Rated: 90% (2 votes)
Loading ...!Past to Present!
fullskull
First off…. My name is Matthew, im from wales and i love my pc’s ;)These pics are from the begining, the first pc i built to the one i use now, not much extreme modding going on here, just how things tidy up over the years.
This is where is starts…..
AMD Athlon 2400+
Msi Motherboard
Crucial 512mb DDR
Msi MX440 64mb
120gb Seagate hdd
CMedia 5.1 sound.
Sounds Crap i know but back in the day this was the bollox 
this was about 5 - 6 years ago and all games out at that time were no match for this beast! lol. Moving on……
1 Year later i invested in a new pc costing around £1500, i went all out this time and bought the best i could, bear in mind now i am only a beginner at this stage. LOOK AT THE MESS ON THIS! LOL
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2ghz Clawhammer
Asus A8V-E Deluxe 939
Corsair xms Pro 1gb DDR
Asus EAX800XTPE 256mb PCI-E
37gb WD Raptor 10,000rpm
200gb WD Caviar HDD
Creative SoundBlaster 24bit live external
2x Sony Dual layer DVD+RW/-RW
Tagan 420watt PSU
7 x 80mm Fans
No Comment 
About 6 months on and this is what it looked like..
An improvement from before, Dont ya think. During this time My mouse got a bit battered and had a little surgery lol.
It looks a little stupid.. yes but it was actually more comfortable than when it didnt have a screw init, btw money was a little tight at this time that is why i resorted to this mod
With help from my brother this is what the pc looked like.
The backplate has been cut out and replaced with some Perspex with a fan hole cut out directly behind the cpu fan for better air flow the cpu fan has also been turned around, a fan hole has been cut under the graphics card fan for a good flow of air to the cooler which has also been replaced with an artic cooler, with this i got much lower temps and the fan is silent too. also a square has been cut out of the top and covered with perspex, there is an asus logo cut out of the perspex and a 92mm blue led fan underneath the logo.
In the Dark.
This is the front panel, The doom logo i made myself with a set of little files and a stanly knife, there is also a red light behind to get a better look.
At this point i am overclocking too and when this pic was taking the cpu was running at 2.5ghz stable, same with my graphics that was clocked to the max with the core running at 600mhz and the memory at 612mhz which is alot considering they run at 500 and 520 stock. i maintained these speeds constantly for a year or 2 with no underclicking at all, then the motherboard said “pffffffft” and died on me.
Money was still tight so i had to downgrade to a socket 754 sempron, agp motherboard. 
not happy.
It was a DFI so not too bad but still…… Here are the pics
This is the preperation.
DFI LanParty UT250gb + Star Ice Cooler
This is the what it looks like, just a little more cable managment and its done. nothing special it just looks nice 
AMD Sempron 64 1.6ghz running at 2.0ghz
DFI LanParty UT250gb
Corsair xms pro 1gb (not installed here)
Radeon EAX850XTPE 256mb
34gb WD Raptor
200gb WD Caviar
Creative SoundBlaster 24bit live external
Sony Dual layer DVD+RW/-RW
450watt PSU
This is not the best of specs but it did the job with a lot of pushing lol, most of the games were running at low due to the cpu being soo shit! a year or so went on and borrowed a 939 motherboard off my mate so that i could use me athlon again. i also bought a new gfx card off the same mate, it is a Geforce 7800gs OC 512mb agp and i had it for 60 squid, Bargain! This is one of the best agp cards around, alongside Ati’s X1950XT, it has the same cooler that was on my x800 and x850 but this one come stock with the card. This pc is ok for now but still not good enough, i can play all new games fine such as UT3, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, Crisis, COD 4 and GTR2, not on full of course but close to it. here is a pic of the Graphics card with no cooler, i had jus scraped the crap thermal pad off and ready to replace it with some Artic Silver, temps dropped about 10 degrees after the change.
Here is the pc now, only pic i got sorry. ill add more soon.
No more changes from this, except i did buy a new mouse, and what a mouse it was. It is a Microsoft Habu 2000Dpi and it is the best mouse i have used by far, Iv allways loved microsoft mice due to the shape on them and razer make the guts for this bad boy so u cant go wrong. Unfortunatly it went wrong for me lol and is now on its way out, it clicks on its own all the time and sometimes staggers slowly across the screen when using the whole of my mat. contacted razer as the make the insides and they told me to contact microsoft and i found it a little tough to get around theyre website so i give up lol, il get a new one soon.
There is another pc in the works tho, Nothing has been bought yet but i have chosen most of my components, so far its gonna cost around £2000. pricy init, just gotta save alot and im not good at saving. here it is
Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe/Wi-Fi AMD 790FX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2
AMD Phenom X4 Quad Core 9950 2.60GHz Black Edition
OCZ 4GB (2×2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Reaper HPC Edition Dual Channel DDR2 x2
HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI x2
Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10000RPM SATA-II 16MB Cache
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache x2
Pioneer BDR-202BK 4x BD-R/RE Blu-Ray Serial ATA Dual Layer DVD Writer
Asus DRW-2014L1T 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter
Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-Express Sound Card
Asus Silent Square Evo CPU Cooler
Zalman ZM-MFC1 Plus Black Multi Fan Controller
Tagan TG1100-BZ 1100w Modular BZ Series PSU
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case (Not sure yet)
Thanks for reading. Peace!
the pc your planing to build sounds brill very well thought through choosing amd over intel because i want intel to die and amd to rule (not ati for good reasons) because the prices are just so cheap (for now lol) my self uses a athlon x2 3600 lol but it performs brill games with a 8600gts like world in conflict max settings in dx9 but the psu is overkill tho 620 or 700 would do the job (thats just my saying tho) nice work
That will be ncie rig. By your choice of the phenom im guessing your an AMD fan… so am I, im waiting for them to rise again but at the moment, and for a pc of that spec, id get an intel. Shame but true. They’r faster and the Phenom will be the bottleneck of that system i think. (if not now, in the future, unless AMD bring out a nice am2+ CPU *fingers crossed*)
Also ddr2 ram… That will limit it a bit aswel i think. If i were building a rig now id definatley get DDR3, despite the cost.
Good luck with the saving… It’ll be an amazing rig whatever u go with. Im still on an x2 5200+ @2.9Ghz
Dude, i really enjoyed reading your stuff. Have to say though and i really am sorry but you will get far more for you money by buying into the intel Quad market and choosing an nvidia card. I started out with a 9800 Pro and amd 3000+ 64bit, loved it but have evolved to the dark side. Also check GEIL memory, great value for money and good latencies. Recently built a rig for a mate using a 2 gig pair of GEIL and was amazed.
Have you thought about the new Artic Cooling ARTIC XTREME. Looks the Bollox and sound awsome from the specs.
Good luck mate with your planning and construction and most of all have lots of fun.
Keep uploading picies dude, love them.