Suissa Enlighten Custom PC

The Suissa Enlighten PC is a piece of art meshing tempered glass, steel and wood.

While mainstream desktop computer manufacturers like Sony, Dell and HP try to make their designs stand out visually with a new finish here and a new shape there, the Canadian manufacturer Suissa departs entirely from this boring routine with radically different designs. Gone are the steel frames, plastic bezels, and rampant LED lighting – Suissa’s products look more like modern art or oriental jewelry boxes than machines of any sort.

The company’s latest addition to its collection, the Enlighten, follows much the same formula as its previous efforts, but with an added degree of sophistication and complexity. By breaking the desktop’s individual components into separate modules and linking them together discretely and gracefully, the Enlighten manages to avoid the bland, boxy styling found in virtually every other system.

A tinted, glass-like pane forms the spine of the Enlighten, rising vertically from a base formed only by two simple chrome rods laid flat. Viewed from the side, its edges arc in gentle curves, meeting at soft angles. Two different-sized cylinders mount to the pane on either side: the larger one housing the computer’s motherboard, the smaller, its DVD burner. Although circular in appearance, closer inspection reveals that both are constructed of many short, straight segments, making them polygons more than true circles. At the base of the spine, between its chrome legs, the Enlighten’s power supply sits, enclosed in a box constructed from both steel and wood.

Image Courtesy of Suissa Computers

If this whole design sounds a little out there, you certainly couldn’t be blamed for thinking it. Suissa claims, in its own words, that “…this visually dynamic form explores the modularity of technology, reflects the movement through time that our memories occupy and provides a tangible home for them.” In other words, it’s pretty nuts.

Don’t be fooled by its artistic façade, though. The Enlighten is plenty more than a pretty face. Beneath all that wood and aluminum, it houses a micro ATX motherboard with either an Intel Quad Core or AMD X2 6400+ CPU, delivering power to spare for most applications. It will even satisfy the demanding gamer with a choice of either an Nvidia 8800GTX or ATI Radeon HD2900XT video cards. Other specs include 4GB of PC6400 memory, a 1TB hard drive, and a DVD burner. And that cute little power supply sitting at the bottom? It can crank out up to 620 watts to satisfy all that juice-thirsty gear within.

You won’t find the Enlighten down at any local box stores, though. Suissa will only be producing ten of these elegant machines on a custom-order basis, so act quickly if you’re interested. But be warned: The company doesn’t supply pricing info, and as the saying goes, “If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it.” For those with deep pockets looking for a truly ten-of-a-kind masterpiece, the Enlighten is certain to deliver in both originality and performance. More information can be found at Suissa’s Web site.