Project-X - Building a new Guru3D.com test rig

Right, let's get started. Here we have the chassis which just arrived from SmoothCreations out of the US and A. So this chassis is our basis for the new 2009 GPU test system. I had an offer I could not refuse from Smooth Creations who loved to do the paint job based on my design.

The innards of this Silverstone chassis are painted black, making it fantastic for VGA photography in combo with a dark motherboard. Everything about the design was based on my flavor, and then on a more practical level .. for product photography in mind. There's a lot of little details though that we'll happily show you.

The outside I wanted to be done in my taste, black/blue the Guru3D.com theme colors with the combo of blue flames. It's a little screamy I know that .. but this is a one of a kind unique PC. And if if it ever goes on display somewhere .. it should at least be eye catching, right? I just love the blue flames with the Guru3D fonts and logo embedded into the design.

The chassis is a Silverstone Temjin TJ-10 which is an all-aluminum chassis for optimal cooling, and has a unique air duct dedicated with graphics card cooling in mind. The TJ10 is available in multiple SKUs. The TJ10 is available in silver and black (the SST-TJ10S and SST-TJ10B) and with or without a window (the SST-TJ10B-W and SST-TJ10S-W are the window editions).

The chassis has seven expansion slots and one 120mm fan at the rear of the chassis. The TJ10 also has two predrilled holes to use for water-cooling. The mesh under the Guru3D logo is for graphics cooling, thus more ventilation.

In this system we'll put a ASUS Rampage II Extreme x58 motherboard, DDR3 1600 MHz and pimping a 1200 Watt PSU, to be future proof for a while with the growing multi GPU trend. Though I seriously hope never to actually reach that level of power consumption.

Once we open up the side-panel we stumble into loads of little details. First off, the paintjob is done inside and outside. So the black base color with blue flames will be visible everywhere, except on the mainboard tray. And even empty that chassis is already looking pretty tasty in my eyes.