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I was talking with my brother a little more than a month ago and let him know I had a spare i5 4690k, 8 GB of ddr3 ram, my last OE version of Windows 7 64 Pro, two Corsair 120mm quiet fans, a Hue+ (a friend had received two of a while back and had gave the extra one to me), an EVGA GTX 770 SC 2GB card and a Zalman CPU cooler I'd give to him if he wanted to build a PC. He let me know he wasn't interested right now but his son, Garrett was interested and excited.

So it was time to build a parts list for my nephew to go over.

I quickly dumped the idea of using the Zalman for this build. To help make up for the expense of a new cooler I covered the cost of a 2TB hdd for him. He chose the EVGA DG73 case while on sale at B&H, a 500 GB Crucial MX500 ssd from Microcenter on sale, and an EVGA BQ850 while on sale on the EVGA site. I snatched up a Cooler Master Master Liquid 240 from Newegg while on sale and some Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut 5.5g (not listed on Pcpartpicker.com yet).

Building was fairly easy, but this case needs some help for air intake at the front. I added washers and orings to hold the washers on the front panel bolts when taking the front plate off. This opened a gap all the way around the front panel cover. That helped tons. Even sounds quieter running now.

The i5 4690k needed an appropriate motherboard, so I suggested I try to find a Z97 Pro version from Asus on Ebay and got one. Black and gold. Well the old 770 matched, but the old ram was blue. Time to get out the tape and spray paint the ram black. That's better looking. The fans gave changeable intake side rings so white seemed like a good color reflector for the HUE+ lighting. I think we're good. Time to build.

Garrett helped assemble this one. Im glad he got involved in the process. Now next time he can build one by himself if he likes. We worked on getting the IO shield installed, the stand offs, the power supply, the cooler bracket on the motherboard, the motherboard itself, drives, CPU, ram, cooler and fans, thermal paste, cooler pump, and HUE+.

Windows 7 Pro had such a long set of updates, I gave up on it. I switched to Windows 10 Pro using the key from the 7 disc box. Much easier getting it going. Drivers installed easily as well.

Oh boy. The new style HUE+. Hmm the box and lights are nice. The CAM software is simply put, pure garbage. NXZT has dropped the ball with CAM.

The Coolermaster AIO liquid cooler works really well and keeps the little i5 cool overclocked at 4.5Ghz on all cores. It has a bright logo perfect for covering with something. Marla made a couple of somewhat opaque discs stamped with a "G" and adhesive added to the blank side. It turned out looking nice over the logo of the pump, but my phone camera had trouble getting the shot.

After using the GTX 770, I installed my 1070 SC to show him the difference. I'll retrieve the 1070 in October and reinstall the 770. I'm hoping to motivate him to upgrade.

I let Garrett know he was $424.14 in but needs to get a better GPU and better faster ram since I was never able to get a stable overclock on them and they only add up to 8GB. After assembly I lent him a GTX 1070 which he loves, but it's just going to have the 770 once I pick it back up. He can gather up more money for upgrades and make a 1070 or better his new GPU.

Alright, here's the final product. My cable management still needs work, but he thinks it looks fabulous as is.
He's very proud of his first PC.

FIN