Kylapoliisi Posted July 4, 2014 Share Posted July 4, 2014 Hey guys. I just wanted to show something I've been planning for about three months now, and finally gathered enough money and resources to actually do it. I'm finally replacing my old PC with something with a bit more oomph in it. Since now, as a student, I've always built my PC's from scratch with pretty much the cheapest parts available to me. But recently, when I got part-time employed, I've had a bit more cash to scrape up to do something I've always wanted: an actually gorgeus, somewhat color-coordinated PC that isn't an eyesore to look at and hidden away inside a cheap and boring case. So, my parts list, with what I already have to what is coming in the mail: My current setup: MSI mATX motherboard, AM3 socket AMD Athlon II X4 3.00GHz (I tried to overclock this thing for the competition here, things went quite horribly wrong with overvolting, thanks to MSI's crappy BIOS controls and my blind rush to even more MHz) MSI Geforce GTX680 2gb 8Gb Teamgroup Elite 1333MHz memory 120Gb SSD, Kingston SSDNow V200 Western Digital 1Tb HDD LG Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo bay New things already bought for the new setup: Corsair Obsidian 750D case Corsair CX750M PSU Antec Kühler 1220 (retailer had a huge discount on this one, really wanted a Corsair H105 though :/ ) 2 x Corsair SP120 PWM High performance fans (for the liquid cooler, to at least make it look like Corsair) 2 x Corsair AF120 Red LED fans Corsair 16 Gb 2400MHz Vengeance Pro Gold memory Parts still waiting to arrive: ASUS z-97 Pro WiFi ac motherboard Intel i7 4790K Processor Palit GeForce 770 4gb JetStream GPU So here I am now, with the old parts inside the obsidian case: Not quite what I want, hence the new PC Not much to show in terms of progress for now, some minor fine-tuning customizations to the parts here: Painting the rings on corsair fans and the attachment plate for the cooler The corsair memory, which arrived on the mail today The plan for now is to keep the red LED strips and see if/how they match with the new color scheme. If they don't I have a spare white one to replace them. I want to keep the build nice, clean and classy, not too much bling or Gamer attitude (although this is a kick-*** gaming machine and will be used for that very purpose, it just doesn't have to show. Think Mercedes vs. Camaro) Things I still want to change, if I had the money for it: -Replace the rear case fan with a 140mm corsair one with the ring on it -Get a matching corsair cooler OR a custom loop, if I happen to win at a lottery or something similar -Add two more SP120s for push/pull and even more golden rings - A bigger SSD, perhaps 480 Gb, for games as well as the OS and developer tools I'm going to post updates whenever new things happen, probably on the start of next week. More ideas on what I might customize and how would be very much appreciated. I'm also open for critisism, as long as it's constructive-ish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylapoliisi Posted July 5, 2014 Author Share Posted July 5, 2014 So today I learned that it isn't always good to try and find cheap solutions. I bought some cheap cable sleeves from a local hardware supermarket of sorts, and got a bit disappointed. They're way too big and clumsy, keep breaking and don't even look that good. I guess I should have known this was bound to happen. (Get it, bound?) Also the cables that I ordered super cheap were actually with white plastic connectors, so no good there either. The results were horrible: I'm not sure if I'll just try and make the best of a bad scenario, or just go for a bit more quality in these products. I really want to make them work, but those connectors just won't fit in the color scheme... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylapoliisi Posted July 8, 2014 Author Share Posted July 8, 2014 The new parts arrived today! Just one work shift between me and the assembly. In the meanwhile, here's a shot of all these boxes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylapoliisi Posted July 9, 2014 Author Share Posted July 9, 2014 So, I finally got to finish the build. All in one segment, since it's nothing too special and I didn't have a PC to upload photos. So, the beginning of the project today: stripping everything off the case It wasn't half as bad as I thought, although the dust filters had accumulated a lot more dust than I could have imagined... With everything stripped away, it was time to put the motherboard in Then the radiator, fans, the pump/cooler unit and graphics card... I think I did a pretty decent job with the cable management, not worth any prizes, but still, I've seen worse... I like the outcome, quite close to what I had in mind. The red LEDs must go though, they completely hide the golden accents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylapoliisi Posted July 9, 2014 Author Share Posted July 9, 2014 Some glamour shots too: I'll post a picture of the PC in place as soon as the LEDs are off and the white ones are in. It's too late for that now though. ASUS's integrated fan controller rocks, by the way. I can't believe how my already quiet PC became even more quiet. And the speed boost I got is unbelievable, at least in synthetic benchmarks. Around 3x better results in every single test so far. I bet Corsair's memory has to do something with that too? :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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