The Micro Center Showcase Showdown Winners!

Last month we launched our Showcase Showdown, asking everyone to submit their PCs to our build showcase, and boy did you all deliver! We got a TON of submissions in that time period, which gave us a lot of potential winners. We chose five winners to each receive a $200 Micro Center gift card and a special guest - the wonderful @Kayjayohpcs! - got to choose a surprise sixth winner!

Check them all out below - and don't forget you can still get a $25 coupon (once approved) for submitting to the Micro Center Build Showcase!

Showcase Showdown Winners!

Bad Wolf chosen by @Vaganza

This system hits a lot of the great notes all at one time: a well executed theme, great descriptions and photos that tell a story, a well executed implementation, and a whole lot of customization. 

Thinking outside of the bigger-on-the-inside box here, by building your own table, you get to work out the details the way you want, perhaps try a few things and not settle for decisions made by others, I have built a system in a table before but it was a pre-designed one that was less than ideal to handle things like cable management and placement of awkward components.

Some of my favorite features here is the fact that the entire top is glass and has all sorts of space for the “artifacts” collected in there much like what you would see at a museum exhibit. The fractured “Police Telephone” sign is a great touch, and this is a great use of the Raspberry Pi display. The hardline tubing is well displayed in there and has great bends without an overuse of fittings. I especially like the placement of the coolant reservoir as another “artifact” 

The monitor placement has a great Tardis feel, especially the 11th doctor where he was always moving them around. This works well for the whole overall theme of the room, pairing well with the pictures, lighting and so forth. It all makes great use of what it likely a pretty small wall in the room.

Brother's First PC!

A Showcase Showdown winner doesn't have to be a top-of-the-line, crazy, custom PC and this first-time PC proves it! There's beauty in simplicity, and Brother's First PC is a shining example.

This PC, built for submitter Joseph S's younger brother, is a clear labor of love. He went above and beyond to build a PC that would last for years and run anything and everything his sibling could want, all without breaking the bank. The end result is a great looking, understated power house.

It's worth highlighting how much good cable management can do for a build. While the black and white cables are definitely aftermarket cables, they do ensure that the only visible cables are ones you want to see. If this were a build with cables of different types and lengths spilling out through the chassis, it would not look nearly as clean sitting on that desk - and there would be a genuine potential to see a performance impact from blocked airflow!

Stormtrooper

The Thermaltake Tower 200 is a case that presents a unique challenge: your build has to come together vertically! Submitter Joseph S. saw that challenge and doubled down on it, creating a vertical build with a theme.

Joseph's use of a white case with primarily white parts allows the black accent pieces - a Radeon 7900 XT and ASUS B650 E-I motherboard - to really really shine. And while Joseph mentions adding more decals to really drive home the Star Wars stormtrooper vibe, its already very evocative!

This is all underscored by the unique design of the Tower 200. While vertical GPUs aren't too uncommon nowadays, its very rare to find one positioned vertically in the way the Tower 200 does. The case takes a traditional PC layout and basically rotates the whole thing by 90 degrees, creating one of the most eye-catching PCs we've seen in a long time!

Permanent Test Bench

Another unconventional build, this test bench is a great showcase of how different people use PCs.

Submitter Tyler R. does a great job at demonstrating how even PCs that are designed to be frequently changed, upgraded, and rearranged can be built in a way that keeps them looking clean and nearly cable free. We love the all-black look, with the Noctua cooler really tying the whole thing together.

Its also incredibly impressive how well the whole PC fits together. Using a microATX motherboard can create a lot of spacing issues, depending on your parts list. Here, we see Tyler use it extremely well, creating a build that has no wasted space, just a block of raw, testing power!

Black & White Behemoth

What's a Showcase Showdown without some unique cooling?

This behemoth from submitter TsarNicholas is a gorgeously simple approach to cooling using Thermaltake's Pacific W7 Plus water block. But the water block alone isn't what makes this build look so good - it's the commitment to an aesthetic. Every part seems to be in harmony with every other part, and not just because they all have matching RGB lighting. They're all beholden to the black and white theme, emphasizing sharp, almost brutalist construction.

And then you turn on the RGB and the build takes on an entirely new life, as the colors pop, casting deep shadows on the blacks throughout the build. What's left is almost a ghost of a machine, one that looks to almost be all colors, floating throughout the build. This is an incredible build with some incredible eye for detail!

Northern Aurora - Chosen by @Kayjayohpcs

Check out his video all about this build over here!

And those are our six winners - congratulations to all of them! If you missed the contest, there is still time to get your $25 Micro Center coupon. Just submit your build to the Micro Center build Showcase and, once you're approved, you'll receive a free $25 coupon!