Upgrading a buddy's machine.

[SinisterVirtue]

A friend of mine gave up console gaming last year and purchased decent entry level prebuilt. It's an Acer TC-780 with a Core i5-6400, 8gb DDR4. When I saw he was using onboard graphics, I gave him a GTX 950 I had in media machine I wasn't using. 

I recently upgraded to a custom loop water cooler and was considering giving him a Corsair H100i AIO, but then remembered that he had a stock case. So, I've decided for xmas to replace his case with a Deepcool Matrexx 55, that way I can have space to mount the AIO cooler, I've also got a modular 600w Rosewill PSU which should be more then enough to power the AIO and 3 additional 120mm fans. I was also thinking since I won't have time to replace his motherboard, and the simple fact is I won't have time to re-install Windows 10 (even though the Acer proprietary motherboard is atrocious) the motherboard does have a spare USB 3.0 header, so I'm going to get a usb 3.0 to usb 2.0 header adapter to power the Corsair AIO. 

I think this upgrade will cost roughly $85. Any other insight would be appreciated. 

[JohnDongus]

I wish you were my friend 

[LogicWeasel]

I can see that you're wanting to make good use of the spare H100i but will his i5-6400 really get that much extra turbo from being on a water AIO loop?  Almost seems like the better upgrade if he needs more gaming power is to replace the GTX 950 with a sweet deal on an RX 580 (or a used deal on a GTX 1060 6GB).

[SinisterVirtue]

1 hour ago, LogicWeasel said:

I can see that you're wanting to make good use of the spare H100i but will his i5-6400 really get that much extra turbo from being on a water AIO loop?  Almost seems like the better upgrade if he needs more gaming power is to replace the GTX 950 with a sweet deal on an RX 580 (or a used deal on a GTX 1060 6GB).

You're not wrong, but the Corsair AIO is spare for me.. He plays destiny 2 online and the GTX 950 runs it just fine at 1080p. The CPU uses a really cheap cooler, and it does tend to get pretty hot, that's why I was thinking it atleast last longer with better cooling. 

Edited December 1, 2018 by SinisterVirtue
I thought of something else.

[LogicWeasel]

2 hours ago, SinisterVirtue said:

You're not wrong, but the Corsair AIO is spare for me.. He plays destiny 2 online and the GTX 950 runs it just fine at 1080p. The CPU uses a really cheap cooler, and it does tend to get pretty hot, that's why I was thinking it atleast last longer with better cooling. 

Yeah I suppose that makes sense.  And you're doing him the favor of helping his upgrade options in the future by liberating him from his OEM case and PSU.  Your post implies you already had the Rosewill PSU so the cost you stated is just from the case and shipping cost?  (Seems a bit high unless it's drastically different from this unit: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811853064 )

 

Does your friend have a boot (or game storage) ssd?  That would be the next thing I'd have him worry about before getting a mobo replacement.

Perhaps he'll get a chance to ditch the acer mobo the next time he upgrades CPU.

[SinisterVirtue]

11 minutes ago, LogicWeasel said:

Yeah I suppose that makes sense.  And you're doing him the favor of helping his upgrade options in the future by liberating him from his OEM case and PSU.  Your post implies you already had the Rosewill PSU so the cost you stated is just from the case and shipping cost?  (Seems a bit high unless it's drastically different from this unit: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811853064 )

 

Does your friend have a boot (or game storage) ssd?  That would be the next thing I'd have him worry about before getting a mobo replacement.

Perhaps he'll get a chance to ditch the acer mobo the next time he upgrades CPU.

I forgot to add that I'm getting him a set of 5 purple ring 120mm fans, since that's his favorite color and always talks about getting a pc with purple leds. I was going to throw 2 of the 5 120mm fans onto the rad and the rest throughout the case.