the mbx mark ii is a pc case that by all
accounts has no right to exist it was seven years in the making weighs
a shocking 100 pounds fully loaded and everything about it was purpose built
from the 8 millimeter thick aluminum motherboard tray
to the 274 screws required for its assembly
it's the brainchild of charles harwood the creator of murderbox and fellow bc
boy and integrates more pc industry firsts than i can keep track of
including diffused basement lighting integrated comprehensive cable
management frameless cooling fans and an
utterly unique visual design that doesn't scream performance so much as it
whispers it it's built to be the case that you use for the next 10 years and
it's manufactured to the highest standard but it comes with a price tag
that reflects its pedigree let's get up close and personal with it
rose wolves closed loop CPU coolers feature a performance copper base pwm
fan speed control and more for an affordable price check them out today at
the link below it was 10 years ago but i remember the
day i met this guy like it was yesterday he drove two hours to pick up some 10
water cooling fittings from me because a customer commissioned one of his already
famous murderbox gaming machines and
no other fitting was good enough for him
it was this rejection of good enough that drove charles to do things the rest
of us thought were crazy i still remember him explaining to me that wires
shouldn't be hidden they should just be beautiful when he unveiled the first
individually sleeved power supply no one is going to spend that kind of
time and money on a power supply i said but i think we all know how that played
out every one of his creations was like that
a work of art utterly unique and always pushing the limits whether it was tubing
layouts lighting or design with zero compromises on build quality
unfortunately charles had a problem building a single murder box an eight
thousand to eighteen thousand dollar machine often including in-person
delivery is a two to four week endeavor
and that's assuming that nothing goes wrong with sourcing and building
whatever cutting-edge new design or material he's working on
he'd never get the parts production economical like that the business model
had to shift that's where murder mod came in
charles partnered with niels a pioneer in the sleeving space to create a lineup
of aftermarket faceplates mid plates
mounts and other accessories that would allow tj07 owners to upgrade their
existing systems to something worthy of the million dollar pc galleries and
these two business models complemented each other well
on paper the higher margins and sales volumes of
accessories would help to absorb the cost of prototyping and development
while the boutique system business would give murder mod a high profile avenue
for showing off its latest creations except for another small problem
accessories are only high volume if they're compatible with more than a
single high-end case from niche manufacturer silverstone and their only
high margin if you have the upfront funding and the know-how to navigate the
quagmire of overseas mass production so he forged a relationship with
silverstone with the plan of bringing a tweaked and pre-modded tj07 to market
and then iterating from there another great in theory idea that turned
into an endless cycle of prototyping and refinement until finally
four years later thanks to a cash bailout from a community member named
richard it was ready to ship to the early backers
every component of the mark ii has a story
literally everyone but i won't bore you guys talking about the 50 000 unit
minimum order quantity on each individual variation of the custom-made
hex screws let's start with the luminous panel
ten years ago pc lighting was done with cheesy plastic cathode tubes with cheap
inverters that usually burned out quite literally burned out in a year or two
there had to be a better way and the inspiration came from runway fashion
shows now building a panel that looks like
this is easy if you have a bunch of space behind it
for light distribution and diffusion but charles had to do it without taking up
any of the space for radiators on the bottom or for the system itself on top
so he ended up with leds on one side firing into what he calls the core
a proprietary material that he modified and etched with a grid to project the
light upward the remaining three edges were lined
with reflective material to bounce back and recycle the light that would
normally pass right through and be wasted
a final piece of semi-translucent material was added on top to diffuse the
light giving the finished luminance panel a glow strong enough to be seen in
daylight but subtle enough to game next to at night and at a thickness of just
15 millimeters the blood drips in the front have an
equally fascinating backstory the first iteration was a murder mod
face plate a very rudimentary solution to the tj07s
dated even then septuple five and a quarter inch bay design optical drives
were already on their way out it was water cut and used an led strip
mounted inside a hammond project box reflecting off a piece of white acrylic
simple but in the mark ii the entire basement
where the tj07 mounts storage drives by default is taken up by up to 6 by 120
millimeters worth of radiators and the power supply and the front is a modular
space that can be adapted for three and a half inch storage water cooling
controllers pumps two and a half inch storage a slim optical drive you pretty
much name it so there's potentially a lot of stuff that has to go in there
he needed something more compact so charles created a lighting solution
using only a single led firing upward through an acrylic block with silver
mylar edges like the luminance panel but this time using a piece of adhesive
vinyl at the back that's printed with a gradient graphic on it to control light
reflection toward the front and a strip of a photographic material called
duratrans to diffuse the light coming out this combination ensures that the
drip fade to black effect will be perfect and seamless even in complete
darkness a characteristic that not only looks sick but also helps hide the
optional stealth slot load optical drive bet you didn't see that one coming
the top grille was also designed as a tj07 mod that you could just
drop into the existing flange and was inspired by ceiling fans
why do we need frames in a position where we don't need to create static
pressure to build this charles bought almost
literally every cooling fan on the market to find the ideal one he needed a
clean aesthetic the right hub size easily removable fan blades in case
painting was required to match the look of a particular build and quiet
operation out of the box without fan control because there would be no room
for pwm wires in the tiny two by four
millimeter wire management channel every unit was shipped to callan in
australia where he painstakingly hand assembled them this process involves
removing the fan frames removing the existing wiring from the fan hub
soldering the new leads specially designed for the top mount epoxying in
the hubs running the wiring around the internally machined frame and
terminating to a single sleeved 3-pin connector that will work with basically
any motherboard one-of-a-kind looks and drop-in
compatibility like this are really really tough things to combine which i
guess brings us finally to my ulterior motive for making this video so
this video isn't sponsored i mean after all the money he's lost on this charles
couldn't afford our rates and i wouldn't ask him anyway but there is something in it for me
i want to see what he'll create next so i offered to do a profile of the mark ii
and its history in hopes that they'll all sell so he can repay his investors
and work on something new there are 142
mark ii cases left in the world you'll find the where to buy link in the video
description the config that we showed would run a whopping 2 000 us dollars
but for this video charles and mod 1
created a more basic limited time promotional bundle including everything
that you need to get started the case it's 150 page user manual and a quad
radiator mount as well as the optional luminance panel for 12.99 it's still eye
wateringly expensive but there will never be another production run of the
mark too it was a financial disaster for everyone involved so if you want to own
a piece of pc history the case equivalent of something like a delorean
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so thanks for watching guys if you disliked this video you can hit that button but if you liked it let us know
in the comments hit that like button maybe get subscribed and while you're at
it check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description while you're down there
we'll have a list of everyone who contributed parts for charles to do the showcase build including silverstone ek
mod 1 Gigabyte NVIDIA and aqua computer
as well as a link to our merch store which has cool shirts like this one
oh i forgot to call it the forum
for