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PERFORMANCE Serious gamers stop at nothing to give their PCs an
advantage |
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Out in Hanover,
about 10 hardcore computer gamers gather every Wednesday in the space Chuck
Shevlin Jr. has created for them above his garage. They're not your average gamers, and the
computers they hook up to the in-house network aren't your typical beige and
black boxes. Window panels on nearly every case reveal colored lights,
blinking fans and, in one case, a battle between various Lord of the Rings
characters. That's just the start of it. Ask people in the
area who know their computers, and you'll hear about car heater fans put to
creative use, tachometers keyed to a processor's usage, and water-based
cooling systems that look like they were pulled from some futuristic Honda. Like the car-minded gear-heads of a previous
generation, some gaming enthusiasts take "custom-built computers"
to the extreme, giving their computers enough cooling capacity to handle
state-of-the-art games and, more often than not, little extras that grab
attention at a gaming event. And Western New York has no lack of enthusiasm
for those bells and whistles. Delphi
Harrison Thermal Systems, the Lockport-based unit of Troy, Mich.-based Delphi
Corp., unveiled their new "XMS HydroCool 200 Xtreme Water Cooling
System," in March, a liquid cooling system specifically targeted to
gamers who increase the running speed of their processors - or
"overclock" - and need extra thermal protection. While
"ultimate gaming computers" and their components have until now
been available mainly through specialized mail-order companies, some larger
retailers have begun catering to a growing market of users looking for more
than just the latest video card. Dell, the second-largest
manufacturer of personal computers, recently began offering the Dimension
XPS, which it promotes as "built for the hardcore gamer," with
upgraded thermal and power controllers, high-end video and sound cards, and a
blue and silver chassis. While not exactly cutting edge in the world of
"modding," it is a step away from Dell's traditional black and gray
cases for home and office computers. Lionel
Menchaca, a Dell spokesman, said the XPS is the result of consumer demand for
machines designed for gaming. The company, however, is treading carefully
into the market. "The XPS
is different enough to get attention, but without some of the features you'll
see in serious users' computers. It's the first generation of something that
we see as a growing market," said Menchaca. CompUSA has
also been turning heads in some of its stores, with a "Custom-Built
Computers" section that lets customers upgrade individual components of
a computer and puts them in customized cases. At the store's
Amherst location on Niagara Falls Boulevard, one of a handful of stores
testing out the idea, the big hit is a jet-black case with two tubes on the
front, filled with air bubbles and constantly changing color. One dentist
loved the look so much, she recently bought three of them for her office. "It's
mostly young people, kids going to college that pick these out, but there are
some older people looking at them," said Frank DeAgro, store manager.
"By now, they've already had one computer, and maybe now they're looking
for something different." Steve Gornick,
tech services manager for the store, said that while after-market
modifications remain mostly a do-it-yourself market - and the store caters to
it, offering an increasingly wide line of fans, kits and other accessories - some
veteran builders are starting to take the bait. "There
was a point in time where building your own system could be a pretty good
savings. But with us, you're getting a two or three year warranty, and you're
assured that we use quality parts," said Gornick. At the Game Players Anonymous den in Hanover,
the roots of members' love for thinking outside the beige box doesn't fit
neatly into any one category; it's part envy, part showmanship, and a large
part having nothing else to do. "Boredom leads to a lot of the things we
do," said Greg Maze, a Wednesday-night regular whose case utilizes
cut-up plastic soft drink bottles for air intake. "It's also like,
"Wow, look what he's got,' but that can actually help. When one of us
gets an upgrade, we pass the old part on to someone else, and it keeps
feeding itself." Some modifications require only fitting another
fan in place, or attaching a light somewhere in the case. Once users move to
installing water-cooling systems such as Shevlin's, or attempting to overclock
their CPU, they begin moving into less innocuous territory, sometimes with
costly results. Aaron
Kondziela is a former technician at Parkside Computing and chief information
officer at Cyberjocks, a computer gaming center in Amherst that opened in March.
When gamers bring in their cases for all-night network parties, he sees the
full spectrum of cases, from exquisite briefcase conversions to deliberately
shoddy-looking setups made entirely of duct tape and cardboard. From his years
of experience taking parts in and out of computers, he hopes their owners
aren't making the same mistakes he's made in the past. "It's
great to see kids come in, look at each other's cases and come up with crazy
new ideas," said Kondziela. "But for the most part, they don't know
what they're doing." At one
training session, Kondziela saw that just moving a foot around a regular
carpet can generate 700 to 800 volts of static electricity; the first damage
to computer components can occur at around 20 volts. As such, he recommends
either doing work on a workbench with hard floors, or using static-free mats
or wristbands that attach to the case and ground the person working on it. |
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