Whether it’s for work, school, gaming, or a healthy mix of all three, your personal work/battlestation should always be a thing of beauty: clean, cozy, and above all, functional.
We do a lot of work around here, but we also do a heavy amount of playing too. Today, we present the first entry in an ongoing series in which we’ll be shamelessly showing off our current gaming and writing setups. This week, the spotlight falls on the reviews and features writer with the coolest name around these here parts (sorry Joshua DeGrasse-Baumann, you’re a close second), Johnny Quid.
Power Up Gaming: Nice setup! What’ve you got there?
Johnny Quid: Thanks. It’s not Elite level by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m proud of it, and it’s a constant work in progress. I actually hate that L-shaped desk. It’s way too narrow for everything I want to place on it. The drawing tablet was given to me by my fiancée and despite the price, it works great. The Macbook Air was given to me to use by my day job, and is primarily for work. The 22″ and 23″ monitors were used and given to me by a dude I played in a band with. The 23″ has some issue where it’s impossible to get it to go any brighter without warping the colors, so I made the left one my primary. I’ve had the tower for about three years, had the front panel modded with the window in it. No, I didn’t do it myself; I don’t have the shop for that! She’s built for mid to high level performance right now, and her video card is crappy (Nvidia GTS 250) but I’ve upgraded most of her parts and I’ll be upgrading a lot more soon.
A Macbook Air with Diablo III installed, a drawing tablet, and a cell phone; what more do you even need?
PUG: What’s your workstation/battlestation used for?
J£: Again, the Macbook doesn’t have a lot of space on it, so it’s primarily for my 9-5, my writing, and for surfing the web. The tablet’s obviously for illustration work. The tower and the two monitors I use for everything else; illustration, writing, gaming… I even made some music with it a while ago, but I don’t do much of that anymore.
PUG: What about your setup makes it perfect for what you do?
J£: Well, I wouldn’t say it’s perfect, but it gets the job done, and even though it’s not at a professional enthusiast level, it’s a real workhorse for what I need it for. I can’t work with less than two monitors. Sorry, I’ve been using 2+ monitors for years, and I can’t really go back. I do my best with the Macbook, but I still have other windows open on my Windows machine because one monitor is torture to me. Hahaha!
So much evil… so little space.
PUG: What games are you currently playing on it?
J£: I consider myself rather casual and I’m not afraid to say that. I don’t have the luxury of being able to game for eight hours straight anymore. Those days are gone. That said, I do play a lot of games. Currently, I’m still grinding out my level 70 Monk in Diablo III, and just started playing Grim Dawn, The Wolf Among Us, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and Payday. Other than that, I play a lot of Left 4 Dead 2, Quake Live, Titan Quest, and any indie game with awesome artwork.
PUG: Are there any particular hardware manufacturers that you prefer over others?
J£: I try not to be a fanboy to any one brand. That said, I use a lot of Corsair products. They just make really great stuff. My tower’s chassis, the all-in-one CPU cooler, the RAM, and most of the fans in the case; all Corsair. Other than that, I don’t care. Whatever gets the job done and lasts.
As close as Joker is standing to that Cooler Master 200mm fan, it’s obvious how he got those scars…
PUG: Is there anything about your setup that you would change?
J£: That desk! Hahaha! It annoys me to no end. I got it from Walmart (shocker), and didn’t realize how narrow it was. I just didn’t do my research. My fiancée and I were just moving into the apartment and I needed a desk to go in there, so I picked this one. That was the wrong choice. It was actually broken on delivery, so I had to ghetto rig it in order to have it standing like it is today. When I get my new desk, it’ll be way more wide and it’ll be straight; I’m not doing the L-shaped thing again.
PUG: What’s your favourite thing about your setup?
J£: It’s just cozy. Unlike a lot of people, I’m actually more comfortable when I’m sitting at a desk staring at three screens than I am laying on a couch staring at a laptop. I get behind my desk, grab my keyboard and mouse, and I’m just in my own world. As they say, “This is where the magic happens!”