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Stalled H2O-Micro (sub 3 Liter Custom Watercooled Gaming Rig)
- Thread starter QinX
- Start date
Oh dear god that looks awesome. I envy your rendering skills, maybe I'll ask you to do mine at some point in the future.
I love milled parts, they give design flexibility you otherwise don't have and can look absolutely awesome, and with a case as small as yours you can profit from that without making the case ridiculously expensive.
I love milled parts, they give design flexibility you otherwise don't have and can look absolutely awesome, and with a case as small as yours you can profit from that without making the case ridiculously expensive.
This project is phenomenal, and ranks as one of the very best SFF builds I have seen, for what it's worth. The dedication to the micro-niche is the best part--not compromising on your goals allows this to be the very best it can be.
I just wish I came even LATER to this thread so I didn't have to wait to see its completion!
I just wish I came even LATER to this thread so I didn't have to wait to see its completion!
Is it bad that I feel kinda good that Zotac has done what I have done but they did it "worse" in terms of size?
I believe that you have the right to feel good, because you did a fantastic job. With less space at that, it's definitely note worthy and admirable!
You should feel great! Not only did you do the same thing (albeit with a 970) and put it in a much smaller box, you also managed to do it with pretty much stock hardware. Those guys seriously need to step up their game. The profile of your build was much, much nicer, too.
That's because QinX developed his with a passion and a goal, with no regard to production capability (right ?), while Zotac's engineer(s) was(were) probably only thinking about filling the checkboxes and the paycheck at the end of the month, all carefully wrapped with red tape from management that outlined certain goals that are hard to meet.
Thanks for all the kind words everyone, I wish I had a way of bringing this to market at low volume, but that would involve me getting my own CNC mill and that isn't planned for quite some time.
@j0rd I disagree that the Zotac is built to a price. Or at least it doesn't have the price to match it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...132&cm_re=magnus_EN980-_-56-173-132-_-Product
You get a barebones system that is watercooled, but only comes with a motherboard, CPU, GPU and the case itself and it costs you $1600.
A Core i5-6400 costs you about $180
A GTX 980 costs about $450
Add the Motherboard, AIO cooler, Case and powerbrick in at around $350
That's under $1000 and I'm taking retail pricing
Sure R&D takes a bunch of money, but designing and milling some waterblocks doesn't take millions.
@j0rd I disagree that the Zotac is built to a price. Or at least it doesn't have the price to match it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...132&cm_re=magnus_EN980-_-56-173-132-_-Product
You get a barebones system that is watercooled, but only comes with a motherboard, CPU, GPU and the case itself and it costs you $1600.
A Core i5-6400 costs you about $180
A GTX 980 costs about $450
Add the Motherboard, AIO cooler, Case and powerbrick in at around $350
That's under $1000 and I'm taking retail pricing
Sure R&D takes a bunch of money, but designing and milling some waterblocks doesn't take millions.
Why? Are contractors that expensive, or is there some other reason that prevents you from getting it made by an external manufacturer? I'm pretty sure you'll find at least 20 people who'd want to buy a kit.
- Jul 19, 2015
- 818
- 1,359
my point is that its built to hit a specific cost to produce and distribute and a specific margin of profit as opposed to being built to meet a standard of quality, fit & finish, etc first. IMO your work looks like its designed up to a standard, their looks like its designed down to a cost.
Pretty much that, Considering the amount of custom milled parts, the setup costs are too big of a hurdle right now for me to swallow.
And it is not just the milled parts, in general this project has much more small bits and pieces that require either a MOQ of 50+ or are too expensive in low volume.
And I guess I could go with a pre-order or kickstarter type setup but I would have to spend quite some time updating parts, who wants a GTX970 nowadays
.So as mentioned earlier, yes I do intend to in the future pick this back up and actually launch this as a product, although at a high price low volume product. But I am open to suggestions.
Ah like that. Yes of course, they need to squeeze every bit of money out of it to make it more worthwhile.
Even if your case/block is limited to a very specific set of hardware, so is the Zotac, and they apparently think they can sell enough units even at that high price to justify R&D and marketing.
Broad hardware compatibility comes at the expense of size, so it's a tradeoff.
Broad hardware compatibility comes at the expense of size, so it's a tradeoff.
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