The Transformation of a Legacy PC Build

In this article, we'll take a deep dive into the transformation of Casey's very first PC build, which has been a long overdue project for our channel. The original system, built with enthusiasm and budget constraints, had become outdated, and it was time to give it a fresh new look.

The Original System: A Look Back

To put this build into perspective, let's take a closer look at its original configuration. As mentioned earlier, Casey had built the system himself, using parts he had purchased from his very first job. The hardware choices were not always the most optimal for performance, but it was a learning experience that helped shape Casey's understanding of PC building.

Fast forward to the present day, and we're looking at an upgraded build that's still rooted in its heritage. However, this time around, Casey has taken the opportunity to upgrade key components while still maintaining the essence of the original system. In this article, we'll explore the upgrades made to this legacy build and how they've transformed it into a more modern system.

The Upgrades: A New Lease on Life

One of the first upgrades Casey tackled was the graphics card. The original RX 580 had become outdated, but with the introduction of new technologies, it's possible to breathe new life into an old GPU. After researching and testing various options, Casey settled on a Sapphire Nitro card, which already boasted some impressive boost clocks out of the box. This decision allowed him to maintain stability while still enjoying improved performance.

The Overclocks: A Closer Look

To demonstrate the impact of these upgrades, we'll take a closer look at the overclocking results. On the original system, Casey tested various configurations and found that he was unable to achieve significant increases in performance while maintaining stability. However, with the new Sapphire Nitro card, he was able to push the limits of its boost clocks.

For the sake of comparison, we'll be showing the original results on the left side of the screen, followed by the upgraded results on the right. This will give us a clear idea of how the upgrades have improved performance. We'll also be running games at 1080p, but with adjustable settings to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison.

The Gaming Benchmarks: A Night and Day Difference

After running various tests, we can see that the upgraded system has made a significant impact on performance. The average FPS is noticeably higher than its original counterpart, and in many cases, it's able to maintain at least 60 FPS even with reduced graphics settings. This demonstrates how the new hardware can breathe new life into an aging system.

The Room for Improvement: Memory Upgrade

One aspect that Casey considered upgrading was the RAM. With a total system memory capacity of 16 GB, he thought about adding more RAM to take full advantage of the system's capabilities. However, considering the platform jump to DDR4 later on, he decided against it, as this would have left him with outdated hardware.

Investing Wisely: Prioritizing Upgrades

When planning upgrades for your own PC build, it's essential to prioritize based on your needs and goals. Casey wanted to ensure that the new system was not only more performant but also maintained its unique character. He considered what components could be carried forward into future upgrades and which ones would become obsolete.

A Word of Caution: The History Behind the Build

Casey's decision to upgrade this legacy build was motivated by its historical significance. This was his very first PC, built with hard-earned money from his first job. The system had served him well for a long time, but as new technologies emerged, it was time to give it a proper refresh.

Conclusion: A New Lease on Life

In conclusion, Casey's legacy build has undergone a remarkable transformation. From its original configuration to the upgraded version we see today, each part of the build has been carefully considered and optimized for better performance. By prioritizing upgrades that enhance both performance and compatibility, we can breathe new life into aging systems and create a PC that meets our evolving needs.

