Modding - Page 2

Water cooling can be a pretty fun process, but also somewhat scary if you don't quite know what you're doing. And that's why ASUS partnered with INWIN, Bitspower, Kingston (HyperX), NVIDIA, Intel and Cooler Master during the ASUS Australia 2016 PC water cooling event in Sydney, Australia at the University of Sydney this past weekend to give Australian retailers and Sydney-based PC enthusiasts all the info they need to be water cooling professionals. We prepared a video from the event, embedded below.

The whole event had a great turnout, with a lot of different examples of water cooled PC's, from the more extreme, modded variety all the way to the other end of the spectrum with modest examples of what can be done with proper water cooling parts.

It was all about showing off the different ways in which it can be used and how efficient it can be, and how complicated it is not. Really, the scariest part is wondering if the tubes you connected were done so with a proper seal. But other than that, water cooling, as this event showed, is a splendid idea for everyone. And now a variety of retailers all have the knowledge and power to help just about anyone plan their build, no matter how complex it might be.

Is will most likely not improve the sound, but at least it looks quite cool. This little 'build log' video on Facebook outlines how you might go about re-shelling your beloved earphones with two spent bullet casings.

This handy 'guide' goes through the process step-by-step, showing how you can use simple household tools in order to complete the job. With the tool list including things like a drill, hacksaw and pieces of sandpaper with various grit ratings, doing it yourself shouldn't really take more than an hour.

If you're interested in doing this yourself, watch the video posted by Best Knives above.

Packed with 118 parts and the capability to construct three different chassis types depending on your needs, the AeroCool Dream Box DIY kit is a seriously interesting invention.

While you're provided with a plethora of parts including aluminum frame pipes, various connectors, mounting C-rings and more, this creativity kit comes at a price - being $149.90 MSRP. Released as part of AeroCool's 'Free Your Imagination' contest, this pack also comes with in-depth manuals and an installation video for those looking for some inspiration.

While not completely unlimited in use, this three-chassis kit may be a sign of things to come. Interested? It's available to buy right now.

If you're a prospective tinkerer or modder of all things PC, and you live in Australia, then you'll love the AMD Modder Manifest project that's set to kick off next month.

The project is designed by two very prolific modders in the community that want to show off relatable and realistic examples of modding, park picking and really how modding is done. They're focusing on entry-level gaming to show that modding can be an activity for everyone with every budget.

The project will run for six weeks and have weekly updates showing off the progress they'll make. You can sign-up to participate right here. After the first project, more will happen for six weeks at a time with appropriate increases in value and performance of the parts. The winner can win a modded gaming system.

To celebrate the release of its WP100 chassis, Thermaltake has announced the '2016 Modding Fighting Championship' (MFC).

The first round will see world-renown modder and winner of the 2015 Thermaltake CaseMOD competition (season one) Suchao Prowphong from Thailand take on Jesse "JP Modified" Palacio, the winner of Thermaltake's 2015 CaseMOD season two.

This mod-off involves these two master artists creating a system build that suits their styles and will be showcased in the Tt Community forum starting from March 2016. Both of these experts will be using Thermaltake's liquid cooling, digital power supplies (RGB models) and a Core WP100 Super Tower each.

If you've been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of press releases and news articles to come from CES 2016 in las Vegas, soothe your eyes on this slightly old yet stunning build called Project Grey.

Created by Malik Customs, this build was spotted on the Ocaholic Facebook as part of its 'Rig of the day' series, featuring a Phanteks Enthoo Primo Ultimate chassis, housing an ASUS Z97-AR motherboard.

This grey and blue highlighted system is simplistic and packs a cooling punch thanks to EK Water Blocks fittings throughout, further incorporating an ASUS Xonar Essence STX II 7.1 sound card to ensure it's not only just for looks, it would make a stellar gaming PC too.

Someone has created a working lightsaber using laser-light as it's basis. Well, it's not quite a light-saber, but just a really bright and powerful 7W blue-diode laser that doesn't really resemble a lightsaber at all. But he's calling it one, so there's that I suppose.

