What it takes to build
products for enthusiasts
Custom PC founder-moved-Corsair-employee, Gareth
Ogden, reveals love behind the corporate facade.
When industry insiders and tech journalists talk about
the overclocking and DIY PC building market in general,
we often use the phrase ‘enthusiast community’. While
this may conjure up images of a cosy little village,
populated exclusively by people who spend their days
pouring liquid nitrogen in big copper pots and carefully
building turbo-ninja fast PCs, in reality we’re simply
talking about a group of like-minded people, who all
share a common passion for technology.
I once heard a technology journalist describe the
process of vacuuming out the dead spiders from
his PC and carefully tidying up the internals as
being ‘his religion’. It’s that passion for technology
that’s so important, not just for the ‘enthusiast
community’, but also for the companies that
produce products aimed at enthusiasts. Without
it, you can’t ever hope to build a true enthusiastfocussed
product.
If you own a Corsair PSU
and think it rocks, you have
George to thank for it
I’ve had the pleasure of working on both sides of the
fence, both as a technology journalist and editor of
the UK’s Custom PC (I actually used to work with this
mag’s editor, Nick, for my sins!) and now for Corsair.
And, in terms of the people involved, moving to Corsair
was like a home from home. They’re also enthusiasts,
who share the same passion for technology as tech
journos and consumers, and you can see this refl ected
in Corsair’s products.
The closest
thing Google
Image Search
had to virgins.
Take George Makris, as an
example. This guy describes
himself as “a self-taught
computer gaming/
enthusiast/overclocking
GUEST COLUMN
Gareth with
Viss and
Oldscarface
in Holland.
nerd who happens to have a talent for listening to
what customers want and designing products based
on those desires. Turns out that’s rare.” If you own a
Corsair PSU and think it rocks, you have George to
thank for it. He really gives a damn, and he knows what
enthusiasts want, because he is one. And that’s so
important.
Then there’s Corsair’s traditional area of strength –
computer memory. Some RAM is so high-end that it’s
essentially hand-built by another Corsair enthusiast,
known mysteriously as ‘Bachus Anonymous’ on XS.
To build each 2,000MHz C7 Dominator GT kit, Bachus
has the top screen of machined-binned ICs brought
to him on red silk pillows by an army of semi-naked
Amazonian virgins. He then individually screens each
IC to fi nd only those ICs he deems worthy. Individual
DIMMs are then assembled between the thighs of the
aforementioned Amazonian virgins, before being handscreened
and hand-matched to ensure the highest
possible performance and quality.
The end result is a super-exclusive memory kit that’s
been hand-crafted by an overclocker and enthusiast
who shares your passion. What could be more of an
enthusiast product than this?
*PS. I may have been exaggerating slightly about the
Amazonian virgins...
WWW.THEOVERCLOCKER.COM
11
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.