Sometimes, we buy things we probably shouldn't have. You know what I'm talking about. The great deal, the rare opportunity, the impulse buy. We all do it. If you haven't made your first dumb impulse tech purchase yet, you're either pretty new to the scene, or you have the self-control and foresight of a god.
But anyway. So you end up with a pile of stuff that you guiltily look at from time to time, knowing that selling it on won't get you much money, nor will it get you your pride back. What to do with it all?
Well, most of the time it sits there until you unhappily sell it, but sometimes you find a way to put it to good use. This is one of those times.
Project Impulse Buy
- Jonsbo U2
- i7 4790
- ASUS H81i m-ITX
- 8GB DDR3 1600
- BeQuiet SFX Power 2 400W
- Noctua NH-C14 with slim Raijintek 140mm fans
- Crucial M500 480GB SSD
- Zotac GTX 960 4GB Mini
So here's what I did. I was looking for ITX cases online, and came across Jonsbo, a very nice Chinese company making some very nice aluminium and tempered-glass cases. What I WANTED was one of these:
But what I bought was THIS:
The bigger brother of the Jonsbo U1 Plus. I happened to see it for sale on Amazon, and it was the only Jonsbo case I'd ever seen for sale outside of China or Germany. Rather than pay for a VR1 from Germany, I elected to go for the U2- it was cheaper and it's still Jonsbo, right? But to be honest I was disappointed with it. It was still £90, It's bigger than I thought it would be, and it doesn't feel all that premium, at least as far as aluminium cases go. But the seller doesn't accept returns, so I'm stuck with it now. Hooray!
It sat there for a while, until Impulse Buy Number Two came along:
An i7-4790, for £120. At this point I had been playing around with the idea of building a PC for my younger cousin, who is currently stuck using -gulp- a Mac Mini of all things, which she shares with her younger brother. I saw a great deal on a nice little i7, and jumped at it- time to make the most of my moderately crappy aluminium ITX case!
I pulled out two other things that had been sitting around- first, a Noctua C14 I had bought impulsively years ago to replace a crappy Arctic cooler that came with my dad's prebuilt gaming system. The original C14 came with two non-PWM fans, so it turned out to not be all that great. Cooling was fine but it was uncharacteristically loud due to a constant 2x 1600 RPM blowing down. Plus the thing is huge. When we got rid of that system I had no use for it- until now!
But what is that unceremoniously zip-tied underneath? Well, that my friends is another impulse buy. A year ago I was making a new gaming rig and bought two slim 140mm fans, thinking I would be using a slim 280mm radiator, waaaay before I had finalised a case or even a CPU.
The plan fell through, and I was stuck with some Raijintek fans that I hadn't returned within the return period. Like everything else, they've been sitting around. But now is their time to shine!
So with all these parts ready to go, all I had to buy (while I waited for the CPU to arrive in the mail) was an ITX motherboard, a power supply, and some DDR3 RAM. The motherboard was very straightforward, got it used for a nice discount at £55. Here it is installed into the case with a 120mm fan taken from my main system (replaced with an impulse-bought Thermaltake Riing, but that's unimportant right now):
An ASUS H81i, basically the only choice if you're not overclocking on this chipset. The SSD was easy, too, I just looked for the cheapest 480GB one I could find, which ended up being the Crucial m500 at £100.
The RAM should be a doddle; there are plenty of used tech places around me and I'm sure I'll be able to find some DDR3 cheap. Worst-case, I go to CeX, where an 8GB stick is £28.
The really interesting buy here is the PSU. It hasn't arrived in the mail yet, but I can't wait- I don't even know if what shows up is going to be what I ordered. Why, you ask?
Because it was on Amazon for under £3.50. Which has to be a glitch or mistake or something. So there are two possible outcomes: the mistake results in me getting a 450W SFX PSU for basically free, or whatever arrives will actually not be the PSU advertised. But I looked at it hard; everything on the Amazon page pointed to it being legit. Now, the page lists it as being £83.84 and "out of stock". So who knows? We shall see!
The GPU is the only thing (along with the RAM) I haven't bought yet, because I really don't know what GPU the system will end up with. The cousin in question is interested in gaming, but she won't be needing anything powerful. Right now I'm going to just build the system without, and then when we're ready, we'll see what's the best we can get (that will fit in the case) for under £100. Probably a 960 at best.
So that's all for now, folks! I'll check back in when the PSU(??), SSD and PWM fan splitter get here, and we'll really see if I've managed to make the most of my impulse purchases- on a budget!
UPDATE: 22 July 2017
Welp, I got impatient and brought in a replacement PSU, because I now doubt that the £3.28 one is actually coming. The seller now lists an SFX to ATX adapter for the same price. So that's probably what's on its way to me now. If by some miracle I'm wrong, I can subtract most of the £46 I spent on the BeQuiet SFX Power 2.
There she is. I have to say I like the idea of slim fans on a C-style cooler, and I like that the fans match. Pet peeve, though, is the coloured power light. Please, please, PLEASE Lian-Li and aluminium cohorts... just use white. I just want white. Stop using blue. It's so ugly.
View of the inside. The SSD is mounted with good ol' double-sided ghetto tape. There's no real front intake, so I wanted the bottom clear.
The GPU has been bought! For £100 exactly, a GTX 960 4GB card from Zotac. I really like single fan ITX cards. High power-to-size ratio pleases me. More pics when it's installed... plus, perhaps, some MODDING on the horizon?
