The Phenom project is a monster of a case mod project with a team headed by Bill Owen, who has brought us some fantastic looking case mods in the past. Recently we featured the Ghostrider case mod, but Phenom looks to be the most ambitious project to date.  Interested in Bill’s ongoing work, I emailed him and asked a few questions.  He was kind enough to respond and give me a little information about his latest project.

If you are interested in modding and want to get some ideas of what’s involved in a big project, please read on.  The email interview, a few photos and a very interesting You Tube video are included after the jump.  The specs that this monster is going to have are truly mind blowing.  I heard mention of quad PCI, new Phenom FX processor and Bill makes mention of a 128GB SSD.  I would love to see this thing powering multi-monitor Call of Duty 4 or Crysis.  Wouldn’t it be great if AMD could bankroll all of our PC projects?

What is your background and how did you get into modding PCs?
I’m a custom car and motorcycle nut. My father taught me how to restore and customize old cars. I was never interested in computer hardware until a friend who built his own PCs came over to revamp my 75Mhz Dell. I studied the entire transformation, and saw a parallel between what he was doing and my own custom cars. Build a better beast! Thats what planted the seed for my business, Mnpctech.com and pro case modding.

What was the most challenging project that you have ever worked on and why?
I had less than one month to build a new custom PC for the cover of a magazine. They wanted something themed after a Corvette. The end result was the CPU StingRay.

Creating a one-of-a-kind PC that must grab the viewers attention can be very stressful. I also do case mod video tutorials for my YouTube Page. I do all of the video without any script or pre-planning, that can be very challenging!

How long does it take to see a project through to completion?
Anywhere from a few hours to 12 months depending upon the size and complexity of the project. The PimpRig Tribute PC project, spanned over a year, but thats because it’s progress was fueled by member donations from PCApex.com

What aspects of modding are easiest and what are more time consuming?
I’ve always found that brainstorming ideas was the easiest part for me. I can’t escape from thinking of new ideas for computer designs. They hatch in my head like baby spiders. Most time consuming? That would be fabrication or engineering something for a customized task. The majority of my ideas have never been done, so I don’t have the luxury of using something else for reference

Can you give us any idea about what the Phenom is going to have under the hood other than the new offering from AMD?
The new SwordM case we received from Thermaltake is extrodinary. It’s the first case I’ve seen with removable extruded aluminum side panels and gas hydraulic actuators. It’s a shame that I’ll be throwing the panels away for new ones Haha! We’re milling new panels from 1/4″ thick aircraft aluminum. The case’s new design will remind you of a spaceship’s airlock door. Lucky for us, AMD owns ATI. I’ve been told by my sources that the Next-Generation CrossFire video technology will be the best platform for performance along with upgradeability that’s never been seen before with support beyond 2 GPUs. We’re waiting confirmation from CoolIT about using their new Freezone Elite CPU cooler. We’re currently talking to SuperTalent about using their SSD hard drive (128GB SATA model #FSD28GC25M) Powering everything will be Thermaltake’s 1200W Toughpower SLI, Cross-Fire Ready Modular Power Supply. We waiting for delivery of Razor’s new Lycosa keyboard and Razor Mako 2.1 advanced desktop audio system. We’re planning on using a 32″ LCD monitor, but haven’t decided upon a brand/model yet.

The Phenom Project is looking truly awesome and if they can make it look half as good as their sketch, there will be a lot of people wishing that this was not one of a kind.

Source: Mnpctech

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