Rebuild project - Project Snowbox

[ReviewsByGarry]

CURRENT VERSION

Motherboard: ASRock 990FX Extreme4

CPU: AMD-FX 8320E @ 4.4GHZ (AIR OC)

Cooler: Arctic Freezer Pro 7 (WILL BE REPLACED)

Memory: Kingston Hyper-X 1866MHZ 16GB DDR 3 (4 x 4) Blue/White (To match mobo)

Storage: OCZ ARC 100 120GB SSD (WILL BE REPLACED)

Storage: Western Digital 750GB Black (Storage Drive)

Case: Fractal Design Define R4 Arctic White /w Window

Video Card: Galax GTX 960 EXOC White Edition 

Power Supply: 500W EVGA 80 PLUS (WILL BE REPLACED)

Case Fans: 3-140mm NZXT Black /w white LED case fans Rear/Bottom/Front (WILL BE REPLACED)

 

 

REBUILD VERSION

Motherboard: ASRock 990FX Extreme4

CPU: AMD-FX 8320E @ 4.4GHZ (AIR OC)

Cooler: Enermax Cluster Cooler (White version) /w 2 120mm Enermax Fans (AMD Brackets provided by Enermax)

Memory: Kingston Hyper-X 1866MHZ 16GB DDR 3 (4 x 4) Blue/White (To match mobo)

Storage: OCZ Trion 480GB SSD (Sponsored by OCZ)

Storage: Western Digital 750GB Black (Storage Drive)

Case: Fractal Design Define R4 Arctic White /w Window

Video Card: Galax GTX 960 EXOC White Edition 

Power Supply: Fractal Design Newton R3 1000W (Sponsored by Fractal Design)

Case Fans: 2-140mm BitFenix Spectre Pro Rear/Bottom & 2-120mm BitFenix Spectre Pro Front (Sponsored by BitFenix)

Cable Extensions: Silverstone 24, 8 and 6 pin white sleeved extensions. 

 

This system has been changed a few times since I bought this motherboard used from a really good community member of the A-Team Gaming Community, he provided me the board for $35.00 so I wanted to put this system together, at the time, I was still using a G3258 so I figured building an AMD 8 core system would work great for tasks that required a bit more horsepower. I opted for the 8320E processor because I knew how well the chip overclocked and the price was fantastic. I picked up the chip and another basic motherboard for $110 at MicroCenter and sold the motherboard for 90 bucks, with that said, I pretty much got the processor for $30, so if you add that up, I had a total investment in board and chip at $65 (Not bad at all).

 

Cooler was originally in the Intel system at this time, so as you can see in the photo above, I was actually using Arctic Freezer Pro 7, which served me well, I gave this to my cousin for his new build, didn't have a use for it after swapping out for the Enermax Cluster cooler.

 

Memory was actually sticks I had already purchased for other builds, so I just did some swapping between the systems to get 4 sticks that matched the funky motherboard colors of white/blue (I ignored the PCB color lol).

 

SSD which was provided to me by OCZ for review will be installed in this system, I will be putting up a review of the OCZ drive on my YouTube page once the system is complete, This drive is PERFECT for my situation as you will find out in the review video. 

 

The regular hard drive, Western Digital 750gb Black, is just a drive I had sitting around in a pile of hard drives, nothing special, works perfect so I figured I would install it, also to note, I am going to be putting more regular drives in this machine in a raid configuration, that's why I left the hard drive cages installed. 

 

So to go over the case, this is a case I really wanted back when the R5 version was sold out everywhere, I decided since I wasn't watercooling to go with the R4 model, thanks to FractalJosh for helping me find a trustworthy website to purchase the case, I really appreciate it, and I've became a huge Fractal Design fanatic since I purchased it back in March. 

 

The video card is awesome, yes it's just a GTX 960, but it's extremely great for 1080p gaming, and that's all I do, so it works great, love it, looks sexy as well, thanks to Galax for the discount.

 

The new power supply was provided to me by Fractal Design for this project rebuild, I approached FractalJosh and let him know that I was looking for a white power supply that would fit the build and he was nice enough to provide the Newton to me. I was using a EVGA 500w before as you can see above. Thanks again Josh.

 

Case fans, as it says above these fans were provided to me by BitFenix to do a review and you can find it here. Funny thing, they were originally installed into this system, but I moved them into a different build for a bit as I thought the black fans looked better (for some stupid reason) once I wanted to do the Snowbox build, I looked back at the review video and realized how AWESOME they actually looked in this case, so they will be put back in here as well. 

 

Thanks guys for checking out the rebuild, will have more photos soon. 

 

I plan on doing some more changes inside the case, I am gonna keep the drive cages installed since I have a lot of other hard drives and I plan on setting up a raid configuration, but I may paint the cages and the slot fillers a different color, still deciding on this. I also have a plan to replace the black screws inside the case with silver screws to take some more of the black color out of the inside of the case. I also have a custom AMD side panel I will most likely use from time to time, you can see it here. 

[ReviewsByGarry]

Editing this part, the links were dead to the photos I had, sorry about this, more below 

[ReviewsByGarry]

Decided to add a bit more blue to the build by painting the remaining slot fillers blue and switching from black to silver screws, more photos later tonight.

 

 

 

[ReviewsByGarry]

Installed them last night, decided that the graphics card and WiFi card brackets also needed to be painted to so here's what it looks like now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ReviewsByGarry]

Front fan shroud painted with BitFenix fans installed! Looks great!

 

 

[colinreay]

Blue and white, looks sweet!

[mchllatham03]

I'm digging the blue and white. 

[ReviewsByGarry]

Here's another shot after getting the drive rail plastic painted, and all the drive trays, you can also see the front fan shroud through the side, this build has came out so much better than expected. Waiting on a hard drive then I can get it buttoned up and film a overview. Thanks for the feedback all!  

 

[Mysteriphys]

looking great! con't wait to see the end result!

[ReviewsByGarry]

Thanks Mysteriphys - I will miss you man, we both shared the same type of love and passion for the same things - Rest In Peace my friend. 

 

http://www.jonesfuneralhome.ca/obituaries/101880