In reality the individual in the video, styropyro, actually built his own laser using a rather 7W Nichia made GaN diode that runs at a maximum of 4.6A. His design uses a wavelength that just happens to be highly visible to the human eye. This laser definitely can cut, though slowly, through a variety of materials. Just don't expect it to be able to lop off limbs.

The great thing is that all of the parts used to make this pseudo-saber are actually publicly available in most regions. You can theoretically make a very powerful laser all on your own, well beyond the 7W power-envelope of the one in the video. But just be very safe if you do, and always wear eye-protection when playing with lasers.

Adidas has partnered with its environmental group Parley for the Oceans to design a 3D-printed shoe created in part with garbage found in the ocean.

As of now, it's in the concept stage and comprises an upper made with plastic sourced from the ocean, and a 3D-printed midsole made with recycled polyester and gillnets (specialized nets used to catch fish and sometimes left in the ocean).

"World leaders forging an agreement is wonderful, but we shouldn't need to be told to do the right thing," says Eric Liedtke, adidas Group Executive Board member responsible for Global Brands. "The industry can't afford to wait for directions any longer. Together with the network of Parley for the Oceans, we have started taking action and creating new sustainable materials and innovations for athletes. The 3D-printed ocean plastic shoe midsole stands for how we can set new industry standards if we start questioning the reason of what we create. We want to bring everyone from the industry to the table and create sustainable solutions for big global problems."

If you're thinking about making, downloading or tinkering with a 3D-printed gun file, you might want to think again. Reports have come to light stating that the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) doesn't take to this kindly, offering hefty jail time to anyone who might want a gun file of their own.

Last week, the NSW Government passed its Firearms and Weapons Prohibition Legislation Amendment Bill 2015, with one section stating that simply owning a 3D blueprint of a firearm can land you up to 14 years in jail.

With incarceration also extended to owning plans for "electric milling machines," this new legislation marks further action against illegal real-life weaponry, offering up harsher penalties to those with stolen guns or others who are keen on making illegal firearm modifications.

During the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, Intel spent a lot of time promoting the "Maker" craze in the current world. Intel corporate strategy officer Genevieve Bell believes it's a great time in the maker movement, with Intel interested in supporting new technology ecosystems created by developers.

Intel is a supporter of the Maker Faire and of Make magazine, with growing popularity in the print publication and global maker events.

"It's never been a more exciting and accessible time to invent the future," Bell said during IDF. "It's about changing the world, in small ways and big ways. It's about breaking the rules. Possibilities and disruption. Hard work. Solitary or collaborative. It's not always clear what you are doing. It involves curiosity. It certainly involves failures. It is exhilarating. Sometimes people resist it. To me, that is making."

Tech modding expert Dave Bennett is a kind of emulation wizard who is responsible for many improbable wonders like running PlayStation 2 games on a smartphone as well as playing Valve's epic puzzler Portal on Android. Bennett's latest achievement let's you play Half-Life on a smartwatch. Not that most of us would ever want to play Valve's epic FPS on a smartwatch, but it's still a pretty impressive spectacle nonetheless.

According to the modder, the SDLash3D app is able to emulate Valve's old-school GoldSource game engine that powered classic titles like Team Fortress Classic (which is also playable on Android). While working on making Half-Life run on a phone, on a lark Bennett tried it on his Android Wear-powered LG G smartwatch.

And it worked. As you can see for yourself in the video, Half-Life's unforgettable monorail scene starts up and runs on the tiny 1.65-inch screen. The framerates flux anywhere from 2FPS to an impressive 30FPS, and of course, the game is practically unplayable in itself, but it only goes to show you how versatile Android really is.

Set out to ensure your AMD Radeon R9 Fury X is single-slot in sizing, EK Water Blocks has designed and announced its new full-coverage water block.

Set for sale soon, this water cooling block is rumored to be released in two different materials according to TechPowerUp - exposed copper and nickel-plated copper. These materials will sit alongside clear acrylic and acetal covers.

Featuring a single-channel for the GPU and VRM, there's an included micro-channel lattice for the GPU and the extended option to purcahse a single-slot bracket for the Fury X display I/O.

