Zero Budget Gamer - Building My Best Friend's PC for $0

[SPARTAN VI]

Prelude

My best friend of nearly 30 years is in dire need of a new PC. He was recently married so he and his wife are saving up for a home. My buddy is not a PC gamer at all, I kinda force it upon him... so his PC's have been 100% supplied by me for nearly the past decade. As a console gamer, he usually gets last dibs on PC component hand-me-downs; that was until COVID-19 hit and we started playing WWZ together online. Modern games run on his PC at relatively playable performance (lowest settings of course) but it's really rough, at best. So I'd like to gift him a relatively modern gaming PC, but without spending (much) of my own money. Which leads us to...

 

The Zero Budget Build Challenge

• I am NOT allowed to spend even 1¢ of my own money directly on components for this build. 
• I am allowed to trade used PC components & accessories for parts needed in this build.
• I am allowed to hand-me-down used PC components from my personal PCs to harvest parts for this build. 
• I am allowed to incur expenses from purchasing hardware for my personal builds and traveling costs for trades.
• I am allowed to sell or trade components harvested from my buddy's current system.
• I am allowed to spend money from harvested components (above) to purchase parts for this build. 

 

I'll be updating the OP as I go along so you don't need to read the entire thread to find its current progress:
 

Day 0

His current "gaming" PC is a mish-mash of my hand-me-downs from over the years. So this is the benchmark to beat, and the bar is pretty low.

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-750 2.66 GHz 4c/8t (Lynnfield)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI P55-CD53 ATX LGA1156 Motherboard
Memory: 8GB (4 x 2 GB) Kingston KVR DDR3-1333 DDR3-1333 CL7 Memory 
Storage: 1TB Seagate Momentus XT SSHD
Video Card: XFX Radeon R7 360 2 GB Core Edition Video Card 
Case: NZXT H230 ATX Mid Tower Case 
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply 

Optical: Lite-On DVD\CD Drive
Other: USB 3.0 Internal PCIe AIC

 

I don't presently have interior shots of his current dinosaur rig, but I have an exterior shot of when it was originally (re)built around 2013:

 

Day 1

So right away I looked at the CPU and knew that Lynnfield relic would be a problem, especially at 1080P (his monitor's resolution). Browsed OfferUp and briefly considered making a trade offer for an Intel Core i7-870 listed for $15. Of course, even that would choke the GPU I had in mind for this build, so I aimed a little higher.

 

Haswell prices are still way too high and I knew that would hurt my chances at making a trade with my relatively worthless stuff, so Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge would have to do. Minutes later, I fired off a trade offer for an Intel Core i7-3770 (non-K) and H61 motherboard combo in exchange for an old GTX 750 Ti that was sitting in a drawer. Seller accepted! Considering a used GTX 750 Ti goes for $40-70 USD, and the i7-3770 is closer to $70-90, I definitely traded up.

 

 

Yeah boyos, that's a PCI slot. The dust was included at no charge. Also RIP USB 3.0... no headers for it, but not really important. Drove there and back (1+ hours in LA traffic), got her home, dusted her off, and hooked her up to a spare Corsair CX500 (to be traded later) and it booted right up. Was pleasantly surprised to be greeted with a familiar UEFI considering how dated the rest of this board's components are. 

 

As of now, the Zero Budget Build specs:

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Intel Stock Cooler / TBD
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston DDR3-1333 Low profile
Storage: TBD
Video Card: TBD
Case: TBD
Power Supply: TBD

Optical: TBD

 

Day 2

While we like the elegant minimalism of the NZXT H230, modern designs with mesh front panels are objectively better for thermals. Having struggled with thermals with the H230 when it was my father's case, I started the hunt for mATX mini-tower or ATX mid-tower case on OfferUp. The only requirements were:

A. Mesh front panel that supported 2x 120mm (or larger) intake fans.
B. Support for at least one 5.25" optical bay (friend uses the CD\DVD drive).
C. Support for modern cable management features
D. Support for mATX.

 

There were virtually zero cases on OfferUp that checked all these requirements... until by some miracle, there was actually someone selling/trading a brand new Cougar MX330-G case. I pinged him an offer to trade for my spare Corsair CX500 or my spare EVGA 700B power supply, and he accepted the CX500. The trader was local, so I was there and back within 20 minutes!

