Dad's Xmas PC

[Remmy]

Hey guys

My mum finally decided it was time to replace my dad's PC which is about 10 years old now, and you can make a brew before it's loaded after turning it on. The only real specification she gave me was it had to be quiet since the current one sounds like a hairdryer when it starts getting hot, and it had to be faster than the current one, which really isn't hard xD

I was given a tight budget of £300 for the PC alone, but I didn't need to buy everything for it anyway because I had several spare parts from my previous PC.

I already had:

• Case: NZXT M59
• Graphics Card: Gigabyte GTS450
• CPU cooler: Coolermaster Hyper 212+ (Almost had enough spares for an entire custom loop, just didn't have a spare CPU block (yet I've got my eye on the Raystorm for my PC next time I feel like fiddling around with it))
• PSU: Hiper 580W (I literally bought this at the time because it was blue and shiny haha xD)

So I still had to buy a motherboard, CPU, memory, storage drive, and an optical drive. (Yes, he needs an optical drive). I settled on the following, which came in at just about £30 over budget:

• Motherboard: MSI Z87-G41 £75
• CPU: i3 4130 £89
• Memory: 4GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz Blue £33
• SSD: 120GB Kingston SSDNow £64
• HDD: 500GB Seagate Barracuda £39
• ODD: Lite on DVDRW £13
• SD Card reader: 3.5" Akasa Multicard reader + 5.25" bay adapter £15

We went to Currys to get a £90 monitor we'd seen that looked reasonable, and stumbled on a stunning IPS display, with a wonderfully designed stand on it. It was the Acer S236HL TMJJ at £150, and the single thing that swayed my mums decision to get it instead of the cheaper one was that she liked the stand. I was stood there just looking at the amazing colours next to the non IPS panels xD I'm really jealous of it now, I wish I'd have got two for me instead of the two I got.

I got home last night from uni and before I even set up my PC, I just tore into all the boxes eager to get on with another little build, and got it almost finished; there's just a few things left to do now. I still need to solder some adapters/splitters to wire all the fans to molex on a resistor, I'd like to get a 120mm for the exhaust (I was very surprised when I found I had no spares, only had 140mm spares), and I need to do the cable management. Windows is installed and everything, and I just wanted to test everything worked as it's getting near to Christmas.


Here's a few pictures of it at the moment

One of the LEDs on the fan was broken, which was news to me, but my dad doesn't care about looks whatsoever.

A haunting image from my past: A couple of years ago I tried painting a few bits of the case (bay covers, HDD rails, PCI covers etc.) to have some coloured accents. I was just such a noob at painting, hence why this looks soooo terrible, but as I said, he won't care. I practically pleaded with my mum to get the Bitfenix Prodigy, but she couldn't justify the price of it when I already had this case.

The cables are just crying out to me to be braided, but there's little point for the cost.

 

[Snortan]

I've never seen that kind of psu cable connectors before. Is that some new design that failed or it just old and I haven't seen it yet?

 

[Remmy]

I've never seen that kind of psu cable connectors before. Is that some new design that failed or it just old and I haven't seen it yet?

No, now that you mention it, I've never seen them on another PSU. They're actually really nice looking I think, and they're very secure. Here's a better image of the connectors

I don't know why more companies don't have them, I believe Hiper no longer trade, so perhaps the design died with them

 

[Dark NighT]

Tagan used those connections as well, my guest pc has a tagan psu with them.

Thats a nice rig for little money, but i would mount the fan from the side panel to the rear exhaust and blank of the sidepanel so it wont suck in loads of dust, there is a fan in the front and it would be a better setup imo.

 

[Mark3Max]

Very nice rig Remmy , tidy and very clean.
Your dad won't know what to do with all that speed.
That is a pretty nice monitor.
Nice Christmas present for your dad.