Stages Of Upgrading And Building My Dream Rig!

Veltrix · April 27, 2013

SORRY EVERYONE I MESSED UP THIS POST!!! Don't bother reading since it's incomplete and I don't know how to delete a topic

My first upgrade:

Getting a new case (Zalman Z11 Plus)
My specs from the beginning:

- i5 650 @ 3.2GHz

- Corsair A70 Tower Air cooler
- OEM MATX LGA 1156 Mobo from Acer
- ATI Radeon 4350 512mb

- May not be seen in the photos but I did upgrad the PSU to a Thermaltake 500W

- 6GB (2x2GB) + (2x1GB) Samsung RAM @ 1033MHz
- Seagate 1TB 7,200rpm HDD

- Upgraded Zalman Z11 plus case

Hardware Upgrade

Just an upgrade to a GTX 560 Ti 448 Graphics card since I thought that the i5 650 @ 3.2GHz dual core with HT was going to be good enough but I later upgraded it.

Upgraded specs:

- i5 650 @ 3.2GHz

- Corsair A70 Tower Air cooler

- OEM MATX LGA 1156 Mobo from Acer
- EVGA GTX 560 ti 448 Classified Ultra

- May not be seen in the photos but I did upgrad the PSU to a Thermaltake 500W

- 6GB (2x2GB) + (2x1GB) Samsung RAM @ 1033MHz
- Seagate 1TB 7,200rpm HDD

- Zalman Z11 plus case

Hardware Upgrade 2.0

I am not sure what I upgraded in these photos but I do remember I upgraded my PSU for my beefier graphics card. First I went with a AX750 from corsair but the fan was defective so I changed it for OCZ ZX 850W but I kinda regret it now because the cables are bulky, hard to flex, and on the short side. On top of that the PSU makes coil whine to add insult to the injury but I have no money and it's too late to switch, since I was naive and very much an amateur and just wanted more wattage without thinking of quality but I learned my mistake now.

Upgraded Specs:

- i5 650 @ 3.2GHz

- Corsair A70 Tower Air cooler

- OEM MATX LGA 1156 Mobo from Acer
- EVGA GTX 560 ti 448 Classified Ultra

- Currently OCZ ZX 850W 80Plus Gold PSU

- 6GB (2x2GB) + (2x1GB) Samsung RAM @ 1033MHz
- Seagate 1TB 7,200rpm HDD

- Zalman Z11 plus case

Hardware Upgrade 3.0

I upgraded my motherboard and my CPU since I was getting pissed with the OEM motherboard from Acer as it has terrible heatsink for it's chipset and would randomly shut off my computer. The RAM was upgraded also to 8GB but I don't remember when so I just added it here. Also I went through many coolers for my system, first the A70, then a Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E (too big), and now currently the Noctua Cooler
Upgraded Specs:

- i7 2600K @ 4.4GHz w/ 1.35V on BIOS level

- Currently Noctua NH-12P SE14

- Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3
- EVGA GTX 560 ti 448 Classified Ultra

- Currently OCZ ZX 850W 80Plus Gold PSU

- 8GB (2x4GB) G.skill Ripjaws X (red) @ 1333MHz

- Seagate 1TB 7,200rpm HDD

- Zalman Z11 plus case

I didn't like the cable management on this build but it was enough to slide by for about a year.

My Gaming rig as of 2013!

I got fed up with the Zalman Z11 plus case with it's terrible cable management, you had barely any room in the back, and especially it's almost a 3 hour chore to clean the PC. The dust filters are terribly place and you can't removed them without turning off the PC and tilting the entire case sometimes. Also 9 times out of 10 it will get dusty in 3 days after a full clean. One last thing to add is that the case was so flimsy it made so much noise and there was a lot of fans but since it had terrible cable management the airflow was always restricted which caused even more noise and poor temperatures both GPU and CPU. Had enough so I upgraded it and also I upgraded my storage before this upgraded but I decided to include in this one.

Current Specs:

- i7 2600K @ 4.4GHz w/ 1.35V on BIOS level

- Noctua NH-12P SE14

- Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3
- EVGA GTX 560 ti 448 Classified Ultra

- Currently OCZ ZX 850W 80Plus Gold PSU

- 8GB (2x4GB) G.skill Ripjaws X (red) @ 1333MHz

- Seagate 1TB 7,200rpm HDD

- Seagate 1TB 7,200rpm HDD (This one has a denser platter so it's performance is increased and is now my boot drive so now I shaved off about 30 seconds of boot time)

- External Seagate 500GB USB 3.0 Backup Plus drive.

- Fractal Design R4 Arctic White with Window

After all this my PC is quieter, easier to clean, I am so happy with the cable management it's much cleaner, internal USB 3.0 header, and watercooling ability in the future. I probably won't be upgraded for a while probably go for an SSD but not sure if it's worth it yet since I really don't need the speed yet and I don't do much intense video editing. Maybe I could raid my HDD to get more performance but I don't know how to yet but it could be worth a try.