 

 

My buddy's current PC (the i5-750 rig) is not at my house, so with a new case a good chunk of the core components, I'm now able to begin a substantial portion of his build without harvesting any components from his current PC. Since we traded the Corsair CX500, the spare EVGA 700B will be his new-ish PSU. Tossed in some spare 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1333 low profile memory, a stock Intel cooler (from my i7-6700), spare Fractal Design 120mm fans, and my spare Asus PCE-AC68 WiFi NIC, then we were basically ready to rock.

 

 

As of Day 2, the Zero Budget Build specs.

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Intel Stock Cooler / TBD
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston DDR3-1333 Low profile
Storage: TBD
Video Card: TBD
Case: Cougar MX330-G
Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze

Optical: TBD

 

 

Day 3

My buddy dropped off his current/old computer so I could begin backing up / cloning his drives. I also needed to harvest some parts from this thing, such as the 2x 120mm Antec fans, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, and the LG DVD/CD RW drive.

 

 

 

Next I formatted his new OS drive, which was my OCZ TR150 480GB SATA SSD that I no longer needed due to getting a 2TB WD Blue SATA SSD this past July:

 

 

The cloning source was his current/old 1TB Seagate Momentus XT. Had to shrink the partition down enough so it would fit the OCZ TR150, and it was quite a learning experience: it took up all of day 3. Basically uninstalled some old games, defragged the drive, disabled system restore and paging, which finally would allow me to shrink the partition down to 460GB. Defragging took most of the evening, so I let that run through the night. 

 

As of Day 3, the Zero Budget Build specs.

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston DDR3-1333 Low profile
Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB

Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB
Video Card: TBD
Case: Cougar MX330-G
Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze

Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive

 

Day 4

Cloned the Seagate drive first thing in the morning, then migrated the OCZ SSD to the Zero Budget build along with the Hyper 212 EVO (fricken annoying installation). Greeted with no video / no POST. WTF. I had tested the i7-3770 and motherboard barely a few days ago! Installed my buzzer, tried again. No POST, no beeps. I removed the RAM, got the "RAM error" beep code as expected. Installed 1 stick of RAM, POSTed fine. Moved the 1 stick to slot 2: no POST and no beeps. Well shit. Looks like slot 2 got screwed somehow. 

 

Took a compressed air can and blew out DIMM slot 2, and still no POST, no beeps. No signs of corrosion or damage on the board. Figured there was no harm in checking the CPU, so I popped off the Hyper 212 and the CPU to get a good look at the LGA socket. Bingo. A dust bunny had somehow made its way into and behind the CPU. Mind blown. Socket cleaned out with air can. Reinstalled CPU, cooler, both RAM DIMMs. POSTed right up. 

 

And now for the crown jewel of the Zero Budget Build. Due to upgrading my sister's build, I re-inherited my old Asus GTX 1070 Ti Cerberus, which was a video card originally marketed toward internet cafe builders. While I was upgrading my sister, I grabbed a kit of 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600 from an old build she doesn't use anymore, and installed the Kingston low profile kit in exchange. 

 

 

Compared to his Radeon R7 360...

 

 

The GTX 1070 Ti created a new problem since it blocked every single PCIe port, except the PCI port at the very bottom. So to retain WiFi on this machine, I had to put away my Asus PCE-AC-68U WiFi NIC and went to dig out a PCI WiFi NIC.

 

 

The ketchup and mustard is strong... None of the colors make any sense. But that's what you get in a Zero Budget build! Booted up WWZ, maxed out its settings at 1080P and ran the benchmark. Killed it at 90 fps average. Dropped shadows to High instead of Ultra and the benchmark jumped to over 100fps average. Very pleased!

 

 

Day 4 specs of the Zero Budget Build:

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600
Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB

Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB
Video Card: Asus GTX 1070 Ti Cerberus
Case: Cougar MX330-G
Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze

Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive

 

 

Day 5

The Zero Budget build is going to my buddy this Sunday, December 6th, so I'm putting the finishing touches on things that have been annoying me, aesthetically. I designed and 3D printed an IO shield out of black PETG, and simply hot glued it to the top, bottom, and along the VGA out. I'm not much of an engineer so I don't really have the wit or time (takes 1 hour to print each prototype) to figure out how to design something that could just snap into place.

