Project Skylake: the dark knight rises

[PWR_USR]

What an idiot! I didn't take any 'before' pictures

I guess you guys will just have to imagine the dust bunnies and cobwebs floating around in my 5 year old Q9650 gaming machine.

So i have finally decided its time to throw some pennies at the gaming rig and bring it back up to scratch. I'm getting really bored of playing games at medium settings and still only achieving 30-40fps.
the CPU has been overclocked since day 1 up to around 3.2GHz and it feels like it just isn't cutting it anymore. upgrading my monitor to a nice 2560x1440 was the final nail in the coffin.
Pretty much everything will be replaced, but i will be keeping the case, PSU and graphics card (for now)

after a few weeks of reading reviews and surfing this fine forum i have set my heart on the Asus Maximus VIII Hero, Intel Skylake i5 6600k and Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB. oh and an NZXT Kracken x41 to keep things cool. bring on the overclocks

as it stands now, the parts are ordered, and the teardown has begun

wish me luck

 

[LePhuronn]

TEAR DOWN ALL THE THINGS!

Best of luck

 

[DJ_Bucho]

Are you going to be painting the inside of that HAF 932? As it'd really improve the look of your build if you did. Looking forward to seeing further updates

 

[SamyBoy13]

Any more pic?

 

[Iron-man]

Any progress?

 

[LePhuronn]

Chill peeps, it's only been 4 days

 

[PWR_USR]

Are you going to be painting the inside of that HAF 932? As it'd really improve the look of your build if you did. Looking forward to seeing further updates

I sure am one thing that always annoyed me about the HAF932 is the lack of paint on the inside. they made such a nice job on the outside but left it at that, so I've finished the job
The last few days I have been drilling out all the rivets, cleaning up the metal and spraying it mat black. this is the first time I have done anything like this so was a little nervous taking the drill to my beloved PC.

After a few coats (3 cans) of paint, i think it came out looking pretty good.
gently riveting it all back together was nice to see it taking shape again in its new form. Already it looks a million miles better with a nice lick of paint inside and out.

And that's where I'll leave things until I next get a chance to work on this. I'm unfortunately in no rush to get this done as I just moved house and still don't have an internet connection. So even when i do get her up and running again I'll just be looking at a fresh install of Windows 7 until BT pull their finger out and connect my internet.
But all the goodies arrived so I'll be unboxing them and taking some pretty pictures tonight

 

[Luggs]

Wow, massive improvement already mate, good job with the paint!

 

[VKleita]

That quite amazing, it completely transforms that case into something quite pretty/expensive looking

Nice job.

Looking forward to more pics

 

[DJ_Bucho]

Great work buddy, that looks loads better, My dad runs a HAF 932 and I'm running a HAF X, so really looking forward to seeing the progress on this. Keep up the good work and can't wait for more updates

 

[ukxenon]

case looks allot better nice job

 

[Iron-man]

Looking good so far good job on the paint

 

[PWR_USR]

Thanks for all the positive replies

well i spent the whole evening on it last night and i'm really happy with how it turned out unboxing all the new parts was great, new motherboard, CPU, memory, SSD and some case lighting and fans.

gotta love a nice CPU closeup

So the Corsair Vengance LPX 16GB pack i bought comes with large fans to be mounted over them, still not sure if i want to use these, they looks good but incredibly bulky

That motherboard looks perfect in there

Almost done

The other thing i always wanted to do with the case was cut out the massive fan and grill so i could have one large acrylic side window, but cutting though the metal and then fixing the acrylic to it just seemed like something i was going to make a mess of. i had a hunt around online for people who had done it before and ended up finding out you can actually buy a new side panel from CoolerMaster which has a full height clear window
so i found one on ebay for £25 and happy days it fits perfectly and looks amazing.
for the case lighting i wanted something that would subtlety light the whole case in white, NZXT do a nice RGB light strip with a controller that fits in a 5.25" bay, it even has the same black mesh grill used on the rest of the case so it almost looks OEM in there.

Tonight i will be making all the final touches, finishing up with the wiring and taking some nice pictures of the finished product. then comes installing windows 7 cant wait!
however i still don't have internet at home so even once i do get it up and running i wont be able to do much with it -_-

until next time...

 

[setter]

Cracking paint job on the case. Really helps the look of it. Nice setup too.

 

[PWR_USR]

a few final shots

 

[Luggs]

Looks great and full size window is an epic idea, makes so much difference... You know if it will fit a HAF X by chance?

 

[PWR_USR]

From what I remember the HAF X and the 932 use the same side panel,
I think that panel I bought is actually intended for a HAF X, but the two have exactly the same dimentions

 

[jbh110tdi]

looks good. what a difference seeing the case after you painted the inside.

 

[TechMinerUK]

Thats a cracking transformation, excellent work on your PC as it looks like it was well worth it

Just wondering, is there anything special you need or anything to be aware of when drilling out rivets and can you replace them with screws etc ?

 

[Luggs]

From what I remember the HAF X and the 932 use the same side panel,
I think that panel I bought is actually intended for a HAF X, but the two have exactly the same dimentions

Thanks for that mate, I'm looking to pass my HAF X on to my son after building a new rig in the new year. This looks very sweet, so much more visibility of internals!