The Making Of Digital Storm's Copper Tubing-Filled Aventum II
The Making Of Digital Storm's Copper Tubing-Filled Aventum IIThree or four times now, you've seen us shine a spotlight on systems built by boutique shops with qualities that our editorial team found interesting. The latest example in this series comes from Digital Storm.
I had a meeting with the company at CES 2013, in the Trump International Hotel. It had two products out on display: the Bolt and its then-upcoming Aventum II. Back then, the Bolt had a couple of issues that kept me from getting more excited about it. But the Aventum II, despite its early status, was a beautiful beast of a PC that I found truly stunning. It featured a lot of hardware that you can't just pull off a shelf and pop into your own machine. And so I believed it'd be a work that even our do-it-yourself crowd could appreciate.
The team at Digital Storm was kind enough to share some of the Aventum II's back story with us. What follows is a recounting of how the big, beefy (and potentially very expensive) Aventum II came to be, complete with nickel-plated copper tubing. Take it away, guys.
Chris Angelini
Just way too much money for the parts.
its amazing what gets charged for such systems and people pay it!
Watch the language. - G
I don't suspect that people are going to buy this solely based on performance, because you can likely get the same performance from Tom's $2500 SBM. The intended buyers are obviously paying for the fact it's a boutique build. The price also goes up because these guys want to get reimbursed for the time spent engineering it and the materials used. (Granted, the materials aren't that expensive, relative to the time and knowledge needed to do this type of custom-build.)
I look at boutique builds just like I do anything "boutique" whether it's cars, motorcycles, or fashion-related. The sellers work on a low volume / high margin sales model and aren't concerned that other sellers are giving equivalent performance at a fraction of the cost. It's not all about performance for the seller nor the buyer. It's about exclusitivity, or bragging rights/ status symbol, or "beauty in the eye of the beholder", or any combination of the three. And more often than not, the price tag for such items is top-tier.
its amazing what gets charged for such systems and people pay it!
For the price you mention you could build a PC with similar specs, but it would be a completely different system. But that just gets you similar components. It would probably take another 1k+ and at least 100 man hours to build out a system like they have. Im not saying its still worth it but they did a lot more than just put a bunch of high end components into the case.
I would probably buy one if I won the lottery.. But I would also still build my own..
My buddy works in a shop mandrel bending aluminum pipes for diesel trucks. It took him a few weeks to be good enough to not crack or rip the pipes when bending them. Their bender can do up to 6" pipes but it cant make bends that sharp so they will bend 2 pipes, then cut and weld them to make tighter turns. Between the sand blasting, power coating, and chroming they do on the pipes alone, its kind of amazing to see the systems they have built from scratch in that shop.
I have experience with both.
Copper, if you can get it polished or plated looks infinitely better. It's also easier to seal because it deforms easier into the compression connector, and much more forgiving to bend.
Rigid acrylic is much more difficult to bend than copper. You need a heat gun, patience, and a lot of practice to get it right. Still if you hold the heat gun just a couple seconds too long, you will quickly deform or discolor the tube. It's really only worth it if you intend to use fluorescing dye.