I decided in June that my primary desktop was due for an upgrade, so I made up a plan and bought these parts:
-NZXT H230 (white)
-Silverstone Strider Plus 600w
-XFX R9 280X Double Dissipation
At first I was going to keep my Antec 300 case until I found out that the R9 280X was too long to fit. I also wanted better cable management, so I decided on the $99 NZXT H230 case in white. I was also using a crappy Thermaltake power supply with 75% efficiency, so I also swapped that out for a better 80+ Bronze rated unit. Today was my only chance to do it, so I went ahead with the case transfer.
My first step, of course, was to open up the old Antec 300. I started by removing the graphics card. The Antec has NO cable management holes at all, as you can tell.
Just to show how huge the R9 280X is compared to my old case, I snapped this. Yeah, there is no way it would be able to fit in here without a mod to the drive bays.
Aaaand my new case. Beautiful, isn't it?
The PSU. The box for it is huge. Fully modular, though.
PSU installed with ease. It's quite a short unit, only measuring in at 160mm long.
Graphics card is out. This thing was a beast for it's day. To put it in perspective, this GTX 560 required 2x 6 pin power connectors. Today's 750 Ti, which is more powerful, only requires PCI-E slot power.
I decided to label each SATA data cable to their original plugs on the motherboard, apparently switching SATA ports messes up the boot order in the BIOS.
Standoffs are in. Luckily, NZXT provides a wrench that fits to the end of a Phillips screwdriver which makes the whole process easier.
Motherboard and I/O panel are finally in the new enclosure.
Front panel connectors are in.
I'm replacing my old XMS3 modules with a single 8GB Crucial stick. I'm either keeping these, or selling them.
So...yeah...That's my new RAM. I might get something better looking in the future.
It's finally coming together! All my SATA devices are plugged in. NZXT has a really awesome drive mounting tray for either 3.5 inch or 2.5 inch storage devices. It's tool-less, unlike the Antec.
Now for the daunting task of routing cables. Surprisingly, I managed this without making my case look like shit.
Time to fix all this.
This is as good as it will get. At least for me, anyway.
GPU installed at last. To my surprise, my motherboard didn't throw a hissy fit after installed new RAM and GPU.
Thanks!
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Case transfer - Antec 300 to NZXT H230
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