A Final Word: Feedback and Support

We'd love to hear from you! How do you think Casey did with this project? Would you have done things differently? What about the LAN Cooler 215 – was it worth the investment, or did it feel out of place in this build? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and as always, thank you for watching and supporting our channel. We'll see you in the next video!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's up everyone danny here in this video i want to show you this pc you've actually seen this before on the channel but not as it is right now sitting in front of me you saw this a while back as casey's really old pc that desperately needed upgrading the one that i secretly swapped out to give him a very long overdue pc update that was a super fun video and you should definitely check it out if you haven't seen it yet i'll have it linked in the cards as well as in the description after doing that switch i took casey's old pc to eventually make some kind of video with it since he didn't really need it anymore and well here we are this is the video i finally got to it after over a year later and in this video i want to show you some pretty basic and what i think are very reasonable upgrades that i did to it to modernize it and breathe some new life into it so let's check it out right after this this video is probably sponsored by slick deals a website that i've talked about since the very beginning of my channel and have been personally using for over a decade to find the best deals they have a new and completely free desktop browser extension to help you save money when you're shopping online at your favorite retailer you can click on the sleek deals extension and it will automatically show you the best deals that the website has to offer as well as site-wide codes that are active the codes are automatically added at checkout so it saves you from having to copy and paste them manually the best deals are uploaded to the top by the community and there's a discussion thread alongside each one in case you need more information you can also create alerts which is pretty important in this day and age when popular pc hardware is constantly going out of stock just minutes after becoming available what i love about slick deals is that it shows me great deals for all aspects of my life not just pc parts i'm talking about groceries tools clothes supplies for the house things that we all buy year round anyways if there's a deal to be had then the slick deals community which is made up of over 12 million monthly users is going to find it you can then take all that money you save and spend it on pc parts of course but don't forget to use the slikoo's extension so that you can save money while spending the money that you previously saved there has never been a sponsorship on the channel that has more synergy than this one no cap if you're interested you can install the slick deals extension using the link in the description below it's available for chrome edge and firefox and now back to the video so when i took the pcl casey's hands these were the following specs the processor is the amd fx 6300 cooled by the stock heatsink and paired with the msi gaming 970 am3 plus motherboard the graphics card is the gigabyte wind force radeon hd 7850 which has a whopping 1 gigabyte of vram and 900 megahertz based core clock for memory there's 8 gigabytes of hyperx fury ddr3 at 1866 megahertz powered by a corsair cx600m semi modular power supply and it's all being held together by the cooler master storm scout case there are no hard drives since those went into casey's new build when i did the swap those were carried along with it so for this build i'm using an old corsair 256 gigabyte ssd that i had laying around as the boot drive it's kind of hard to put a price on a build with those specs because it's kind of old and i think those aren't parts that anyone should be purposely looking for here in 2020. those specs were considered brand new back in 2012 which was eight years ago but despite being that old the processor and motherboard have surprisingly retained their value making them hardly worth buying right now uh standalone unless you're like a collector or something buying them for price to performance i think is a pretty bad idea if i had to slap a price on this parts list though i'd say it's worth around 200 based on the following prices which would be the max i would pay per component considering their age i benchmarked the build as i originally got it and the results were pretty bad you'll see later in the benchmarks portion but in a lot of the tests the vram usage was well over what the 7850 had on board some titles just weren't even compatible with it too because it was so old the system was in dire need of an update but not before being cleaned up first because it was filthy when it came into my possession i'm not exaggerating there was dust all over the first thing i did to start the cleaning process was take it outside and take the high-powered electric duster to it this was not your ordinary level of dust though this was caked on dust it needed a full deep clean so that's exactly what i did i completely disassembled the build and i cleaned each component to the best of my ability with good old rubbing alcohol rags and a toothbrush when it came to choosing upgrades for this pc i asked myself what meaningful things could i do to make this pc feel new again without sinking more money into a dead end platform and without breaking the bank either and this is what i came up with the highest priority was definitely replacing the graphics card one gigabyte of video memory simply doesn't cut in this day and age that amount hasn't cut it for years actually so i really commend casey for using this card well into 2019 