How To Transform Your PC on a Budget
By Jason Biggs
03-13-2017
Upgrading a computer can cost more money than many people want to spend at one time. However, if you are looking for an element to freshen up your stale setup, swapping out your PC's case for a more modern and visually appealing look could do the trick, all while keeping your hard-earned cash in your bank account. Read the full guide below.
How to Transform Your PC on a Budget
A little more than a year ago, I decided that my PC was just too big. Having built my first scratch PC in a full tower case—the Cooler Master HAF 932—I decided the massive black tower made my setup feel claustrophobic. Determined to move to a smaller size, I set my sights on the Corsair Carbide Air 240. Coming in at literally half the size, the white case would open up my setup to a significant degree.
That said, moving from a full tower case wasn’t as easy as I would’ve liked. I had an ATX board with associated parts that I needed to fit in an enclosure that would only fit an mATX or ITX board. My first step was hunting through Ebay for z97 motherboards. To my chagrin, I found that my options were very inflated in regards to price. A mobo capable of overclocking my 4690k was set to put me back a fairly significant amount. However, after about a month of searching, I found a used board for only $75. The mATX Z97 Asrock board was the perfect fit for my system and was able to mix up the color scheme of my system without making anything feel out of place.
In addition to replacing my board, I also had to replace my massive air cooler with a much smaller cooler that would handle my overclocking needs. I settled on the Corsiar H100i V2 that I picked up lightly used for about $80. The 240mm radiator with RGB LED cpu block made my system all the more cohesive.
The final piece of the puzzle was the case. New, it would have cost about $90, and Ebay had very few used options (a good sign indeed). After several weeks of waiting for the right case, I managed to find a pristine case for just $50. The seller was generous enough to include two 80mm near-silent fans with the case.
Despite the long wait that some of my parts took waiting for everything to show up, I was able to move all of my build over into the smaller case. And I have to say, it looks quite good.
Overall, the experience was outstanding. Rather than replacing my entire pc, I needed only replace my case to make my build feel like an entirely new system. When I considered building a new system, I was looking at spending well over $1000 for a system that would have marginally improved my system performance. However, by replacing my case and a few other parts (for just around $200), I am able to upgrade my system later on and still utilize a few of the pieces that I purchased for my budget upgrade. This means that part of my investment could be used when I build my next system, saving me money when the time comes.
Final Note: To anyone looking to upgrade their system with a new PC case, the only reason I needed a new motherboard and CPU cooler was because they were simply too big for the case I wanted to migrate to. Had I moved to a case that could accommodate my cooler and mobo, the process would have cost significantly less. The fewer changes you need to make, the less the price of the move will cost.