How to Make a Mac Killer

Cooling

120mm Noctua NF-S12-800 case fan: £14.94 (inc. VAT)
2 x 80mm Noctua NF-R8 case fan: £24.12 (inc. VAT)
XSPC Delta V3 CPU waterblock: £37.86 (inc. VAT)
2m TFC White ‘Hot’ UV-reactive tube 3/8in ID 1/2in OD: £11.48 (inc. VAT)
2m PrimoChill Black anti-kink coils £4.80 (inc. VAT)
6 x TFC 3/8in ID, 1/2in OD compression fittings: £19.92 (inc. VAT)
XSPC bay reservoir with pump: £26.44 (inc. VAT)
XSPC RX120 radiator: £33.03 (inc. VAT)

The iMac uses a low-voltage laptop CPU and GPU, which lowers the heat with which its cooling system has to cope. It’s a very quiet machine. We were keen to make our PC just as well behaved, and having avoided Core i7 and a ludicrously pricey graphics card, we had some budget left to play with. In addition, we wanted to give our Mac killer a degree of the iMac’s desirability and cool factor. Now, what we consider to be cool might not be to everyone’s taste, but as far as we’re concerned, water-cooling a small system will result in a machine that’s sleek, silent and very cool.


We also decided to replace the fans that came with the LC13 and install Noctua models as they’re extremely quiet. After measuring the case, we realised that we could mount a single 120mm fan radiator on the side, so we opted for XSPC’s RX120 radiator, matched by the Delta V3 CPU waterblock. We opted to use compression fittings for the tubing, as they’re easy to fit and very tidy.

We were keen on the white hose and black coil combination that Scan’s 3XS team used on its White Shark PC, which won the Custom PC 2008 Dream PC competition, so we decided to adopt this colour scheme. Finally, the LC13 has two 5.25in external drive bays and, with only one filled by our DVD writer, we saw an opportunity to install a bay reservoir. XSPC’s bay reservoir not only looks cool, but also contains a small pump. It’s compact and will be fine for a system in which only one component is water-cooled.

Other components

Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer: £65.67 (inc. VAT)
Sony/NEC Optiarc AD-7200A-0B DVD writer: £16.22 (inc. VAT)
650W Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro: £103.95 (inc. VAT)


The iMac uses on-board Intel HD audio, and while our system’s Biostar motherboard also features this, we opted instead for an upgrade. Creative’s SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer features the X-Fi chip for enhancing MP3 playback, and adds a wider range of connections. As well as housing a standard ATX motherboard, the SilverStone LC13 case can also accommodate a full-sized ATX PSU.

We used the Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro, a 650W PSU that’s also modular, enabling us to cut down on clutter inside the case. Finally, we added a Sony/NEC Optiarc AD-7200A-0B DVD writer, which can write single-layer DVDs at 2x, faster than the iMac’s 8x burner. Bluetooth is of almost no use on a PC – it can connect wireless peripherals, but these can lag, so we skipped it. It adds £6 to the cost, and WiFi can be added for £10 too, but we still prefer a wired connection for speed and reliability.

Operating system: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit £94.76 inc VAT

The iMac comes with the latest version of OS X 10.5 pre-installed. A newer version, code-named Snow Leopard, is currently in BETA and is expected to be released in September. Significant updates to OS X are paid upgrades; currently 10.5 costs £83 (inc. VAT), but the Snow Leopard upgrade is significantly cheaper if you already own OS X v10.5 - it's just $29 to upgrade, but we're unsure what that will translate to in the UK at this time, but it's fair to say that it'll be a lot less than v10.5.

We opted to install Windows Vista on our Mac Killer. Yes, we could have opted for Windows 7, but it's not actually a retail product yet - and if we did put 7 on the PC, should we then have put a BETA of Snow Leopard on the Mac? For the sake of fairness, we subjected ourselves to Vista once more. It’s been a divisive OS since its launch, but while we considered Linux, we wanted access to Windows’ library of software, particularly games. We’re also conscious of the fact that most people looking at an iMac are likely to be interested in popular mainstream apps such as Photoshop and Office, which aren't available for Linux. Software that's 'as good as', or 'similar to' isn't what we're after here. We wanted the big brand names.

Total: £1456.48