 

The above IO shield didn't quite fit, so I edited the model a little bit and the 2nd one was nearly perfect. 

 

Next I gutted and stripped the motherboard down the barebones so that I could go after the blue plastics with some matte black acrylic paints. I want the theme to be the typical (pre-RGB) black/red gamer aesthetic. I was worried about bricking the board the entire time, but I was careful and slow. It's definitely a 10 footer, if you look at just the right angles you can find blue areas where my brush could not reach. 

 

 

IMO, it looks much better without the blue peeking through on the DIMM and 24-pin slots. I wish the 24-pin connector could be red instead, but white is fine. 

 

Day 6

I know I said that this was supposed to be delivered this past Sunday, but my entire family (kids and all) caught the flu. Even though we were relatively well by Sunday, we felt it was best to avoid potential spread by waiting another week. Our new pick-up date is December 19. This allowed me some extra time to sell of the old Radeon R7 360 and the old 8GB G.Skill DDR3-1333 to upgrade his memory. Found this 16GB (2x8GB) kit on ebay for $47 after tax, bought it, and it just arrived today.

 

 

Just passed Memtest86 as I typed this post, so I'm just about ready to wrap this thing up and give it to him. I already have a buyer for the R7 360 2GB for $40 and I can probably flip the 8GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 kit for $30, which brings me back "under budget." If the RX 5700 XT ever gets added, I'll just reclaim the GTX 1070 Ti and sell it for a fat profit.

 

Final Zero Budget build specs:

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 16GB (2x8GB) G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1866 CL10
Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB

Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB Cerberus
Case: Cougar MX330-G
Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze

Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive
 

Day 7

Due to some major Windows issues or a potential virus, we were up til midnight reinstalling Win10 and his games. Ended up dropping in the 3060 then ran Superposition just so I could get home and into bed. The previous score was ~3800, and the new score:

 

Current specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600
Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB

Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB
Video Card: EVGA RTX 3060 XC 12GB
Case: Cougar MX330-G
Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze

Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive

[jaslion]

You could basically do the get broken systems trade them for money and then spend that money on better hardware. It's gaming the rules but it's a fair trade :p.

[Moonzy]

1) upgrade own pc

2) give old pc to friend

3) ???

4) game together

[SPARTAN VI]

 

7 minutes ago, jaslion said:

You could basically do the get broken systems trade them for money and then spend that money on better hardware. It's gaming the rules but it's a fair trade :p.

More or less the plan and what I've been doing. I get a lot of parts from all the friends and family I "support," so I've been listing them for trades in the last few weeks. I have a few really old builds (e.g. Phenom II era) that aren't even worth a single RGB fan though. 

5 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

1) upgrade own pc

2) give old pc to friend

3) ???

4) game together

So the reason for the Zero Budget Challenge is because my wife will nag me into an early grave if I build everything pro bono. This includes dropping 4 figures on my own upgrade just to hand him all my parts. The silver lining is I did upgrade my video card recently, so the musical chairs we play with GPUs has just begun (e.g. my wife get's my hand-me-down, my sister gets my wife's hand-me-down, and so on). More on that later. 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Whatever comes out of this, it'll probably beat my current rig hahaha

[AbydosOne]

18 minutes ago, SPARTAN VI said:

NZXT H230 ATX Mid Tower Case

When I see H230, I upvote (it was my first real PC case and it was really solid).

[BiotechBen]

Call around for free PC trash like Luke and Rob did in scrapyard wars and sell bits and pieces for profit here and there, old drives for 5 bucks, old PSU for 10, ageing graphics card for 15, and maybe 2nd or 3rd gen intel for bits of cash. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

6 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Call around for free PC trash like Luke and Rob did in scrapyard wars and sell bits and pieces for profit here and there, old drives for 5 bucks, old PSU for 10, ageing graphics card for 15, and maybe 2nd or 3rd gen intel for bits of cash. 

no, 2nd gen intel is better than current, and would work inn his mobo.

