About a week ago I went in to the local computer store to browse for a new computer case. My old Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced was awesome when I got it 12 years ago. I was 16 at the time and having a cabinet like this adorning my old room was amazing. I remember working all summer at a warehouse to afford this bad boy. I can't remember the specs that accompanied it back then but it was killer at the time.
While the case was great back then it doesn't really fit in in a living room where it's been stationed lately. It's big and it's clunky. It has way to many lights. And honestly it's not at all pretty. I've had my eye on several Fractal Design cabinets. I'm not all that picky but the case I wanted had to have good airflow, no RGB and I want it to be a completely closed cased. No side window, no nothing. A slick case with nothing but a power button and some USB-ports.
I quickly noticed the Fractal Design Define C they had exhibited. I immedeately loved it. It's small, has a cleverly built inside and it's slick as hell. It's just a neat case. No stupid RGB and nothing extravagant. I decided to buy it.
It's like night and day. Then, I made the mistake of mentioning to the guy that my CPU was bottlenecking me and we had a long talk. After talking to this man for about an hour I made the decision to upgrade some parts. I got a new motherboard, a new processor and a cooler. My RAM is decent as it is and I also have a 1070 GPU that I plan on upgrading in due time.
Since I have a 770 GPU and some old HDD's and RAM lying around I decided to get a new power supply as well. That meant I could just dig up those parts from the basement, stick them in the old case and hopefully set it at a decent price.
Sadly the case was DOA so I had to wait a week for a new one to arrive at the store.
Fast forward one week...
Yesterday I got a text from the computer store that they had gotten the new case. Of course they texted me early in the morning so I had to go being excited and couldn't think about nothing else for the whole day at work. Needless to say I rushed to the computer store after finishing up work.
This meant it was time to start building up the new PC and move some parts over from the old one. My old computer is a real mess as a result of exchanging and upgrading parts over the year. As I've been tinkering with it I've never bothered to have proper cable management in it because honestly the case is quite cumbersome when it comes to hiding cables.
I didn't take pictures of the process but below you can see my old mess compared to my new tidy build.
Old vs. new
On to the fun bit. What did I buy?
Whenever I upgrade my PC I always think long term. 5-7 to year is a minimum and this time I actually upgraded after 4 years due to a bad choice with my last upgrade. I should have never gotten the processor I did and it's been holding me back for all these years.
Old build:
- Intel Core i5-7600K, 3.8GHz, Kaby Lake
- ASUS ROG Strix Z270F Gaming
- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler
- ASUS GeForce GTX 1070 DUAL OC
- Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000MHz 16GB
- Some 650W PSU
New build:
- AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8GHz
- Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite AX V2
- Be Quiet! Dark Rock Slim CPU Cooler
- ASUS GeForce GTX 1070 DUAL OC
- Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000MHz 16GB
- Corsair RM850X PSU
Look at how nice and tidy it is. The new case was really easy to work with. The main space is meant to house only the motherboard with all the accompanying parts. Drives, roms and cables can easily be hidden away in the back. It wasn't cumbersome at all to make the cables look nice. There's straps and everything you need to hold the cables in place and out of sight.
I decided to leave Intel behind for a bit and switch over to AMD. I've heard great things about them over the last few years, especially for gaming. The price vs. performance is supposedly huge. The switch did of course mean I had to replace my motherboard and CPU cooler as well.
My 1070 is still great and I'm keeping it for a while still. I don't intend to upgrade until I can get my hands on a 3060 Ti at the least. I had a 3060 in my hands in the store but decided the price vs. performance upgrade I would be getting wasn't worth it.
This build should hold me for at least 5 years and it will probably be going strong for more than 7 as well.
Performance
Performance has been great so far. I've been doing a bit of testing and some tweaking of the BIOS and I've gotten a noticeable boost to my overall performance. I'm getting 20+ more frames in Outriders which is a huge leap to me. I didn't think the difference would be that big. Speaks volumes of how bad my old CPU was. At the same time I can both stream and look at streams in 1080p without any stuttering.
Temps are great to. No huge spikes even when putting stress on the system. I have an extra fan I could install in the front on the case but temps are honestly so good that I don't see the need for it.
