Product: 3D Mercury chassis
Company: Gigabyte
Info: website
Dealer (EU): Dollarshops.eu

One of the many trends we've seen over the past years has been case aesthetics (nicely designed rigs) and the importance of cooling. Let's explain a little. See it was merely five years ago when we all had dull beige colored towers hidden next to your computer desk as well .. they really where ugly weren't they. Then we all saw these lovely designed iMacs and figured .. hmm. Closely after 2001 we saw the industry make a shift towards new designs, pre-modified cases, colors .. in the end where we are now, really good stuff, nice materials.

A second trend we spotted was the increasing demand for exotic cooling mechanisms. We have air cooling, peltier (TEC) cooling, phase-change cooling and a lot of variants based on these. The one cooling solution that everybody hated became extraordinary popular. Yes, cooling your PC down with water. See everybody is so afraid of leaks .. water plus highly sensitive (and expensive) components just do not mix we all figured.

Well, time most certainly did change on that topic as well as water-cooling has become very accepted for the masses. And when I say masses we land into a spot in the sales-channel they call mainstream. Mainstream products simply mean that masses of people at the very least are interested in buying such a product.

For a product to become mainstream it will need to meet several requirements. The product must be appealing, easy to use and install and be priced right. In short; the majority of consumers must find the product interesting and affordable.

Gigabyte is a company with a great R&D team, they know for fact that water-cooling is a hip thing to do, they know it should be easy to install and use and they know it has to be aesthetically pleasing. With that in mind two years ago they started a cooling and chassis team which has some very creative ideas.

When a team is creative and the will is there to actually produce something which meets the variables for the mainstream market then you can have a small success on your hands, for today's product I believe that's the case. We'll be reviewing their pre-installed PC Chassis with built in water-cooling. With a design that is esthetically pleasing, innovative functions and some really great ideas over the next pages you'll be strolling through the product that is called the 3D Mercury; next page please where we'll start off with the review.