Revive the fallen (can older PC be cool?)

[bracka]

Hello,

I recently did some minor upgrades and mods to my main pc and decided to share with this lovely forum.

 

The rig was put together  in Q3 2010 with moderate budget so don't expect any extremes here.

 

The components:

Case: Antec ThreeHundred

Motherboard: Gigabtye GA-P55-UD4

CPU: Intel i5-750 and CoolerMaster Hyper 212

GPU: Gigabyte Geforce GTX 460

PSU: Corsair TX750

Storage: Intel x25-m 80gb and 1TB HDD

and some G.skill  ram 8Gb

 

The result was a nice, simple, discrete PC that did it's job.

Lately with all the nice hardware coming out I was eager to upgrade. However, I didn't feel like spending the big bucks for a new PC so I decided to tune up the one I had.

 

 

The Revival!

 

I wanted to add a window to the side panel. This also required for me to modify the insides of the case so it's aesthetically pleasing once the window is installed.

 

Customization list:
1) replace stock PSU fan for a quieter one

2) replace the stock hyper 212 and case fans

3) cut some cable routing holes (case front cables and 8pin power were especially ugly)

4) do a window side panel mod

5) install some lights for the extra 'bling' effect

 

This is what it looks like in the end.

 

 

Pictures with the LEDs ON and OFF:

 

 

Custom switch to turn off the LED lights:

 

Close up for the cable routing hole:

And not so good side shot:

 

That's it, hope you liked it - sorry for the poor photo quality on some shots, I am not a good photographer and the camera was borrowed so I didn't know what half of the settings did.

 

Cheers

[MPX309]

Nothing wrong with that at all. . . Looks very solid. 

[TorguL]

What fans are you using? They look good. What's the noise level like on those?

[jeffrey_rodriguez]

nice and neat

[Nicktrance]

I wouldn't call that old but it looks really nice and clean :) nice job.

[bracka]

What fans are you using? They look good. What's the noise level like on those?

 

Those are Corsair SP120 Quiet edition.

Rear one uses noctua fan speed reducer and thus spins at around 900 rpm.

CPU fan is controlled from Speed fan and does the same rpm at idle.

In front of the case I have 2 Gentle Typhoons AP-15 running of 5V.

They are close to inaudible at those speeds. Hard drive is the loudest part by far when in Idle

[91wow]

This might make me take apart my HTPC core 2 quad and put it back together and take shots of it on the way so i can re do the watercooling on the CPU loop.:)

[S2000Gan]

Perfectly relevant PC.

Quad core
Good GPU
Very nice cable management!

[enRodjavel]

nice cable manangement and clean build =D sweet Rig

[Jimstah87]

Build seems balanced, nice work.

[Swietlix]

You're calling a  GTX 460 old, and i'm just sitting here with my 9600 gt...

[Nit3Rid3R]

Older PCs can be cool yes, love the bright white light! 

[IPCharger]

The colors don't match but it looks really clean and solid. I like it.

[XiaoPigs]

Really clean and neat build especially for a slightly older build than this. Great cable management too.

 

 

Still a very solid build even now, although the 460 is starting to show it's age.

 

I like it :) Makes me sorta miss my Pentium 4 build for some reason

[bracka]

Really clean and neat build especially for a slightly older build than this. Great cable management too.

 

 

Still a very solid build even now, although the 460 is starting to show it's age.

 

I like it :) Makes me sorta miss my Pentium 4 build for some reason

I agree that 460 is starting to age. I used to have two in SLI, but that really needed some extra cooling which resulted in increased noise and thermals weren't great.

Without fan blowing air between the graphics cards I used to encounter some crashes in some really demanding games. In addition the SLI always required some tinkering and sometimes the performance just wasn't there no matter what profile I set up. Personally I wouldn't recommend SLI config with lower tier cards any more.

I think the biggest drawback on this platform is no native SATA 3 support. I would love to have a modern high performance SSD, but the interface on the board would be the bottleneck.

[02ocastle]

Nice clean build man!  All I would do is stick an extra SP120 on the heatsink for push/pull and overclock that i5. And upgrade your GPU, buy a cheap GTX 650 Ti Boost or something, you're not gonna get the performance you want out of that 460!

But everthing else is sweet, and relevant!

[Jan.B]

very  clean and solid work :) keep it up!

[bracka]

Nice clean build man!  All I would do is stick an extra SP120 on the heatsink for push/pull and overclock that i5. And upgrade your GPU, buy a cheap GTX 650 Ti Boost or something, you're not gonna get the performance you want out of that 460!

But everthing else is sweet, and relevant!

For heatsink this size I really think push pull is an overkill. I did some tests with gentle typhoons in push pull and the difference was just a few degrees. Not really worth it for me.

 

Regarding overclocking:

My i5 at the moment is running on 3.6ghz at 1.25volts. I used to have it on 3.8Ghz for over a year, but that does require a lot more volts ( a bit over 1.3). In my book the extra heat and noise is not really worth it. 

 

I did some benching with 4Ghz on the cpu, but I didn't dail it in to 100% stable and I had to push mad volts and temps. I don't see a point of pushing my i5-750 that far for every day use.

[02ocastle]

For heatsink this size I really think push pull is an overkill. I did some tests with gentle typhoons in push pull and the difference was just a few degrees. Not really worth it for me.

 

Regarding overclocking:

My i5 at the moment is running on 3.6ghz at 1.25volts. I used to have it on 3.8Ghz for over a year, but that does require a lot more volts ( a bit over 1.3). In my book the extra heat and noise is not really worth it. 

 

I did some benching with 4Ghz on the cpu, but I didn't dail it in to 100% stable and I had to push mad volts and temps. I don't see a point of pushing my i5-750 that far for every day use.

Ah right I gotcha.

[carolkarine]

yeah, this isn't an "OLD" computer. now, the computer (which still runs BTW) that has an ATI RAGE 128 pro in it (circa 1999/2000) sitting in my basement is OLD.

[hiyayhi]

Looks, very nice for what you are working with, that cable management is incredible!

[JAKEBAB]

nice i like these realistic builds more than the over the top custom watercooled 3 gtx680s and 3960x builds for some reason, i even like builds like this and apus and stuff more than mine and sometimes wish i could trade my build for them i dont know why :S

[AMD Lover]

What fans are you using? They look good. What's the noise level like on those?

There Corsair fans, look like SP120's, they come in Quiet or Performance Edition, both are very quiet fans, i personally have only gotten one defective fan out of the 15 i have bought, they have noise isolating rubber mounts and color changeable rings, "White, Red, Blue" also u can paint the white to what ever color u want.

[kevlyCoppers]

It looks like you CPU heatsink is sagging to the right side. I don't know if that was intentional or not ,but i thought I would point it out just in case it wasn't.

[bracka]

It looks like you CPU heatsink is sagging to the right side. I don't know if that was intentional or not ,but i thought I would point it out just in case it wasn't.

Yes, the heatsink is indeed not perfectly vertical. It's a bit twisted clockwise, that's not intentional. However I remember that I wasn't able to move it and the mounting mechanism kept it at this angle. Maybe it's a defect, however the mount is quite solid and the temps are all right.