but i replaced it with this card the rx 580 this is the sapphire nitro 8 gigabyte model i picked this up a while back on hardware swap from a miner who is getting rid of a bunch of them for 100 each and that price would be considered a really good deal right now during the pandemic for a hundred dollars there are a handful of other comparable cards i could have gone with um anything from the polaris lineup from amd or pascal from nvidia works really well for this so basically anything 2016 or newer that was mid-range the next upgrade i think most people would consider optional but i think it was definitely worth it and that's replacing the super underwhelming stock amd cooler that came with the fx 6300 with the tried and true cooler master hyper 212 evo i think there's a lot of benefits that make this worth it aesthetically it looks a hundred times better noise wise it's way quieter and then most importantly thermally it's just much better at cooling the stock cooler was already having trouble keeping the 6300 cool during heavy cpu workloads it was already treading the thermal margin line giving the 6300 no room to boost with the hyper-212 evo in there i was able to overclock and squeeze out some extra performance from the 6300 giving this end-of-life product one last chance to really shine this upgrade only costs 20 these coolers go on sale for this much pretty regularly and i usually pick them up for older builds like this the good thing about this upgrade in particular though is that it's technically not a money sink as is not tied to the platform sure we're using it to enhance a super dated am3 plus processor from 2012 but when the time comes to jump to something more modern like ryzen or one of the newer intel platforms this cooler can come along for the ride and be just as useful on the new platform so it can be carried over and now for the last upgrade that i did which is definitely the least important upgrade when it comes to performance but i think it leaves the biggest lasting impact on the overall mood of the build and that's changing out the case now don't get me wrong the cm scout case is pretty awesome i have a huge soft spot for cases with beefy rugged handles but that thing is over 10 years old now and it came out back in 2009 everything about its design is pretty dated from the acrylic side panel with the fan mount for it the five and a quarter inch bays in the front the big bulky hard drive kits that can hold up to five drives a number that i don't see many people using these days with the advent of ssds as well as external storage solutions i replaced it with the lee and lee landcool 215 an awesome looking case that came out fairly recently and is actually one of my favorites to come out of this year it comes with two huge 200 millimeter pre-installed addressable rgb fans behind the open mesh front panel which promotes plenty of airflow and it also has a 120 millimeter exhaust fan as well the side panel is tempered glass there's a power supply and hard drive basement the tray holes are grommeted and there's plenty of space on the back side for cable management it also includes a fan and rgb controller hub in the back which is perfect since the motherboard doesn't have rgb headers this case comes in at only 80 dollars which i think is a great price considering how feature packed it is and it would be a good fit for both systems new and old now relative to the 200 uh you know value of the original parts list you could say that this is on the pricier side but consider this the case much like the cooler and the graphics card upgrades can be carried over when this build inevitably gets a complete platform update which is kind of due for putting money into the case definitely nets the least amount of performance gains i'll be the first to point that out but that 80 spent wouldn't have been enough to get a new cpu motherboard and ram anyways i think the 6300 in the system especially overclock does have some time left on it so i thought why not let it live out the remainder of its life in something sweet and looked as good as the landcool 215. that's kind of all personal preference you could definitely go with the cheaper case but i think the 215 was a great pairing for this so those were the upgrades that i made now let's take a look at the transformation here's the new build all right so now the build looks like it belongs in 2020 but what about the performance though like i said earlier i tested the build in its original state so i'll be showing it directly side by side with its new and improved form here are the overclocks on both the original and upgraded configurations i did try to overclock the rx 580 but i couldn't get any meaningful increases while keeping it stable this sapphire nitro card already has some pretty nice boost clocks out of the box though so it wasn't really a big deal keeping that stock results from the original system will be shown here on your left and results from this upgraded system will be shown here on the right side of your screen all games were tested at 1080p however a lot of them were run at lower settings to tailor to the hd7850 that was in the system to get the most playable experience out of it and i wanted to keep the settings the same of course for the apples to apples comparison but yeah other than that sit back relax and enjoy the benchmarks let me show you negativity i sing up a singer i or singing i sing up you so there you have it what a night and day difference right here all those results summarized on a single screen for the gaming benchmarks the average fps is shown just look at those percentage differences again note that a lot of the games were run at lower settings the upgraded system does actually have some room to crank up the quality in some titles and it will still be able