[SPARTAN VI]

On 11/20/2020 at 3:39 PM, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Whatever comes out of this, it'll probably beat my current rig hahaha

I'm sorry.  If it's the FX-6300 and GTX 550 Ti rig in your profile, then yes it's already shaping up to be quite a bit more capable. 

 

On 11/20/2020 at 3:43 PM, AbydosOne said:

When I see H230, I upvote (it was my first real PC case and it was really solid).

It was originally the case I used for my dad's PC (Core i7-2600K and SLI'd 2x GTX 970) before various upgrades shuffled my parts all around. I really like the minimalistic exterior, but the H230 is begging for more ground clearance and another 120mm exhaust up top. The front intakes appear to be suffocated by that solid panel, but at least you can open the door. IMO, it's a case that's form over function. 

 

Day 1

So right away I looked at the CPU and knew that Lynnfield relic would be a problem, especially at 1080P (his monitor's resolution). Browsed OfferUp and briefly considered making a trade offer for an Intel Core i7-870 listed for $15.  Of course, even that would choke the GPU I had in mind for this build, so I aimed a little higher.

 

Haswell prices are still way too high and I knew that would hurt my chances at making a trade with my relatively worthless stuff, so Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge would have to do. Minutes later, I fired off a trade offer for an Intel Core i7-3770 (non-K) and H61 motherboard combo in exchange for an old GTX 750 Ti that was sitting in a drawer. Seller accepted! Considering a used GTX 750 Ti goes for $40-70 USD, and the i7-3770 is closer to $70-90, I definitely traded up.

 

 

 

Yeah boyos, that's a PCI slot.  The dust was included at no charge. Also RIP USB 3.0... no headers for it, but not really important. Drove there and back (1+ hours in LA traffic), got her home, dusted her off, and hooked her up to a spare Corsair CX500 (to be traded later) and it booted right up. Was pleasantly surprised to be greeted with a familiar UEFI considering how dated the rest of this board's components are. 

 

As of now, the Zero Budget Build specs.

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Intel Stock Cooler / TBD
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston DDR3-1333 Low profile
Storage: TBD
Video Card: TBD
Case: TBD
Power Supply: TBD

Optical: TBD

 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

1 minute ago, SPARTAN VI said:

I'm sorry.  If it's the FX-6300 and GTX 550 Ti rig in your profile, then yes it's already shaping up to be quite a bit more capable. 

Me: 

 

[BiotechBen]

1 hour ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

no, 2nd gen intel is better than current, and would work inn his mobo.

I'm not saying he uses those parts, they're his free resale to build profit and funds. If the parts are obtained for free, his funds are not used. The end goal being to gather "funds" in necessary amounts to "purchase" new parts.

[BiotechBen]

Flipping textbooks would be an interesting thing to experiment with, or like middle school scientific calculators, they seem to just appear out of nowhere. I mean heck, gives a great excuse to get rid of things you don't have space for...

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Day 2

While we like the elegant minimalism of the NZXT H230, modern designs with mesh front panels are objectively better for thermals. Having struggled with thermals with the H230 when it was my father's case, I started the hunt for mATX mini-tower or ATX mid-tower case on OfferUp. The only requirements were:
 

A. Mesh front panel that supported 2x 120mm (or larger) intake fans.
B. Support for at least one 5.25" optical bay (friend uses the CD\DVD drive).
C. Support for modern cable management features
D. Support for mATX.

 

There were virtually zero cases on OfferUp that checked all these requirements... until by some miracle, there was actually someone selling/trading a brand new Cougar MX330-G case. I pinged him an offer to trade for my spare Corsair CX500 or my spare EVGA 700B power supply, and he accepted the CX500. The trader was local, so I was there and back within 20 minutes!

 

 

My buddy's current PC (the i5-750 rig) is not at my house, so with a new case a good chunk of the core components, I'm now able to begin a substantial portion of his build without harvesting any components from his current PC. Since we traded the Corsair CX500, the spare EVGA 700B will be his new-ish PSU. Tossed in some spare 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1333 low profile memory, a stock Intel cooler (from my i7-6700), spare Fractal Design 120mm fans, and my spare Asus PCE-AC68 WiFi NIC, then we were basically ready to rock.

 

 

As of Day 2, the Zero Budget Build specs.