So there it is. My new baby.
I only have two things to say congratulations on your new gaming pc and it is beautiful.
Rest peacefully, faithful companion.
Solid PC build! The CPU will help a lot with the years between the two.
That's the plan and it's already working. This way I'm set for the future as well. Cheers!
what a beautiful case, no doubt I have the same tastes as you... I prefer something simple, neat and clean, to something fancy, lights, sounds and all that xD very good purchase pusen, the truth was completely worth it... One of my projects with Hive is to improve my pc, which is really bad xD, but I hope that in the future I can do better and learn new things, so I can fulfill my dream.
Thank you! A case like this will fit in anywhere. I don't mind in being anonymous at all. Keep on going like you are and you will be able to upgrade your pc in no time!
I caved and ordered a prebuilt yesterday
Cool! What specs did you get?
Ryzen 5 3600 + GTX 1650. The rest will be modified almost immediately, before I replace those with Ryzen 9 and an AMD card. GPUs are getting stupid expensive and I just can't wait 3 years for a new custom pc
Awesome! I’m gonna pounce as soon as I. An get my hands on anything of a good GPU. Luckily I know some people in the business who can reserve one for me if they get one in the store.
That new case looks slick (and also seems much cleaner than the old one; for some reason looks like it can carry too much dust outside from the way it looks) and that sounds like a huge performance upgrade. Congratulations!
It has way better dust filtering for sure. The old one basically had none so I had to get creative with it. Living with a cat also doesn't help.
20 more FPS is a big difference, plus with that new case it looks more minimalistic. I'm one of those who prefer rgb, but it doesn't look bad at all. In the end, the important thing is performance and temperature, aesthetics are secondary. Enjoy your new baby, dude. 🤓
It started at 10 FPS...
HEH
Cheers! I'm very happy with it. It's really weird to have a lil baby case next to me instead of the old giant though. I often used it as an extra storage space so that's gone now.
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Wait, you had a 3060 in your hands and didn't buy it? The way things are going, you probably could have sold it for enough profit to pay for your other upgrades.
Good point. I'm not really about that stuff though. I'd rather someone else get to enjoy the card at the right price.
Good build, the GPU is still pretty solid, got one myself.
Congratulations brother for your new upgrade, at this moment I know how you feel, I bought my new computer and I'm still jumping with excitement, I still have some things to do to upgrade it, I have to expand more RAM and buy a 2GB video card, so when playing I will have thousands of orgasms, hahaha.
That's awesome! So cool that you finally were able to go get that computer. I know you've been waiting a long time for it.
That's right brother! now if I can enjoy even more in this beautiful world of video games, even are video gameplays
Nice build man! Glad you managed to find a good GPU!
Cheers! I already had the GPU. Bought it back in 2017 when demand wasn't as rough.
Great! May it bring you many hours of joy :)
Man, I remembered you had bought a new case and was wondering if you did a post about that, I was checking your blog and here I am, sorry for the delay.
How dare you say that? You piece of cat. RGB is God
XDDDDDDDDD, how did it occur to you to mention that you have a bottleneck in your pc at a computer store?
Ever since I was a kid (I'm talking about when I was 11-12 years old) I've always dreamed of having a gaming PC that would allow me to play amazing things like Ark: Survival Evolved (you should play it, I highly recommend it). There was even a time where I was raising money to fulfill my dream, but it's impossible with such stupidly high prices and absurd inflation rate.
But, your build looks so amazing, although it looks too minimalist for my tastes, the simplicity also makes it look attractive. I remember you were excited to be able to buy a new pc and you were collecting for years to do so, so, congratulations, mate, I'm happy for you.
I hope you don't throw your case away, at some point you can give it to me as birthday gift or something
Cheers! I always put away money so that I can upgrade my PC every 5-7 years. I know I'm gonna do it anyways so it's better to "pay" for it every month than taking a big hit when the time comes. I'm putting my old 770 GPU and some RAM in the old PC to sell it.
That picture hurts my body. There’s no doubt that my processor was a bottle neck. I’m seeing such a huge difference already.
Awesome that you’re getting new parts soon. I hope we get to see your build.