PC customization has exploded in recent years, but it's important to remember that computer customization has always been around.

That's too much money for metal object with a bland paint job.

It's also too bulky to move, and the handles would be useless because of the dimensions.

And no power button? No switches? No USB or Firewire ports? If this was an entry in one of your computer cases shootouts it would have got a failing grade!

Next time, let me design it. I'm more into fashion and advertising, but I could do this well.

Ya no kidding. Why would you buy a 1500 custom built case when the first thing you have to do is customize it yourself to include at the very least, a power and reset switch??? I will stick with antec.

This is a joke right?

The case itself is not too bad....
The build quality is top notch.....

The lack of a power button.....well it kind of sucks....but one could live with it....

The lack of hard drive space does kind of contradict your drawings. Who can live with one hard drive and no rear exhaust fan?

Just out of personal opinion.....
your drawn case would have been better....the big ass THG logo could have allowed for one of those 250mm fans....You had 3 hard drive bays.....and ohh yeah.....does it come in black?

Overall i would rate it at least a 7/10
after all there are few cases with that build quality on the market....i mean look at those cd rom holders....they even have a good bit of space to let the heat dissipate....and its long enough for a 8800gtx and then some....but the lack of hard drive space does hurt it.....As for the plain color.....thats a preference....i got my Sonata(and my Sonata II) cause it was under stated....just plain back(and the door hid my optical drives ).....

I think this is awesome for someone who wants to have a unique case. Its expensive, but that definitely isn't a problem for some people. Not only does this make your case unique, but also it would be a blast to design the case yourself.

If I had 3 or 4 grand (or the 10 grand i've seen people in here trying to spend on a pc) I would definitely try to fit this into my budget.

I agree with a few of the others here.
$1000+ for a sub standard case!

Why not just buy a case and get someone to cut the logos in it for you?
Would be a heck of alot cheaper!!

For what the case lacked, I would say, not worth it.

However, it is a start...

I'm sure if you built out the PC and had a design your case contest,
picked the best drawing and the winner would get the case....
They'd be happy

That is a little pricey, but at the same time I can see the work involved and why they wouldn't sell it for less.

I think any knock on the design (about the HD room and such) is probably at least partially the author's fault. He had to sign off on the final design and must have oked the 1 HD spot.

The no power button thing is not a big deal, but really, for a product that expensive, the little touches like that are what provide real value. Adding the power button, maybe some fans, reinforce the handles (maybe add some grips too) etc, would really help this company to differentiate itself from its competition. Its always the last 5% that really makes a difference to the customer.

As for the comment that "your drawn case would have been better", I'm sorry, but if I spend $1400 on a case, it better not look like every other case out there (you could even just get a custom side panel made). I don't particularily like the case they ended up with, but at least its not the status quo.

And for paint color, I'm sure they would do whatever you want, THG just seems to like the powder coated white (10k PC, etc).

*EDIT SPELLING*

by the drawn case i mean



imagine the cooling that could have got with a 250mm fan in the center.....and the 3 hard drive bays......

I did not mean the 3ds Max one

I say the build is nice....i just think a big ass THG logo would look nicer....and cool better.....

How about using LEGO as a raw material for custom case design? I made one few months back in a theme of old school LEGOLAND sets:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=174449

Certainly the cost of producing a LEGO case like that would be under $1000. It was fun to customize the design and build. A challenge to find cool ways to make things work. I don't want to sound insulting, but this THG case is really just a tower with side panels. I'm not sure that's worth $1500. Then again my LEGO case is just a desktop case.

Let's face it; there really isn't anything wild that can be done with a PC case due to component shape and size. In the end it will be a box of some sort or another that fits the components.

$1500 = whole new computer for me. but it is cool if you had the money

I dont see how all of the enclosures featured would cost that much money...

As a enthusiast PC user, this would be my last choice for a PC enclosure... but maybe none of their customers have come up with a good one...

I can see how this company might be good for enclsing other equipment, not PCs.

What about using their free cad program and taking it to a shop to be custom built? I wonder how much that would cost.

