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Yosemite - Ivy Bridge (first mod)

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Joined
Apr 4, 2011
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33
Motherboard
ASRock Z87E-ITX
CPU
i5-4670k
Graphics
PowerColor 7870 MYST Edition
Mac
  1. 0
Classic Mac
  1. iMac
  2. PowerBook
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
So rather than botching my cube I'm going to work my way up and learn some modding skills. I'm hoping to achieve something similar to spackley's "Budget G3 Powerhack". Here's what I'm looking at:

Intel Core i3-3245
GIGABYTE GA-B75M-D3H
Antec Basiq BP350
Phanteks PH-TC90LS
2x4GB PNY 1333Mhz (reusing)
OCZ Vertex 4 128GB (reusing)
Radeon HD 7750 (later)

I have been a Mac user for 13 years (it all started with an Indigo iBook G3 366Mhz when I was a junior in high school). I am probably more excited about getting in to the vintage case mod scene than is healthy.

Please let me know what you think. I'll get some disassembled pictures up over the weekend.
 
I don't think that you'll notice any difference between that phanteks cooler and a stock intel unit if you're only running a 55W i3 as your CPU. From what I gather the panteks is a little lower profile but the unit that comes with the i3 will clear the PSU just fine.
 
I was wondering about that. I'll save the money then and stick with stock for now. Thanks!
 
Thanks for the reminder on the pictures, they are on the way!

This first mod is for my girlfriend to play Borderlands 2. I'm going to go ahead and order the 7750 as I don't want to run 6-pin PCI-E power. I'm also going to try this Dynatron K2CPU blower so it's pushing air out the back rather than into the side of the PSU.

Furthermore, I'm considering spraying the aluminum with Blaze Pink Plasti Dip. Anyone have experience with plasti dip? It looks like it can be peeled off if you don't like it so I figure it was worth a shot to make the gf happy. :)

I think I'm going to start tearing apart the PMG5 since I'm limited with what else I can do right now on this project.
 
Post tear-down capture
 

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So I ended up ordering the Dynatron K666. It probably wont make much difference but blowing straight into the PSU seemed silly. We'll see how it works out.
 
So I ended up ordering the Dynatron K666. It probably wont make much difference but blowing straight into the PSU seemed silly. We'll see how it works out.

Nice start. Yes, I agree I think with these cases everything that can be done to encourage air in a straight line out of the back of the case is a good idea rather than just swirling it around inside.

Impressive list of cases you have been buying up by the way! Looks like you have found a new hobby with a vengeance.:D
 
I haven't been buying cases. lol

Like I mentioned.. I've been a Mac user for 13 years. I guess what I failed to mention is that my father has a small two-way radio business and has been using Macs in his offices since 1997. The B&Ws and the MDD came from his shop when I went for a visit last weekend. And the cube and G5 tower came from spares at my current job.

Thus, I haven't paid a dime for any of these cases.

Well, actually I did buy one of the B&Ws off ebay myself back in about 2003. I had upgraded it to the max! 900Mhz G3, 1GB (4x256MB) RAM, 128MB ATi Radeon 9200, DVD burner, 802.11g PCI card, bluetooth USB dongle.. I even had to put in a 350W after market PSU because I was pushing the limits of the 200W it shipped with. It served me and a couple of my friends very well for many years after that.

I'm going to visit a hardware store tomorrow after work and pickup a rotary tool. There were really positive remarks about the B&D RTX over on mnpctech.com.
 
I can attest that the RTX is a decent performing alternative to a Dremel and that attachments sold for a Dremel work just fine with it.

good luck with your mod, so far it looks like you are off to a nice start.
 
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