Weapon styled heatsinks on motherboards

[Grizzly]

I'm sure most of the people on the forums have seen or heard of the Gigabyte G1 series motherboards with their gun themed heatsinks. I didn't mind them at the start because the motherboards came packed with so many features and there was clearly some thought behind how the heatsink was styled (as opposed to sticking a mould of a gun to the board they split it up and spread it out) and if I was building a rig at the time I probably would've bought one. Then I saw some pictures of the G1 X79, where they have a mould of a pistol as the chipset heatsink.

I would not buy this unless I had some plans that would involve removing the chipset heatsink. I absolutely hated it. Then today some pictures of the MSI Big Bang Xpower 2 came out which has a gattling gun barrel for I believe the MOSFET heatsink and a set of bullets for the chipset.

Not quite as bad as the X79 G1 admittedly but I still wouldn't want to use that board in a personal build without replacing those heatsinks.

So my questions to everybody on here are this.

Do you like them? And do you think this is where high end motherboard styling is going?

Some people must like them or else manufacturers wouldn't be doing this sort of styling on top of the range motherboards.

 

[SieB]

All of my goddamn hate

IMO I think it makes them look really tacky and cheap and a bit childish.

I would rather have a normal heatsink, it doesn't have to be plain with no styling to it but I just don't want what looks like a toy gun for kids on my motherboard. We may see more motherboards like this depending on how well they sell and I can see a lot of younger people buying them so more than likely we will see more of this in the future.

 

[SparkleDJackson]

Beyond retarded. It is a motherboard its for bits to plug into. If i wanted a toy gun i would go to toys r us and buy another special edition nerf maverick. But u already have a special edition merf maverick so i dont meed more toy guns. This is the dumbest trend since those trousers that the crotch is down to the knees like those one direction douches wear.

 

[yassarikhan786]

I despise them so much. They are such an eyesore to me and ruin the look of an otherwise good lucking motherboard.

 

[Timbaloo]

Hate.

I'm typically not paying much attention to the "looks" on parts i won't see anayway (i prefer dampening over window panels), so why should i care much.

What makes me furious though is that everytime i see one of these, i imagine a management meeting full of retarded marketing strategists wasting hours of precious time on deciding wether to go for a banana magazine or a glock

 

[ionicle]

ugly....dislike...

a motherboard should be somthing that has a degree of style to it, it should be .....almost artistic, not tacky.

 

[hmmblah]

I'm not a fan either. Unfortunately, I think this trend will continue. /looks at CoD.

 

[Lollipop]

I am kinda neutral about the MSI one, but that giga mobo just looks horrible! And honestly i wish they wouldn't make more of theese in the future...

EDIT: Looking at the MSI mobo again, i almost puked... it looks so beautiful without that fugly heatsink

 

[Earthmonger]

Just to state the obvious right away: This is an MSI motherboard. They need all the help they can get to sell the things.

I don't hate it, but it's an automatic write-off for me. Not my tastes. Motherboards are not a place to advertise pop culture. I want a serious board, not something from the morning cartoons. What's next? Pepsi heatsinks? Nike swish logos? Capacitors shaped like beer cans? Oh wait...

I doubt we'd ever see this crap on an EVGA, for example. Heatsinks shaped like distopian skyscrapers are more likely.

 

[FunkyMonkey90]

I was thinking of getting the MSI Big Bang x79 hoping it would keep with the style of the old Big Bang. I just hope water blocks come out for them ASAP. I don't mind the gattling gun so much as its not too noticeable but the ammo just looks tacky as hell.

EDIT: also just noticed the Big Bang has it's 6 pin for the PCI-E lanes in an awkward place :/

 

[alicarve]

i can imagine the like 13 year old builders liking these but im not a fan

 

[chris8224]

I also am Hating on these too,

I think they could quite easily have made 2 versions of the same motherboard, one with a more conventional looking heat sink and one with what ever tacky POS they want to glue to there boards to make them appeal to the younger audience.

That is all.

 

[Ghosthud1]

if i wanted a shitty bb gun i'd go to the feking 2nd hand market on a sunday!

Drop the kiddies toys and make something a little more grown up.

 

[UFN]

Military styling I have no problem with, sticking toy guns to your motherboard? Please. It looks cheap, nasty, garish and I would question giving enough money to buy one of these to a person who would actually buy one of them.

 

[CloneageDK]

Like many of the others who have voted and commented, I really don't like this.

It seems like MSI tried to 1-up the current Gigabyte G1 series motherboards, which are a bit more acceptable in their heatsink designs IMO, but instead ended up with something better suited for... Well, nothing actually. Don't use it. At all. Ever.

But rather a tacky ammo holder thing and a mini gattling gun barrel than a toy gun.

 

[Rastalovich]

I don't care either way to be honest. But I can appreciate those who take a pride in their builds in terms of showing them off, and mods etc, can be a bit miffed or choose otherwise. My opinion here also is if you're showing it off with pride, adapt something if you don't like it that much. Put a sticker of Spounge-Bob-Square-Pants on it for whatever esthetic purposes.

My person POV tho. If it/they happened to be the the best mobos in the world, or are sold as, I'd not care if they had a plastic pink bow around them - performance matters more. Certainly seems crazy to me to opt for what might be a 2nd best mobo just for that reason.

If it was a solid copper gun or clip and had raised the price of the mobo cos of it's claimed "superior cooling" cos of it - that'd be a different matter.

Jeez, some people, like in the past, would shun Gigabyte mobos just cos of the color of slots. Unless you're showing the rig off, I really don't understand this mindset.

Get a bunch of 580/6990/590 whatever and cover the gun up

 

[CloneageDK]

I get what you're saying, Rastalovich.

If you're not showing it off, why care.

I don't show off my own PC, but I still want the parts to look good. It's a subjective thing of course and practically it has absolutely no importance what so ever. But still!

Seeing as how Gigabyte and MSI has made this, they must have thought of it as something that would attract more buyers, showing that a lot of people DO care about how it looks. And let's be honest, most people don't show off their builds to anyone besides themselves, making looks somewhat irrelevant.

I agree with you about performance over looks 100%. And yet I still want the looks xD

 

[ionicle]

3'rd party moffset and chipset heatsinks sales are about to skyrocket imo

maybe they made a deal with the companies who make those kinds of things, they make the gun ones for the mobo, and they make nice looking ones for third parties, it doubles their revenue, as people buy good looking 3'rd party ones to replace the standard ones.....

and then they give msi etc a comission for it?

 

[potatis]

That's not nice, but i bet the kids love it.

 

[The Scientific Moustache]

I want a motherboard to look like it was made by some infernal technology god from the future that happened to love classic wiring styles in a valved complicated dieselpunk mess. I want it to look expensive and complicated and top of the range. I do not want it to look like it was made by Bandai....