to maintain at least a 60fps experience it kind of goes to show that as long as you have a processor with at least four threads and somewhat decent clocks a lot of the heavy lifting can be done by the graphics card to give you a very playable experience you just gotta again keep your expectations in check since we are dealing with a processor that came out in 2012 don't expect it to push super high frame rates on everything unless it's like pretty light esport titles one thing i did want to point out though is on some of the tests we were operating near the total system memory capacity i think 16 gigabytes could increase the performance a bit more from what we just saw and it wouldn't have been too expensive either it probably would have cost around like 20 to 25 bucks to get two more four gigabyte modules this was something that i actually thought pretty hard about and at the end of the day i decided not to include in the upgrades list because it would be putting money towards a component that could not be carried over in the next round of upgrades which again would be the platform jump so we would be going to ddr4 later i know a lot of people out there have older systems and may not be able to afford doing something as drastic as building a completely new system or even doing a platform jump so i really wanted to showcase how you should kind of think through some of your next potential upgrades you know think about what can be carried forward into the future versus what would get left behind on a dead platform and invest wisely prioritize what is most important to you whether it be getting the you know biggest performance boost or having a nice looking pc that you can probably showcase on your desk you know whatever you want and just go for it but think about it a little bit this was a long overdue project and i'm glad i was finally able to get it done and share with you all despite not being the best system i've ever worked with this build is still very important to me because of the history behind it this was casey's very first pc he bought it with his own hard-earned money from his very first job ever and he actually ended up using it for far longer than most people use their systems for before upgrading because of this i wanted to give it a proper refresh and dignify it one last time before the last of its original parts became completely obsolete i want to ask you now though how do you think i did and what would you have done differently would you have gone for the ram upgrade to get it up to 16 gigabytes of ram uh and what about the lan cool 215 do you think it was too pricey and out of line or do you think it just it fits well with this build let me know down in the comment section below i'm really curious to hear all your thoughts on it um i think you could kind of go either way or a lot of different ways with a project like this and with that said um i want to thank you all as always for watching and supporting the channel it means the world to me uh i hope you all have a happy holidays stay safe out there and i will see you down in the comments as well as in the next video bye youhey what's up everyone danny here in this video i want to show you this pc you've actually seen this before on the channel but not as it is right now sitting in front of me you saw this a while back as casey's really old pc that desperately needed upgrading the one that i secretly swapped out to give him a very long overdue pc update that was a super fun video and you should definitely check it out if you haven't seen it yet i'll have it linked in the cards as well as in the description after doing that switch i took casey's old pc to eventually make some kind of video with it since he didn't really need it anymore and well here we are this is the video i finally got to it after over a year later and in this video i want to show you some pretty basic and what i think are very reasonable upgrades that i did to it to modernize it and breathe some new life into it so let's check it out right after this this video is probably sponsored by slick deals a website that i've talked about since the very beginning of my channel and have been personally using for over a decade to find the best deals they have a new and completely free desktop browser extension to help you save money when you're shopping online at your favorite retailer you can click on the sleek deals extension and it will automatically show you the best deals that the website has to offer as well as site-wide codes that are active the codes are automatically added at checkout so it saves you from having to copy and paste them manually the best deals are uploaded to the top by the community and there's a discussion thread alongside each one in case you need more information you can also create alerts which is pretty important in this day and age when popular pc hardware is constantly going out of stock just minutes after becoming available what i love about slick deals is that it shows me great deals for all aspects of my life not just pc parts i'm talking about groceries tools clothes supplies for the house things that we all buy year round anyways if there's a deal to be had then the slick deals community which is made up of over 12 million monthly users is going to find it you can then take all that money you save and spend it on pc parts of course but don't forget to use the slikoo's extension so that you can save money while spending the money that you previously saved there has never been a sponsorship on the channel that has more synergy than this one no cap if you're interested you can install the slick deals extension using the link in the description below it's available for chrome edge and firefox and now back to the video so when i took the pcl casey's hands these were the following specs