Evil Empire Gaming

Relic's Rig - finished

Last weekend was the GO3 Electronics Exhibition Lan... and I finally finished the Rig.

Here are some progress pics:

The air duct for the scoop (this took a long time to get right)

Inside the filter (so did this)

I redid the axles and added clear acrylic legs to support the weight. They're not in that pic and they're meant to be discreet anyway.

Some finished product pics: 1 2 3 4

Current specs:
Athlon X2 4200 with a Thermalright XP-90C, a Vantec Tornado and Dual Corsair CMX-4000's on an Asus A8N-SLI deluxe MB.
2 x 74G Raptors and 1 200G drive.

UPDATE: Nic has uploaded his interview with Keita

Read on and click on the links for the whole story!

Just before the Lan I upgraded to an 8800GTX and a 24" widescreen. I also bought a copy of Supreme Commander

So anyway I got a lot of people come and talk to be about the case.
One of them was a Lan organiser who said it was a shame there wasn't any mod comp because I would have won it.
I said "Where is it?" and so he offered to get me a few goodies and came back with a couple of nice nvidia mugs and one of those personal fans. Happy with that.

Later I came back to my PC to find a couple of guys checking it out. I could tell they were from the nvidia stand.
They also had lots of nice things to say and asked me all about it. They came back later with "Mr Gigabyte Australia".
Turns out this it was Keita Iida, Director of Content Management and his partner was the Australian Channel Manager.

So I went back to trying out Supreme Commander for a while (its pretty speccy for an RTS) until another Lan organiser came to see me. This time he took some of my details and then asked if I could bring my PC up to the admin desk.
They wanted to get some people to talk about their case and what they had done.
I was quite happy to do that so it ended up on a table with 4 other PCs.

One of the nvidia guys get on the mic and gathers everyone around to interview each of us.
He says talked about how people like us support the industry and how they were inspired by what we had done with our cases and had decided to have a competition for the best case.
There was one case that stood out - mainly because it was old, beige and completely unmodded.
But it was included and the owner did all the same things we did, including having a photo with the nvidia girls.

Eventually he went through each case and asked the crowd to cheer as a way of voting for their favourite.
The prize: A Gigabyte 8800GTX.
I got a pretty good cheer but the last case (the beige one) got the loudest. The crowd obviously decided to vote based on who needed the card more - even though ieveryone knew he couldn't use it.
Fortunately there was a second prize, which was also an 8800GTX.
And yes, it comes with a copy of Supreme Commander :P

So my head is spinning at this point, but its not over yet.
I chatted to people for a while and then got called back to my case, which is still on the desk.
Keita points me out to a guy who asks if I would mind answering a few questions about the Rig.
I say that's fine and he introduces himself as Nic from Microsoft, then gets his microphone and turns to his cameraman (who I had failed to notice) and gets straight into it. I can't remember a lot of the questions because I was in overload by this point.
I explained a few of the specs and said something about airflow. Remembered to thank nvidia when talking about the prize.
Oh and gave a plug to the website where people can get more info: evem.org.au. :D
If the video gets published you'll find it here.
Nic's title is "Enthusiast Evangelist". Its written on his card.

But I'm not out of the twilight zone yet. Next, Nic is interviewing Keita and he's arranging the background shot for it.
Keita wants the nvidia logo on the front of the desk and the Rig just behind him. I stepped in to move it for him as it now weighs even more.

They go on to do their interview and I'm standing back thinking that I should be charging an appearance fee! ;)

I went from being happy with my promo mug to getting much more than I expected.
And yes, I have managed to squeeze the second 8800 in so I can try out SLI. Its... nice. :>

A big thanks to all the event organisers, particularly the Lan admins, and to all the sponsors - especially Gigabyte and nvidia!
It was a great Lan and hopefully the GO3 exhibition will come around again bigger and better.

Also to the people who gave me help, ideas and advice:
Steve Ponting (where it all started)
Michael Vlahos (for some authenticity!)
Nicole Smith (for putting up with all the "shed time")

And some of the businesses who unwittingly assisted me with parts (random order):
Rare Spares
Stanbridges hobby shop
stickerart.com.au
pccasegear.com.au
Bunnings
ple.com.au
DMA
Elcotronics
Summit Racing

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