5 in-your-face PC components

October 3, 2012

Sometimes having a normal gaming PC just doesn’t cut it. While the performance of the high-end components outlined below may be overkill for most gamers, the in-your-face styling is awesome enough to justify the price.

Here are 5 of the most stylish PC components currently available:

Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR3 RAM

Why is it twice the height of normal RAM? Because Dominators. Why does the styling of the RAM heatsinks (which include LED lights) look stylish without being gaudy? Because Dominators. And why does a 4 x 8GB set of these retail for over R5,500 locally? Because Dominators.

Corsair Dominator RAM has always been at the forefront of RAM performance, and is often used by professional overclockers around the world in record breaking machines. The Dominator series embodies everything about ultra high-end components. It’s bigger than the competition, it stands out in the crowd of over-the-top RAM heatsink designs out there, and it costs nearly as much as a entry level gaming PC.

Corsair Dominator Platinum

Asus MARS II

While it’s based on the older NvidiaGTX590 graphics card, everything about the MARS II is shouty and in your face.

It takes up three PCI slots, it has dual 12cm fans for cooling, it has an individually laser-carved and sequentially-numbered aluminum plate certifying its limited edition status, and only 1,000 were made.

It’s also massive, measuring 13 inches long and weighing in at a tad over 10 tons, it won’t fit into any old PC case; it’ll make you work harder to afford a high-end case to use it. It also offers over 20 percent more power than a regular GTX590 thanks to in-house tuning by the Asus ROG team; a massive factory overclock especially on a high-end dual GPU card.

Asus MARS II

Asus Rampage IV Extreme

The Intel X79 platform is the most bad-ass, powerful option available to gamers, and the Rampage IV is Asus’ best shot at making the ultimate motherboard.

Like the MARS II, everything about the board is overkill. It supports all the high-end technology including 4-way SLI/CrossFireX over PCIe 3.0, and comes with its own OC Key. The Key allows you to monitor and change overclocking settings on the fly via an on screen display, overlayed on whatever is appearing on your monitor.

It also has a built-in OC with a sub-zero temperature monitor, onboard overclocking adjustment switches, and a Liquid Nitrogen mode just in case you feel really extreme.

Asus Rampage IV Extreme

Western Digital VelociRaptor

So it’s not as fast as an SSD; who cares? Not Western Digital – they made VelociRaptor as proof that older disk drive technology isn’t the snail people believe it to be. 1TB capacities and a 10,000rpm rotation speed mean this drive is no slouch, and it looks great too.

Nestled in a pitch black ice pack of aluminum, the drive looks like it could take an SSD round the back and make it cry for mommy. The drive shouldn’t be hidden in a drive bay though; it should be stuck right to your case window, so everyone can see your expensive piece of awesome storage.

Western Digital VelociRaptor

Cooler Master Cosmos II

If you need big, heavy, and in your face, the Cosmos II is the case for you. Weighing in at 22kgs and made of aluminum and steel-alloy, the case supports high-end hardware including XL-ATX motherboards, 385mm-long graphics cards and 13 3.5-inch hard drive bays.

It also has front controls with built-in fan and LED controllers, “race car inspired side panels”, and a focus on extreme air cooling via up to 10 fans. It also has space for water-cooling radiators and extra tall CPU coolers, meaning every aspect of the Cosmos II is intended for high-end use.