the processor is the amd fx 6300 cooled by the stock heatsink and paired with the msi gaming 970 am3 plus motherboard the graphics card is the gigabyte wind force radeon hd 7850 which has a whopping 1 gigabyte of vram and 900 megahertz based core clock for memory there's 8 gigabytes of hyperx fury ddr3 at 1866 megahertz powered by a corsair cx600m semi modular power supply and it's all being held together by the cooler master storm scout case there are no hard drives since those went into casey's new build when i did the swap those were carried along with it so for this build i'm using an old corsair 256 gigabyte ssd that i had laying around as the boot drive it's kind of hard to put a price on a build with those specs because it's kind of old and i think those aren't parts that anyone should be purposely looking for here in 2020. those specs were considered brand new back in 2012 which was eight years ago but despite being that old the processor and motherboard have surprisingly retained their value making them hardly worth buying right now uh standalone unless you're like a collector or something buying them for price to performance i think is a pretty bad idea if i had to slap a price on this parts list though i'd say it's worth around 200 based on the following prices which would be the max i would pay per component considering their age i benchmarked the build as i originally got it and the results were pretty bad you'll see later in the benchmarks portion but in a lot of the tests the vram usage was well over what the 7850 had on board some titles just weren't even compatible with it too because it was so old the system was in dire need of an update but not before being cleaned up first because it was filthy when it came into my possession i'm not exaggerating there was dust all over the first thing i did to start the cleaning process was take it outside and take the high-powered electric duster to it this was not your ordinary level of dust though this was caked on dust it needed a full deep clean so that's exactly what i did i completely disassembled the build and i cleaned each component to the best of my ability with good old rubbing alcohol rags and a toothbrush when it came to choosing upgrades for this pc i asked myself what meaningful things could i do to make this pc feel new again without sinking more money into a dead end platform and without breaking the bank either and this is what i came up with the highest priority was definitely replacing the graphics card one gigabyte of video memory simply doesn't cut in this day and age that amount hasn't cut it for years actually so i really commend casey for using this card well into 2019 but i replaced it with this card the rx 580 this is the sapphire nitro 8 gigabyte model i picked this up a while back on hardware swap from a miner who is getting rid of a bunch of them for 100 each and that price would be considered a really good deal right now during the pandemic for a hundred dollars there are a handful of other comparable cards i could have gone with um anything from the polaris lineup from amd or pascal from nvidia works really well for this so basically anything 2016 or newer that was mid-range the next upgrade i think most people would consider optional but i think it was definitely worth it and that's replacing the super underwhelming stock amd cooler that came with the fx 6300 with the tried and true cooler master hyper 212 evo i think there's a lot of benefits that make this worth it aesthetically it looks a hundred times better noise wise it's way quieter and then most importantly thermally it's just much better at cooling the stock cooler was already having trouble keeping the 6300 cool during heavy cpu workloads it was already treading the thermal margin line giving the 6300 no room to boost with the hyper-212 evo in there i was able to overclock and squeeze out some extra performance from the 6300 giving this end-of-life product one last chance to really shine this upgrade only costs 20 these coolers go on sale for this much pretty regularly and i usually pick them up for older builds like this the good thing about this upgrade in particular though is that it's technically not a money sink as is not tied to the platform sure we're using it to enhance a super dated am3 plus processor from 2012 but when the time comes to jump to something more modern like ryzen or one of the newer intel platforms this cooler can come along for the ride and be just as useful on the new platform so it can be carried over and now for the last upgrade that i did which is definitely the least important upgrade when it comes to performance but i think it leaves the biggest lasting impact on the overall mood of the build and that's changing out the case now don't get me wrong the cm scout case is pretty awesome i have a huge soft spot for cases with beefy rugged handles but that thing is over 10 years old now and it came out back in 2009 everything about its design is pretty dated from the acrylic side panel with the fan mount for it the five and a quarter inch bays in the front the big bulky hard drive kits that can hold up to five drives a number that i don't see many people using these days with the advent of ssds as well as external storage solutions i replaced it with the lee and lee landcool 215 an awesome looking case that came out fairly recently and is actually one of my favorites to come out of this year it comes with two huge 200 millimeter pre-installed addressable rgb fans behind the open mesh front panel which promotes plenty of airflow and it also has a 120 millimeter exhaust fan as well the side panel is tempered glass there's a power supply and hard drive basement the tray holes are grommeted and there's plenty of space on the back side for cable management it also includes