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Intel Stock Cooler / TBD
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston DDR3-1333 Low profile
Storage: TBD
Video Card: TBD
Case: Cougar MX330-G
Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze

Optical: TBD

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Day 3

My buddy dropped off his current/old computer so I could begin backing up / cloning his drives. I also needed to harvest some parts from this thing, such as the 2x 120mm Antec fans, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, and the LG DVD/CD RW drive.

 

 

 

Next I formatted his new OS drive, which was my OCZ TR150 480GB SATA SSD that I no longer needed due to getting a 2TB WD Blue SATA SSD this past July:

 

 

The cloning source was his current/old 1TB Seagate Momentus XT. Had to shrink the partition down enough so it would fit the OCZ TR150, and it was quite a learning experience: it took up all of day 3. Basically uninstalled some old games, defragged the drive, disabled system restore and paging, which finally would allow me to shrink the partition down to 460GB. Defragging took most of the evening, so I let that run through the night. 

 

As of Day 3, the Zero Budget Build specs.

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston DDR3-1333 Low profile
Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB

Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB
Video Card: TBD
Case: Cougar MX330-G
Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze

Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive

 

Day 4

Cloned the Seagate drive first thing in the morning, then migrated the OCZ SSD to the Zero Budget build along with the Hyper 212 EVO (fricken annoying installation). Greeted with no video / no POST. WTF. I had tested the i7-3770 and motherboard barely a few days ago! Installed my buzzer, tried again. No POST, no beeps. I removed the RAM, got the "RAM error" beep code as expected. Installed 1 stick of RAM, POSTed fine. Moved the 1 stick to slot 2: no POST and no beeps. Well shit. Looks like slot 2 got screwed somehow. 

 

Took a compressed air can and blew out DIMM slot 2, and still no POST, no beeps. No signs of corrosion or damage on the board. Figured there was no harm in checking the CPU, so I popped off the Hyper 212 and the CPU to get a good look at the LGA socket. Bingo. A dust bunny had somehow made its way into and behind the CPU. Mind blown. Socket cleaned out with air can. Reinstalled CPU, cooler, both RAM DIMMs. POSTed right up. 

 

And now for the crown jewel of the Zero Budget Build. Due to upgrading my sister's build, I re-inherited my old Asus GTX 1070 Ti Cerberus, which was a video card originally marketed toward internet cafe builders. While I was upgrading my sister, I grabbed a kit of 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600 from an old build she doesn't use anymore, and installed the Kingston low profile kit in exchange. 

 

 

Compared to his Radeon R7 360...

 

 

The GTX 1070 Ti created a new problem since it blocked every single PCIe port, except the PCI port at the very bottom. So to retain WiFi on this machine, I had to put away my Asus PCE-AC-68U WiFi NIC and went to dig out a PCI WiFi NIC.

 

 

The ketchup and mustard is strong... None of the colors make any sense. But that's what you get in a Zero Budget build! Booted up WWZ, maxed out its settings at 1080P and ran the benchmark. Killed it at 90 fps average. Dropped shadows to High instead of Ultra and the benchmark jumped to over 100fps average. Very pleased!

 

 

Final specs of the Zero Budget Build:

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600
Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB

Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB
Video Card: Asus GTX 1070 Ti Cerberus
Case: Cougar MX330-G
Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze

Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive

[SPARTAN VI]

14 hours ago, DutchGuyTom said:

Nicely done. What would have been (or would be) great is if you gave us some before and after performance numbers!

I can still do that. Thanks!

[SPARTAN VI]

@DutchGuyTom So the old PC is just so clunky, I took screenshots the old fashioned way. It averaged about 16 fps in WWZ @ 1080P Ultra.

 

 

The "Zero Budget" PC got roughly 10x the score in WWZ @1080P Ultra:

 

In Super Position 1080P Extreme, the old PC got a score of 674 (and a warning that there wasn't enough VRAM):


The "Zero Budget" PC scored 3894:

 

I'm still in the process of trying to get 16GB (2x8GB) of DDR3 for the Zero Budget machine by trading some of these old components. 

[SPARTAN VI]

Today's project is designing and 3D printing a replacement IO shield. When I traded for the i7-3770 + mobo, I realized only when I got home that he didn't give me an IO shield, which isn't a big deal anyway, but details like this (and the blue accents) bother me.

