Gaming PC Revamp – Aaron Gault

Overview / Background

A few years ago, I built a gaming PC, having played mainly on the PlayStation 4 through Covid, etc. though had previously been an Xbox fan through my late teens, early twenties – before life took over!

The intention, was for Call of Duty MW / Warzone, but quickly transitioned into Rocket League – perfect combination of my love of cars and football! How could you argue with that!

The addition of Evie to the family, in Nov 2023, meant the gaming took a long pause, still to this very day I don’t believe I have played a single minute of any PC game since before Nov 2023. But why let that get in the way of a shiny new thing?!

I was recently asked by a friend to explore a PC build for a family member and spent some time discussing and building multiple different options that worked, using Pick parts. Build your PC. Compare and share. – PCPartPicker to verify and refine the builds. No doubt that planted a seed for what’s about to come, but wasn’t the sole factor – a few conversations with some rather geeky friends who also just completed a revamp of their machines got the cogs firmly turning.

The case I have my current build in is a reused, rather battered NZXT ATX case, which used to have a side viewing window (which presumably is in millions of pieces right now somewhere) but it always bugged me – mainly because the inside of the case is more dusty than I think it should be, like all of the time! Plus – it doesn’t look cool, like all gaming PCs should – it’s black, boring and generally just not very cool!!

As the new outside office build nears completion, it felt only right that the PC on display, on (well, below) my new desk, looks fresh and better than it currently does. Enter plan ‘New case’ (which quickly spirals to much more – naturally!).

Current PC Spec

Case: NZXT PC Case, ATX, Window, Black
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z370P D3 (LGA1151)
CPU: Intel i5 8400
CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster CPU Cooler
RAM: 2x 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3600Mhz
Storage: Samsung 1TB 2.5” SATA SSD
GPU: Nvidia RTX 1080 (6GB)
PSU: 750W Corsair CX750F RGB
Fans: 4x Arctic Fans 120mm

Picture (Before)

Boring. Battered. BAD!

Pictures (New Bits)

SaharaGaming M808W Micro ATX Tempered Case

**Corsair H100i RGB Platinum SE Cooler**

I am not going to lie – the cooler was a purchase simply based on how it looks – I don’t even know that it’s much more efficient when the PC isn’t likely to be worked at all, never mind hard – but hey, it should look the part! (I did ask MS Co-Pilot to summarise the difference between traditional coolers and liquid coolers, the results were cool, but relatively inconclusive in favour of one or the other!).

Now, I feel this is where a confession is needed!

It wasn’t long before starting the build (receiving the case and unboxing it!), I discovered a fatal error – a showstopper of sorts – ‘numnuts’ here, has ordered a Micro ATX case, and has an ATX motherboard… NUMPTY! Anyway – perfect excuse for more upgrades of sorts (noting, budget being key due to this all being about a simple ‘all about looks’ upgrade for a virtually never used gaming PC!).

This dilemma required a Micro ATX motherboard, which given current times, meant absolutely not buying one with an LGA 1151 CPU socket (for 8th and 9th Gen Intel CPUs) and instead, buying one that has an LGA1700 CPU socket – future proofing that, perhaps a little. That was fine, and ideally, adding a board that had WiFi made sense, so I didn’t do that (budget, remember!)!!

Of course, this meant that my ancient 8th Gen Intel i5 CPU (an LGA 1151-2 chip) was not going to work on the new board, so a quick search for cheap CPUs and a benchmark of what I found (with some help from some kind, supporting friends – who were trying to bully me into buying the Intel i5 12th Gen – they aren’t wrong!) provided some ‘to good to say no to results’ for only a little extra spend.

“We shall be having ourselves one of those for sure” I thought seeing this! CPU upgrade, let’s be having you.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the other additions with some links (images) and details.

Quite excited to try the Thermalright bracket for the new CPU – comes highly recommended and gets a great writeup, but generally just looks much better than the traditional CPU clip and bracket lever mechanism – in my opinion!