For the record, I’ve become a complete hardware geek.

It started out last December when I built my first gaming rig and it culminated last week with overclocking and liquid nitrogen.

Think you need a quad-core CPU for an extreme gaming PC with impressive 3DMark Vantage numbers and gaming performance?  See for yourself by watching the video of how I overclocked and hyper-cooled an SLI® gaming rig using two of our latest and greatest GPUs—GeForce® GTX 280—an nForce® 790i Ultra SLI motherboard, and a sub-$200 CPU. Since I don’t have solid copper coldplates and liquid nitrogen underneath my kitchen sink—and I’m sure you don’t either!—I made an ultra-fun trip to the NVIDIA® labs for the hard-to-come-by but necessary ingredients and safety gear.

Since I’m sure you’ll ask what was in the system, here are the need-to-know specs:

• 2× NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 graphics cards running in SLI
• nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU
• 4 GB SLI-ready Corsair DDR3 memory
• PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 1200W power supply
• Windows Vista 32-bit operating system

The standard clocks on a GeForce GTX 280 are 601 MHz core and 1,296 MHz shader, but I pushed them to 727 MHz and 1,458 MHz, respectively.  I also managed to get the GPUs cooled to a chilly -102.5 °C!

My results may not be as high as the Kingpin’s world-records, but they’re not too shabby!  Given that I had a lot of extra help and equipment, I will leave the record-breaking to the FutureMark Hall of Fame professionals.

Check out Ton’s Iron Man Mark 1 Case Mod! A super gaming rig themed after the Iron Man movie, complete with a handmade Iron Man mask, UV reactive layer Iron Man text, coolant level window, top exhaust vents, dual fill ports, “radioactive” reservoir, case lighting, and to finish it off two BFG GeForce 9800 GX2 in Quad SLI.

You have to see this! Take a look at Ton’s mod, a rig themed after Team Fortress 2 by Valve called Sentry Turret Case Mod.

Ton K. (a Club SLI® Member by the way) has literally built this system from the ground up. It’s 40” tall, complete with dual, 6-barrel Gatling turrets, ammo belts, and powered by our very own SLI technologies.

"The case mod has jumped from the OC / Case Modding forum, over the gaming community.  The Gamers LOVE the case mod.  Of course, the case mod is powered by NVIDIA mobo and GPU :)" - Ton K. from California

I’ve seen so many cases modified in so many ways. My personal favorites are rigs themed after video games. But every once in a while I come across some that I can’t forget, like this Microwave Mod or our vey own Rig of the Month winner John Mangus from Stoystown PA, with his “Transformer PC”. I’m curious to see if someone out there is already building a BioShock-themed rig. If yes, make sure to send pictures our way.