A kick-ass case mod makes for a kick-ass PC. It's that simple. No matter whether you're rocking a Sandy Bridge-E or a Celeron, a water-cooled, LED-lit, hand-tailored and custom milled chassis stops traffic and sets lips a-whistlin' like nobody's business, proverbs about books and their covers be damned.
The past six months have seen a flood of truly outstanding case mods hit the Interwebz. So we decided to take the time to showcase the best of the best in (mostly) recent memory -- with a little extra help from master modder Bill Owen of MNPCTech , Case Mod Blog , Mod Men and Maximum PC Star Trek PC fame. Because who knows the cream of the crop better than one of the cream of the crop?
The first 10 mods come hand-picked from Bill himself, while we rounded out the rest of the gallery with even more eye-catching case mods, including six that were chronicled in our very own Maximum PC Modder's Workshop forum . Click on a pic to get an expanded view of it, or hit the links underneath the images to see in-progress work logs of the builds. Enjoy the eye candy!
Lanboy Apocalypse by Bill Owen and Kyle Van Der Merwe. (Yeah, we'll let Bill start off with one of his own. Look at that thing!)
ASUS ROG-TJ11 Diablo III Edtion by Nguyen Dinh Ban (aka nhenhophach)
The inside of the Dinh Ban's Diablo III build is just as purdy as the outside.
MPC-02 by George/SlackerXL
Ultimate Gamer Xtreme ArK by Josh Sniffen/NFC Systems
Project: Synthetica by Alex Ftoulis (aka AnGEL). Final build images start on page 28 of the thread.
Project White PC by Alain Simpels. Looks even better lit up in the dark!
Another beauty from Alain Simpels: CM Silencio 550 Limited Edition
Venom by David Lane (aka MyBadOmen)
EXO PC by Benjamin Franz @ PlexMod.de
War Hardened by Otis Fatz
Now, onto our picks of the best from around the Web. Let's start with AzTtec by Dan McGrath
Welcome to Rapture by Gregory Mórocz, as featured on Bill Owen's Case Mod Blog.
Project Chaos G.T CzK by iReNModz. Image from TechPowerUp.
Blue Nightmare by Faster Benchmarker. Image from TechPowerUp.
Project Stealthlow by Wayne Wilkinson (aka Waynio). Final build images start on page 82 of the massive work log thread.
Does it still count on a case mod if it's a whole desk? It doesn't matter, L3p D3sk by Peter Brands (aka L3p) still makes the cut.
Oil Submerged PC by Macross. Something about oil-submerged PCs gets us every time -- especially if they're tinted green.
The Book by Patrick (aka Paladin). We lied; you can tell this book by its cover. A single picture doesn't do this justice. It actually opens and closes! Hit that link.
Blue Horizon by Keir Graham (aka riekmaharg2)
Now, let's dig into highlights from our own Modder's Workshop forum. First up: BF3.3 by Richi Bowzer (aka Richi123)
Next, Rage in the Machine by TheGreatSatan. Check out the thread for pics of the kick-ass interior!
Bill Owen popped into our forums a while back to chronicle the building of his case mod tribute to the Joss Whedon classics "Serenity" and "Firefly." (No, he didn't pick this!)
The build of the Raptr Battlefield PC by Brian Carter (aka Boddaker) of Bods-Mods.com was detailed in our forums, too.
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's USS Eurisko by Sander (aka Asphiax)! Image taken from the mod's Facebook page. NOTE: see update in the Comments section.
GuavaSauce's Station 6 mod looks great by day, but even more awesome by night. (Hexorg's Matrix mod is pretty kick-ass for a newbie attempt, too.)