Upgrading Two PCs and New Build

    Ryan and Grandpa put together a new rig. The majority of parts used are pretty old and were repurposed from when we upgraded Ryan’s old rig. Link)
New components:

• Case: https://www.nzxt.com/product/detail/143-h440-performance-mid-tower.html
• 120 GB SSD: http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?imodule=CT120M500SSD1
• Power Supply (Great Rebate as well on this): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817159055

     We used an old Microsoft Mouse and an ancient PS/2 Keyboard. This case is excellent but there is one minor feature I would tweak. The video card and other PCI cards are held in with thumbscrews but I prefer the mechanism in my case that utilizes no screws:



    The NZXT H440 case is much lighter then the PC-K62 I use which is mostly because it is a mostly plastic case. It is however sturdy plastic and all panels are lined with sound proofing foam which really keeps the system quiet. (It runs almost silent even with fans) This case has a back panel light built in which is very convenient and the built in fan hub, awesome cabling options and unique power supply shroud means there is practically no wires visible. In addition to other filters there is also a nifty large filter that is both magnetically and mechanically held in place that covers all three front fans.

    Our first order of business was to salvage the ancient BFG 285 out of Ryan’s computer to use in this build. This video card was purchased on July 9, 2009 as an upgrade for whatever computer I had at the time and then used in a new build I put together in 2010 for me but it failed in June 2010 and had to be sent to BFG for RMA. The problem was BFG was no longer building graphics cards as they had decided to get out of that market because the profit margin was so low. (Video cards were very competitive at the time but I think when I bought this card is was about $350 from NewEgg.) They chose to honor their warranty anyways and fixed my card for free in August 2010. (BFG is a great company)

    I used that video card until February 2014 which is when I upgraded to a 560 and we put the BFG 285 into Ryan’s Rig. This month we decided to upgrade my PC to a Nvidia 750 Ti which has more ram but is a debatable in terms of actually being an upgrade and we put the Nvidia 560 into Ryan’s rig the rock solid BFG 285 into Mackenzie’s rig.

    The GTX 750 Ti, as you will see, is a half sized card with one fan and uses no additional power. I have installed the latest drivers and played a few games and I haven’t noticed any slow downs at all but Windows did change my Graphics rating from 7.7 to 7.6:


    All of the cards are pretty close to each other in performance per Tom’s hierarchy chart.



    Here are some pictures from the upgrades and new build. Other than cleaning my Rig and putting in the 750 Ti I didn’t have to touch anything. Ryan and Grandpa did all the hard work and I took pictures. Ryan even formatted the USB drive and created an ISO image of Windows 8 and made a USB Version of Windows 8 to facilitate installation. (This is another no DVD build. In fact the case doesn’t have anywhere to install one but you might be able to mount one internally, there is no shortage of space inside this case)


Grandpa and Ryan working to put together Mackenzie’s build. You’ll notice along the top of the case you could install three more fans if you liked. (It came with four by default so I didn’t see the need for more)


Their putting in the 2009 BFG 285! (Still works) That red NZXT face plate could be removed if you don’t like it but we liked it so we left it on. (Going for a red theme for Mackenzie)


That round button just above the Retro purple PS/2 Keyboard connection is a switch for a light which illuminates the back of the case. Very cool and useful feature.


All lit up


This is a picture of inside the rig. Other then the cable for the CPU Fan look at how clean that looks. All of the fan cables are hooked up behind the mother board to the fan hub. The power supply we used was not modular but can’t see any of the extra wires as they are all hidden in the unique power supply shroud.


Ryan is installing Windows 8.1. No issues installing and it was pretty straight forward and took less than a half hour. It was a pretty old USB stick or it might had gone a lot faster.

Ryan is all done upgrading and cleaning his PC and is bringing it back to hook up. (That is an almost all steel case so it’s pretty heavy compared to the Nzxt H440 case)


Here’s some pictures from My Rig:

This was the ASUS 560 I took out to upgrade Ryan’s Rig.


This is the 750 TI now installed. The size difference is amazing and no extra power needed! I'm inspired to build a new mini atx build with this card.


This was the box it came in. It also came with $50 cash for three different games. I used the code for Path of Exile and Warface codes and gave away the HON key on Reddit. My son commented on the odd packaging. The box was at the bottom of large box with bubble wrap on top. (It might have made more sense to wrap the box in bubble wrap instead of having bubble wrap on just one side but it still got here in one piece.)