IBM that's guaranteed and comes with technical support. It's boring, but safe.

Modders are different. They want better, faster, more attractive - everything that's cool. Modders think nothing of spending months turning a PC case into a piece of art, or turbo-charging the system for ultimate performance. The newest, fastest processors and graphics cards are de rigueur: AMD's new 64-bit CPU gets a loving review on bit-tech.net, a major modding site.

It's a growing interest that's spawned several websites, received specialist magazine coverage, and boosted sales for manufacturers, who have been especially happy, because modders buy expensive cutting-edge products. But why alter the appearance or performance of something that is perfectly satisfactory? Ask Carl White of themodhouse.co.uk. He set up the online retail business in January after several years' modding experience while working as a builder. After a bricks-to-bytes career move, he now supplies modding components full-time.

When he started modding, he says, "I ended up with four computer cases, I just couldn't do enough. You're expressing yourself, putting a part of you into your case and knowing that it looks good. I didn't overclock [speed up the processor] straight away, though, it took me two years to become brave enough."

As a former builder, Mr White is adept with tools and has avoided disasters that might befall less-experienced modders. He says that good planning for a typical two-month project is important. His favourite project was modding an expensive aluminium PC case: "I cut a shaped window into the top, a side window and added cold cathode lights and LEDs. It's fantastic."

The system, based on an AMD processor, is overclocked and will shortly be water-cooled. Overclocking means setting system speeds above the factory ratings, usually through simple but risky adjustments. This causes processors to generate more heat, which is dispersed via bigger heatsinks, variable-speed fans or through water cooling. Voided warranties, burned-out components and damaging water leaks don't worry serious modders.

Currently the owner of several modded PCs, White spends around £300 per month on modifications and new hardware, occasionally selling his creations to make way for fresh challenges. The latest involves a transparent PC case, lights and clear UV-reactive paint. He discusses projects via the online forums - good places to pick up the latest trends. "UV-reactive products and extreme cooling are the next big thing. For example, you can add cable braiding that glows under UV lighting while cooling is used for overclocked processors, graphics cards and the Northbridge chipset on the motherboard," he says.

Another modder, Dave Williams, undertakes demonstration projects for a modding website under the nickname "Macroman". An electronics engineer and now a systems analyst working in the glass industry, Williams has been modding radios, building hi-fis and upgrading washing machines (by adding new programmes) since childhood. His PCs have been modded for convenience and cosmetic reasons over the past six years. His most successful project is a black-mirror finish PC that reveals an illuminated interior when powered up. Photographs of the stunning Macro Black are on Bit-tech. net, which gets around 200,000 visitors a month. If you're inspired by Williams's ideas of perfection, then it's not expensive to begin modding standard cases. Extreme modders will build their cases from scratch.

"You can spend £100 modding a case or you can spend hundreds of pounds. Modding appeals to a very wide range of people. Although most are in the 14-24 age bracket, we have people in their fifties and sixties doing it. They just want that stamp of individuality," says Williams.

So big has modding grown that it even has its own publication. Live Publishing's PC Extreme claims to be the first magazine to be targeted at the serious PC hobbyist. The group editor Dave Cusick says the title provides "the most extreme modding guides in the business", as well as hardware reviews and features on topics such as overclocking. Manufacturers are keen to advertise in the magazine, which was launched last December. "We get lots of e-mail from readers saying how glad they are that someone's launched a magazine like this. There have been websites on these topics for two or three years, but we broke new ground by bringing this stuff to the news-stand," says Cusick.

Another title is Dennis Publishing's Custom PC, and there are new "extreme" sections in PC Pro and PC Format. The websites bit-tech.net and hexus.net cover the subject in depth, with forums containing numerous modding projects. Cusick says manufacturers are responding to modders' demands. "We're already seeing 'pre-modded' cases with windows, cold cathode lights, that kind of thing, and we'll see more in the future. Most come from smaller system builders at the moment, but the major manufacturers will soon catch on."

At Novatech, the Portsmouth-based PC builder, sales of pre-modded cases, lights and other components are growing, says the purchasing and product manager Kriss Pomroy. The company is also introducing pre-modded PCs built to customer specifications using an online configurator. "We're bringing the benefits of modding to the mass market," says Pomroy. "I expect our business in this segment to increase 10-fold over the next 12 months."

Will modding change our view on how computers should look? PC Extreme's Dave Cusick thinks so: "Ultimately modding is likely to have an even bigger influence on PC-case design than Apple's iMac did. PCs don't have to be boring beige boxes, they can be attractive as well as useful."

Meanwhile, the modding phenomenon gathers speed. More extreme modders have used small motherboards inside bespoke cases that look like toasters, ammunition boxes or radios. Yet despite outlandish appearances, such systems still function like conventional PCs - or perhaps better - and they're coming to a desktop near you.