ALI ABBAS GUIDES US THROUGH THE CREATION
OF HIS NIGHTMARE VISION OF A PC
T
he torture device? Are you
kidding me?. That was the first
reaction I heard. ‘Well, hell yeah!’
is all I could reply. But then again, such is the
way with most of my creations. While I’ve
made some conventional cases in the past,
I’ve found my passion is for combining
computer hardware with striking cultural
and historical themes, such as Vikings,
Samurai, Pirates and Gladiators. An iron
maiden just seemed like the logic next step.
I saw my first real iron maiden in
Riegersburg, Austria, and I was fascinated
by how they combined the disparate words
‘iron’ and ‘maiden’ together to describe
such a monstrous device. I recall thinking
that one day I would make a closet that
looks like one, but never got around to that.
The iron maiden is, of course, an
extremely unpleasant torture device. It was
supposedly used in the Dark Ages by the
rich and powerful to exact punishment on
those that crossed them, although that’s
now widely believed to be a myth introduced
in the 18th century. Either way, for my
build, I wanted to evoke a specific era, so I
concentrated on the period of the Spanish
inquisition, between 1420-1498, when theGrand Inquisitor himself was active, the evil
Tomas de Torquemada. A man as much
feared as he was evil.The concept and theme
For the design, I took inspiration from the iron
maiden itself as well as the individual words.
So, rather than just focus on the original look
of the torture devices, I strived to portray the
beauty of the maiden and the raw look of iron.
I wanted to make the maiden of this PC
as attractive as the theme would allow, to
compensate for all the injustices inflicted by
medieval torture. Of course, she looks far
more attractive than the torture devices in
museums, but that’s artistic licence for you.
I knew the build would need an open cage
rather than the closed closet of the real deal.
This allows the PC’s hardware, clad in Spanish
gold, to be shown off. I also had the idea that
she should have an altar for last confessions
on the front, including a real wax candle that
could somehow switch off all the lights when
blown out. Sounds strange, but I love crazy
stuff like this that hasn’t been done before.
Add in a few spikes and pentagrams, as
well as the Grand Inquisitor’s lanterns, and
the design concept was complete.SYSTEM SPECS
Weight 56kg
Size (cm) 70 x 100 x 100 (W x D x H)
Build time Approximately 700 hours
Sponsors Cooler Master, Asus,
Thermaltake, Caseking
Case Cooler Master C700M
PSU Cooler Master V1300 Platinum
GPU Asus ROG Strix Geforce
RTX 2080 OC 8GB
CPU AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
Memory 16GB Thermaltake
WaterRam RGB DDR4 3200MHz
Motherboard Asus ROG Crosshair VIII
SSD Samsung 970 Pro 1 TB
Cooling 2 x Thermaltake (TT) reservoir,
TT CPU and GPU waterblocks,
6 x TT Ring Plus fans, 2 x TT Pacific
CLM240 Radiators, TT Sync Controller,
2 x TT Pacific Flow IndicatorsALIABBASGUIDESUSTHROUGHTHECREATION
OF HIS NIGHTMARE VISION OF A PC
T
he torture device? Are you
kidding me?. That was the first
reaction I heard. ‘Well, hell yeah!’
is all I could reply. But then again, such is the
way with most of my creations. While I’ve
made some conventional cases in the past,
I’ve found my passion is for combining
computer hardware with striking cultural
and historical themes, such as Vikings,
Samurai, Pirates and Gladiators. An iron
maiden just seemed like the logic next step.
I saw my first real iron maiden in
Riegersburg, Austria, and I was fascinated
by how they combined the disparate words
‘iron’ and ‘maiden’ together to describe
such a monstrous device. I recall thinking
that one day I would make a closet that
looks like one, but never got around to that.
The iron maiden is, of course, an
extremely unpleasant torture device. It was
supposedly used in the Dark Ages by the
rich and powerful to exact punishment on
those that crossed them, although that’s
now widely believed to be a myth introduced
in the 18th century. Either way, for my
build, I wanted to evoke a specific era, so I
concentrated on the period of the Spanish
inquisition, between 1420-1498, when theGrand Inquisitor himself was active, the evil
Tomas de Torquemada. A man as much
feared as he was evil.The concept and theme
For the design, I took inspiration from the iron
maiden itself as well as the individual words.
So, rather than just focus on the original look
of the torture devices, I strived to portray the
beauty of the maiden and the raw look of iron.
I wanted to make the maiden of this PC
as attractive as the theme would allow, to
compensate for all the injustices inflicted by
medieval torture. Of course, she looks far
more attractive than the torture devices in
museums, but that’s artistic licence for you.
I knew the build would need an open cage
rather than the closed closet of the real deal.
This allows the PC’s hardware, clad in Spanish
gold, to be shown off. I also had the idea that
she should have an altar for last confessions
on the front, including a real wax candle that
could somehow switch off all the lights when
blown out. Sounds strange, but I love crazy
stuff like this that hasn’t been done before.
Add in a few spikes and pentagrams, as
well as the Grand Inquisitor’s lanterns, and
the design concept was complete.SYSTEM SPECS
Weight 56kg
Size (cm) 70 x 100 x 100 (W x D x H)
Build time Approximately 700 hours
Sponsors Cooler Master, Asus,
Thermaltake, Caseking
Case Cooler Master C700M
PSU Cooler Master V1300 Platinum
GPU Asus ROG Strix Geforce
RTX 2080 OC 8GB
CPU AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
Memory 16GB Thermaltake
WaterRam RGB DDR4 3200MHz
Motherboard Asus ROG Crosshair VIII
SSD Samsung 970 Pro 1 TB
Cooling 2 x Thermaltake (TT) reservoir,
TT CPU and GPU waterblocks,
6 x TT Ring Plus fans, 2 x TT Pacific
CLM240 Radiators, TT Sync Controller,
2 x TT Pacific Flow Indicators