I built a custom aluminum cube case that way, and paid about $200 in labor.

The idea is great, having a company specialize in custom enclosure design and manufacturing, the only problem is the way it's being carried out.

Firstly, the price. Uniqueness and one-of-a-kind is something you cannot really place a price tag on, granted. There is a fee you always need to pay to have something nobody else can have. But $1500 for bare metal, even if it includes labor and design, is to me off the charts.

Secondly, the details. For that kind of money, and design, I would expect the finer touches of a power button, leads and other standard case gizmos. When you are out to exceed your customers expectations, the finer points mean everything!

As for the paint, I guess that is preferential to everybody. But it wouldn't hurt to offer a few basic colors for that price, save the real work for the folks at smooth creations.

To be honest, if you can assemble a complete PC for yourself, if you live near a hardware store and you have your own big-enough workbench, you might as well go out and build your custom case yourself, as I did, and do your wallet a great favor.

I agree with everyone else that the current case is way to pricey for what you get... however this case has a lot of potential. With a couple of revisions this could be an awesome design.... I love the cylindrical look and the way it is layered in the front...

I have to agree with everyone: nice idea but way too pricey.
I'm an aerospace engineering student and therefore I have some knowledge about designing things and manufacturing processes.
The whole case was probably made from one or two sheets of metal, costing at most between 150 and 200 dollars (you've got top quality metal at that price, you could get acceptable stuff cheaper). It was tooled with simple bending devices and probably a water jet cutter for the logos. The round plates can also be made that wat but for that they could've used a bandsaw too.
These machines are not cheap but then again they can be used for a very long time, so they shouldn't charge more than $100 per customer in total.
All of this can be done in one day by a single man. I don't know the usual wages in the US but I don't think they pay him more than $150/day.
That adds up to 400-450 for manufacturing, and that's a high guess (probably it's a lot cheaper).
That's $680-730 less than they charged.

Then the design: for some reason they placed the hard disk vertically in front of the small fan intakes, thereby destroying a natural airflow.
If there's one thing in designing you don't do is deviate from the customers whish unless it renders production impossible or over budget. That wasn't the case here o why did they do that?
I've got 3 hard disks in use, like the 'original pen drawing' did, A fast 150 GB one for windows and programs, and two times 300 GB for storage. In my opinion only one is useless nowadays.

The setup fee indicates (if my $150/day guess was correct) that there were two man-days or 16 hours in the designing process, I really don't think that's the case since they were provided with a designed case with drawings by the article's author. Not only a description of 'I'd like to have this and this, please make it happen'.

I'm not saying they delivered a bad product (exept for the harddisk thingie) , I couldn't have done it myself. But it certainly is way overpriced.

I personally think that Tool462s wooden case is a lot cooler and more innovative!

That one big arse case.

I also really like the well done wooden cases. They have a craftmanship that goes beyond pretty much any other case I have seen. There are issues with wood though: heat dissipation, warping, rf signals, etc. There have been a few really good threads on wood mods on THG forums in the past 6 months or so.

Some of the custom mods where people take other ordinary objects and put PCs into them are pretty cool too. I saw one a with a 21" CRT that had the whole PC and and LCD monitor jammed into it. Or a PC that fit into a giant whisky bottle. Lots of cool ideas there.

@nukemaster

Sorry, I thought you meant the other one. Yeah, the larger logo would have been a lot better. They probably convinced the author that fitting a 120mm intake would be better. I personally agree that a giant 25cm intake would have been cool (or even a few 120mm fans).

I'm not sure what's with the hard drive location. I wish the author of the article would come on the forums here and explain his decisions and let us know why the company wanted some of those changes.

With this case design it would have been cool if they could have modded the external drives to be rounded and fit with the outside of the case, then the whole thing could have been rounded instead of just the sides. That would be a bit more work though.

i wish...

no offense, but judging by Don Woligroki's first design and happiness with the outcome i'd have to say he has no style...

first try = most boring
final outcome = bulky, impractical, overpriced AND boring

yeah....that case is sweet....