Stay tuned.
Total cost pre-GPU: £438
Total cost post-GPU: £538
Total after modding: £???
Until next time!
But anyway. So you end up with a pile of stuff that you guiltily look at from time to time, knowing that selling it on won't get you much money, nor will it get you your pride back. What to do with it all?
Well, most of the time it sits there until you unhappily sell it, but sometimes you find a way to put it to good use. This is one of those times.
Project Impulse Buy
- Jonsbo U2
- i7 4790
- ASUS H81i m-ITX
- 8GB DDR3 1600
- BeQuiet SFX Power 2 400W
- Noctua NH-C14 with slim Raijintek 140mm fans
- Crucial M500 480GB SSD
- Zotac GTX 960 4GB Mini
So here's what I did. I was looking for ITX cases online, and came across Jonsbo, a very nice Chinese company making some very nice aluminium and tempered-glass cases. What I WANTED was one of these:
But what I bought was THIS:
The bigger brother of the Jonsbo U1 Plus. I happened to see it for sale on Amazon, and it was the only Jonsbo case I'd ever seen for sale outside of China or Germany. Rather than pay for a VR1 from Germany, I elected to go for the U2- it was cheaper and it's still Jonsbo, right? But to be honest I was disappointed with it. It was still £90, It's bigger than I thought it would be, and it doesn't feel all that premium, at least as far as aluminium cases go. But the seller doesn't accept returns, so I'm stuck with it now. Hooray!
It sat there for a while, until Impulse Buy Number Two came along:
An i7-4790, for £120. At this point I had been playing around with the idea of building a PC for my younger cousin, who is currently stuck using -gulp- a Mac Mini of all things, which she shares with her younger brother. I saw a great deal on a nice little i7, and jumped at it- time to make the most of my moderately crappy aluminium ITX case!
I pulled out two other things that had been sitting around- first, a Noctua C14 I had bought impulsively years ago to replace a crappy Arctic cooler that came with my dad's prebuilt gaming system. The original C14 came with two non-PWM fans, so it turned out to not be all that great. Cooling was fine but it was uncharacteristically loud due to a constant 2x 1600 RPM blowing down. Plus the thing is huge. When we got rid of that system I had no use for it- until now!
But what is that unceremoniously zip-tied underneath? Well, that my friends is another impulse buy. A year ago I was making a new gaming rig and bought two slim 140mm fans, thinking I would be using a slim 280mm radiator, waaaay before I had finalised a case or even a CPU.
The plan fell through, and I was stuck with some Raijintek fans that I hadn't returned within the return period. Like everything else, they've been sitting around. But now is their time to shine!
So with all these parts ready to go, all I had to buy (while I waited for the CPU to arrive in the mail) was an ITX motherboard, a power supply, and some DDR3 RAM. The motherboard was very straightforward, got it used for a nice discount at £55. Here it is installed into the case with a 120mm fan taken from my main system (replaced with an impulse-bought Thermaltake Riing, but that's unimportant right now):
An ASUS H81i, basically the only choice if you're not overclocking on this chipset. The SSD was easy, too, I just looked for the cheapest 480GB one I could find, which ended up being the Crucial m500 at £100.
The RAM should be a doddle; there are plenty of used tech places around me and I'm sure I'll be able to find some DDR3 cheap. Worst-case, I go to CeX, where an 8GB stick is £28.
The really interesting buy here is the PSU. It hasn't arrived in the mail yet, but I can't wait- I don't even know if what shows up is going to be what I ordered. Why, you ask?
Because it was on Amazon for under £3.50. Which has to be a glitch or mistake or something. So there are two possible outcomes: the mistake results in me getting a 450W SFX PSU for basically free, or whatever arrives will actually not be the PSU advertised. But I looked at it hard; everything on the Amazon page pointed to it being legit. Now, the page lists it as being £83.84 and "out of stock". So who knows? We shall see!
The GPU is the only thing (along with the RAM) I haven't bought yet, because I really don't know what GPU the system will end up with. The cousin in question is interested in gaming, but she won't be needing anything powerful. Right now I'm going to just build the system without, and then when we're ready, we'll see what's the best we can get (that will fit in the case) for under £100. Probably a 960 at best.
So that's all for now, folks! I'll check back in when the PSU(??), SSD and PWM fan splitter get here, and we'll really see if I've managed to make the most of my impulse purchases- on a budget!
UPDATE: 22 July 2017
Welp, I got impatient and brought in a replacement PSU, because I now doubt that the £3.28 one is actually coming. The seller now lists an SFX to ATX adapter for the same price. So that's probably what's on its way to me now. If by some miracle I'm wrong, I can subtract most of the £46 I spent on the BeQuiet SFX Power 2.
There she is. I have to say I like the idea of slim fans on a C-style cooler, and I like that the fans match. Pet peeve, though, is the coloured power light. Please, please, PLEASE Lian-Li and aluminium cohorts... just use white. I just want white. Stop using blue. It's so ugly.
View of the inside. The SSD is mounted with good ol' double-sided ghetto tape. There's no real front intake, so I wanted the bottom clear.
The GPU has been bought! For £100 exactly, a GTX 960 4GB card from Zotac. I really like single fan ITX cards. High power-to-size ratio pleases me. More pics when it's installed... plus, perhaps, some MODDING on the horizon?
Stay tuned.Total cost pre-GPU: £438
Total cost post-GPU: £538
Total after modding: £???
Until next time!
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