Computex 2015 - Complete with a G1 Gaming battle elephant and a GIGABYTE titan, this motherboard and video card manufacturer has joined the modding movement, adding a few alternate and awesome builds to its arsenal in Taipei, Taiwan.

The Elephant offers a Z97-XUD5H motherboard and was designed and built by Suchao Prowphong from Thailand, featuring a great yellow and black color scheme complete with a top-mounted cannon. Known for his amazing ThermalTHOR and Core X 2 Furious mods in the past, this is another fantastic rendition by the Thai modding master.

As for the Titan, we unfortunately don't have much information beside that fact it looks incredible.

Suchao Prowphong is no newbie to master mods, showcasing his amazing ThermalThor hammer mod in mid 2014 to the public.

Hailing from Thailand, this full-time farmer is certainly nothing to scoff at and has titled his new entry 'Core X 2 furious' - it is becoming apparent that Prowphong certainly loves his action movies.

Complete with two different Intel i5 CPUs and a great white color scheme, the only other Thermaltake CaseMOD entry we have covered so far with such a setup is Stuart Tonk's (AUS) dual Intel Xeon entry.

Hailing from the United Kingdom, master modder Richi 'rchiileea+richi' Bowzer has been selected as one of seven modders to go head to head with other big names that TweakTown has already covered in Thermaltake's caseMOD invitational competition - check out Stuart Tonks (AUS) and Fabio Moma (JP).

Looking a little different from most mods you will see in this day and age, Bowzer quotes his expansive computer history as part of his modding know-how, stating "how old am I? well old enough to know you can run a AMD K2 without a heat sink for a few minutes, and to also know a small company called abit only released mobos with German translated manuals" all while navigating through a dial-up connection.

With the theme of this case being titled as 'Illusionist', Bowzer has gone about integrating the Thermaltake Core X9 case on offer with a fancy painted color scheme coupled with a cool 16GB of Avexir Blitz 1.1 RAM.

Thermaltake has been promoting its global modding competition like crazy recently, with seven modders chosen from countries around the world to represent their homeland in a 'mod-off'.

Bringing his best to the table is the Australian modder Stuart Tonks, showcasing his build which features a dual-CPU laden ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS motherboard coupled with three ASUS NVIDIA STRIX GeForce GTX 980's and no less than three SSDs.

If that's not impressive enough, the full Thermaltake watercooling setup within is finished off with a built-in 24" 1080p touchscreen.

We've covered this gigantic chassis before, seeing numerous modders around the globe tackle this Goliath in their own special way.

Milo Majlow Lihoťan has just shared his own stacker project, named "Vodovodárenske" and featuring SLI video cards alongside a complete and custom water cooling setup.

Running on the backbone of an MSI MPower X99S, with two MSI GTX 780 Lightning video cards and a full water cooling setup featuring parts from companies like EK Water Blocks and Alphacool - this build really does 'stack up'.

As seen on the Watercooled PC Facebook page, modder Ilija Dakic has posted his preliminary plans and intentions for a seriously awesome PC mod project.

As you can see from the image above, he's looking to take AMD's CPU project literally - producing a 'BULLDOZER' build featuring an AMD chip as its core.

He has begun the journey by making these few drawings to illustrate the design concept and idea, following it up with some real life sticky tape-laden examples and then furthering it with specific measurements and analysis.

Built by a modder named Hukkel from Dutch Lion Customising this fantastic Antec P830 is packed full of goodies from MSI, GeiL, Bitspower and more.

This SLI-graphics system packs some seriously beautiful watercooling routing with the utmost care being taken in order to make sure every single tube looks like its part of an art feature, helping tie the project together as a whole.

What's different about this build also is the engraved company logos alongside the Antec cutouts, helping make this one of the best modded systems we have seen yet.

Bitspower are once again in our spotlight, with Łukasz Płonka sharing his new project in progress on the Watercooled PC Facebook page.

This fancy photography shows off what is probably the cutest and also most beautiful water cooling components that I've ever seen. There's something about the dark metal contrasting with the crystal clear shell displaying a cool blue liquid interior that makes this something special.

We can't wait to see what Lukasz comes up with, stay tuned for updates as his build progresses.