PC Project: R4 Heart and Brain

This was sometime after I got my first PC and became interested in modifying it. It was quite a while ago, so I don’t remember everything.

My first fully new (still to this day my only all new one) PC setup was:

• Fractal Design Define R4 case
• Gigabyte GTX 760 Windforce, OC Rev 2.0
• AMD FX-8320 CPU
• G.skill Ares low profile DDR3 1866Mhz 2×4 GB of RAM
• Asus M5A99FX Pro SOcketAM3+ DDR3 ATX
• Kingston V300 120GB SSD
• Seagate Brracuda 1TB 3.5” HDD
• CD/DVD drive
• XFX 550W Pro Core (I think)

Not long after that, I built up a second PC in a white R4 case. I don’t remember all the specs, but over time it had a GTX 570, 580, 590, and even an SLI setup at one point. RIP SLI. It was probably built to have fun building PCs and host ISnipe MW3 servers long time ago. (SwL-BTA)

Created singular waterloop that connected both PCs. Mostly because it was “cool” and would save on not buying a second pump ^_^

I painted a lot of the parts white to match the case and experimented with UV paint just for fun. (I even painted some of the cooling fins…) I painted the fittings, the water-cooling block, and the radiator as well. I was happy how these turned out.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a dedicated water block for the Gigabyte Windforce GTX 760, so I bought EKWB’s universal GPU block and made it fit the card. My original idea was to attach cooling fins to the block properly, but after testing the card in the first build, it worked perfectly without them, so I dropped that plan. It wasn’t the prettiest solution, but it did the job—and of course, I painted it white too.