a fan and rgb controller hub in the back which is perfect since the motherboard doesn't have rgb headers this case comes in at only 80 dollars which i think is a great price considering how feature packed it is and it would be a good fit for both systems new and old now relative to the 200 uh you know value of the original parts list you could say that this is on the pricier side but consider this the case much like the cooler and the graphics card upgrades can be carried over when this build inevitably gets a complete platform update which is kind of due for putting money into the case definitely nets the least amount of performance gains i'll be the first to point that out but that 80 spent wouldn't have been enough to get a new cpu motherboard and ram anyways i think the 6300 in the system especially overclock does have some time left on it so i thought why not let it live out the remainder of its life in something sweet and looked as good as the landcool 215. that's kind of all personal preference you could definitely go with the cheaper case but i think the 215 was a great pairing for this so those were the upgrades that i made now let's take a look at the transformation here's the new build all right so now the build looks like it belongs in 2020 but what about the performance though like i said earlier i tested the build in its original state so i'll be showing it directly side by side with its new and improved form here are the overclocks on both the original and upgraded configurations i did try to overclock the rx 580 but i couldn't get any meaningful increases while keeping it stable this sapphire nitro card already has some pretty nice boost clocks out of the box though so it wasn't really a big deal keeping that stock results from the original system will be shown here on your left and results from this upgraded system will be shown here on the right side of your screen all games were tested at 1080p however a lot of them were run at lower settings to tailor to the hd7850 that was in the system to get the most playable experience out of it and i wanted to keep the settings the same of course for the apples to apples comparison but yeah other than that sit back relax and enjoy the benchmarks let me show you negativity i sing up a singer i or singing i sing up you so there you have it what a night and day difference right here all those results summarized on a single screen for the gaming benchmarks the average fps is shown just look at those percentage differences again note that a lot of the games were run at lower settings the upgraded system does actually have some room to crank up the quality in some titles and it will still be able to maintain at least a 60fps experience it kind of goes to show that as long as you have a processor with at least four threads and somewhat decent clocks a lot of the heavy lifting can be done by the graphics card to give you a very playable experience you just gotta again keep your expectations in check since we are dealing with a processor that came out in 2012 don't expect it to push super high frame rates on everything unless it's like pretty light esport titles one thing i did want to point out though is on some of the tests we were operating near the total system memory capacity i think 16 gigabytes could increase the performance a bit more from what we just saw and it wouldn't have been too expensive either it probably would have cost around like 20 to 25 bucks to get two more four gigabyte modules this was something that i actually thought pretty hard about and at the end of the day i decided not to include in the upgrades list because it would be putting money towards a component that could not be carried over in the next round of upgrades which again would be the platform jump so we would be going to ddr4 later i know a lot of people out there have older systems and may not be able to afford doing something as drastic as building a completely new system or even doing a platform jump so i really wanted to showcase how you should kind of think through some of your next potential upgrades you know think about what can be carried forward into the future versus what would get left behind on a dead platform and invest wisely prioritize what is most important to you whether it be getting the you know biggest performance boost or having a nice looking pc that you can probably showcase on your desk you know whatever you want and just go for it but think about it a little bit this was a long overdue project and i'm glad i was finally able to get it done and share with you all despite not being the best system i've ever worked with this build is still very important to me because of the history behind it this was casey's very first pc he bought it with his own hard-earned money from his very first job ever and he actually ended up using it for far longer than most people use their systems for before upgrading because of this i wanted to give it a proper refresh and dignify it one last time before the last of its original parts became completely obsolete i want to ask you now though how do you think i did and what would you have done differently would you have gone for the ram upgrade to get it up to 16 gigabytes of ram uh and what about the lan cool 215 do you think it was too pricey and out of line or do you think it just it fits well with this build let me know down in the comment section below i'm really curious to hear all your thoughts on it um i think you could kind of go either way or a lot of different ways with a project like this and with that said um i want to thank you all as always for watching and supporting the channel it means the world to me uh i hope you all have a happy holidays stay safe out there and i will see you down in the comments as well as in the next video bye you\n"