Two of Three

Got two new old computers from a studio that was decommissioning them; common parts between them are:

• i7-3820
• Cooler Master HSF (Hyper 212?)
• ASUS P9X79
• 4x4GB PC3-10600 (quad-channel)
• Cooler Master HAF (912?)
• LG M-DISC DVD burner

...Otherwise, they have decent 500~600W 80 PLUS Bronze PSUs. There's a third one coming, but they're still using it for a little while longer.

So I added a 500GB 7200RPM HDD to one, and I'm giving it to a friend who really wants to play Flight Simulator 2020 but only has an ancient Mac Book; I figure a 1660 SUPER will serve him well in there. Get a 27" 1080p monitor, toss-in an SSD, and then not really much more to do in terms of upgrades - and  it saves him, like, $500 up-front. Merry Christmas!

The other will likely go to that indie recording studio I mentioned a few posts ago, while the i7-930 will finally go to a friend with many hard drives who wants to build a 14-drive storage server :)

The fun part about these computers, however, was how poorly they were assembled! Upside-down PSUs! Horrible cable management - but there were zip-ties, so they tried and failed! An eight-pin PCIe power connector with only seven pins connected! A CPU mounted 180-degrees-off with both clamps latched and the huge HSF unit tightly screwed-into the motherboard! They couldn't figure-out why it wouldn't boot; I was surprised the CPU hadn't snapped!