 

So I took some measurements and sketched one up in CAD:

 

The ridge at the top is meant to allow the IO shield to rest directly on the top USB & PS/2 ports, letting gravity and double sided tape do the rest. The hex grill was to reduce the print time/material and also tie in the design to the case's hex mesh grill on the front. If the hex holes turn out to be too large, I have some spare mesh material I can use. It's on the 3D printer now, a Monoprice Maker Select V1.2, and printing it in eSun's black PETG. Going to take about an hour. I already replaced the green cable comb with a black PETG one I 3D printed, but the blue motherboard accents still really bother me. 

 

Thinking tomorrow I'll probably take the entire board out and hand paint flat red over the motherboard's blue plastics. I plan to gift this PC back to my buddy on Sunday. 

[SPARTAN VI]

Day 5

The Zero Budget build is going to my buddy this Sunday, December 6th, so I'm putting the finishing touches on things that have been annoying me, aesthetically. I designed and 3D printed an IO shield out of black PETG, and simply hot glued it to the top, bottom, and along the VGA out. I'm not much of an engineer so I don't really have the wit or time (takes 1 hour to print each prototype) to figure out how to design something that could just snap into place.

 

The above IO shield didn't quite fit, so I edited the model a little bit and the 2nd one was nearly perfect. 

 

Next I gutted and stripped the motherboard down the barebones so that I could go after the blue plastics with some matte black acrylic paints. I want the theme to be your typical (pre-RGB) black/red gamer aesthetic. I was worried about bricking the board the entire time, but I was careful and slow. It's definitely a 10 footer, if you look at just the right angles you can find blue areas where my brush could not reach. 

 

 

IMO, it looks much better without the blue peeking through on the DIMM and 24-pin slots. I wish the 24-pin connector could be red instead, but white is fine. 

[SPARTAN VI]

Update. It seems one act of good will inspired another, so another one of our friends is planning to donate his RX 5700 XT (reference) to the build. If that ends up happening, we'll have shot way beyond my wildest dreams for this Zero Budget build. Absolutely stunned, but can't count my chickens yet. 

[SPARTAN VI]

Day 6

I know I said that this was supposed to be delivered this past Sunday, but my entire family (kids and all) caught the flu. Even though we were relatively well by Sunday, we felt it was best to avoid potential spread by waiting another week. Our new pick-up date is December 19. This allowed me some extra time to sell off the old Radeon R7 360 and the old 8GB G.Skill DDR3-1333 to upgrade his memory. Found this 16GB (2x8GB) kit on ebay for $47 after tax, bought it, and it just arrived today.

 

 

Just passed Memtest86 as I typed this post, so I'm just about ready to wrap this thing up and give it to him. I already have a buyer for the R7 360 2GB for $40 and I can probably flip the 8GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 kit for $30, which brings me back "under budget." If the RX 5700 XT ever gets added, I'll just reclaim the GTX 1070 Ti and sell it for a fat profit.

 

Current specs:

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 16GB (2x8GB) G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1866 CL10
Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB

Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB Cerberus
Case: Cougar MX330-G
Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze

Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive

[SPARTAN VI]

Day 7-ish

 

Bumping this because I just got an EVGA reservation notice for a RTX 3060 XC Gaming 12GB that I've been in queue for since December. I've already upgraded all of the PC's in my family with cards that are faster than this (slowest we have now is a RTX 2070 Super), so I went ahead and bought this one for the Zero Budget Gamer build. The caveat is that I'll be flipping the GTX 1070 Ti Cerberus to completely absorb the cost of the upgrade:

 

 

The last time I ordered from EVGA, I got the card the next day. So hopefully I'll have some pictures to share soon!

[SPARTAN VI]

It's here! Tomorrow is the big day!

[SPARTAN VI]

Day 7

Due to some major Windows issues or a potential virus, we were up til midnight reinstalling Win10 and his games. Ended up dropping in the 3060 then ran Superposition just so I could get home and into bed. The previous score was ~3800, and the new score:

 

Current specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155
Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600
Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB

Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB
Video Card: EVGA RTX 3060 XC 12GB
Case: Cougar MX330-G
Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze

Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive