Alien Ryzen

[doubleagent214]

Hello, my local friends and fans!

   I am here to give a rundown of a very very special project. I am building a computer for my little brother. Not only that, I am doing so in a very very old Alienware Aera-51 ALX chassis. It may be old, but I still think it looks the best! Also the motorized fins and door were so cool. So I started in the default config, x58 alienware mobo, i7-960 cpu,  AMD Radeon HD 6950, a 160GB hdd, blu-ray drive and DVD drive, SD combo drive, there was also an ssd, but that was added in later, and it all worked! Even the alienware liquid cooler, which not sure if that was original for the 1100w dell psu was a refurb and there is a dell refurb sticker on the back. But the show must go on. Here are some in progress picks of me upgrading the mobo, cpu, ram, and hdd which is not pictured. That was a few months ago.

 

   Now, this beast has an SDD, two HDDs with room to grow, but one more drive for now. I am also in the process of taking out all the old lighting and replacing it with aura sync lighting to move away from the aging control board. So if it fails, only the motors would stop. Cable management is trash, but it's not designed to be viewed from the outside. I can do better, but for a WIP not too bad for now. I have changed out the fans. The stock fans are some thick delta fans, but now I got some budget artic cooler 120s in there for now. I will also have to change out the HDD cooling fans, which are like some odd 90mm? blower fans. If anyone knows what they are, please leave me a comment linking to some new ones. I don't mind having to power them off my mobo. Also I took out the dvd writer, mostly to give to a friend and because it was not wanting to always open up. 

   So for a little history about myself and what I am doing here. I am building a mid-tier system for my little brother (13) for games and school. I traded my gaming laptop, to get this chassis. Totally taking a loss on it, for I could have gotten the mini pc x51 with more modern specs, but this case is a legend and so cool. My laptop was a MSI GE-72 apache pro with a GTX 970m, and 500GB SSD, and i7-5700HQ, the awesome IPS screen, and I gave that up to work on this build so my brother would have the coolest first computer ever. I even got him the original keyboard for that generation, but none of the marco stuff works on windows 10.

     P.S. Careful, not all LED strips plug into the same connector. I totally didn't know there are two different aura connectors until I spent money on a ROG Addressable LED strip just to find out that is not the one I need for I have the basic aura connectors and not the addressable ones. More updates coming soon as I get the lighting all worked out. Might have got a bad LED strip, have a replacement coming in the mail. For some reason the one I have does not one to mix colors well. So next update when I get all that figured out. 

 

Specs: Old - New

CPU: i7-960 - Ryzen 3 2200g

GPU: Radeon HD 6950 - GTX 1060 3GB

Mobo: Alienware x58 - Asus Strix B350

RAM: 12GB 1333 DDR3 - 8GB 2800 DDR4

Storage: 120GB SSD, 160GB HDD - 120GB SSD, 500GB HDD, 250GB HDD

PSU: 1100watt Dell Silver - same

Chassis: Alienware Area 51 ALX

OS: Windows 7 - Windows 10

[Mooshi]

Why go from an i7 to an APU?

[Fasauceome]

4 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

Why go from an i7 to an APU?

2200g has faster clocks than the r3 1200. Using it with a dGPU makes sense, and the iGPU is good for troubleshooting.

[AskTJ]

Nice build.

[doubleagent214]

12 hours ago, Mooshi said:

Why go from an i7 to an APU?

Because it's a ten year old chip? The 960 was launched in 2009

[doubleagent214]

On 8/18/2018 at 1:43 AM, Mooshi said:

Why go from an i7 to an APU?

Or were you talking about me giving up my laptop?

[doubleagent214]

Update time. So this is a big update. First off I upgraded the cpu from a R3 2200g to a R5 2600. Then I went all AMD, #teamred, and got a 4GB RX 580 to replace the 3GB GTX 1060. I did this because I want one software for everything and because they perform the same really. Also I had to replace the front panel, the cable for the motor snapped, and so did the one for the bluetooth.

 

Time for the hard part. So I gave up on changing the lighting for now sadly. Gave up trying to replace the Alienware LED lights with some Aura Sync ones, since I am using a Asus motherboard. Because of how the diffuser at the bottom of the case is, it kep showing a really band banding effect and did not mix colors good. The diffuser is pressed right up against the LEDs. Making it looks horrible. Also I added another cheap storage drive from the local micro center, and I replaced the old dell psu with a newer one of the same model yay. I did try changing the cooler to a AIO liquid cooler, but Ryzen sucks at overclocking and there is no real point on a 2600.

 

P.S. I changed out the old delta fans to some not 8ish years old fans. I have a cheap Artic 120mm fan and a Noctua Redux 120mm in the case now, and plan to get another Redux soon and a 1TB WD Blue soon.

 

Final specs:

CPU: Ryzen 5 2600

Cooler: Wraith Stealth

Morherboard: Stix B350-F Gaming

RAM: Viper Elite 8GB 2800MHz

Storage: Sandisk SSD Plus 120GB

                Hitachi 500GB HDD

                WD Caviar 250GB HDD

GPU: Asus Dual RX 580 4GB

Case: Alienware Area-51 ALX

PSU: Dell 1000w 80+ Silver

 

[doubleagent214]

[Wick3d_Mitch]

Looks good man well done!

[doubleagent214]

I found out that the case actually has a removable motherboard tray. Will make some things easier in the future 

[JRzoid]

Yours's is nottttt lol....mine absolutely is lol 

[SkilledRebuilds]

2 hours ago, JRzoid said:

Yours's is nottttt lol....mine absolutely is lol 

Sweet Jesus.
I both do and don't like it.. for obvious reasons.