Humble me has been in ‘da Mood to build or upgrade a computer for about 6 months now, but since it still looks too early for building a new computer I have been pondering a upgrade of ‘sOmEtHiNg’!? Just haven’t figured out what that ‘sOmEtHiNg’ is yet…maybe a MoBo upgrade for ‘Apevia’ and/or ‘Rose’?! Maybe just upgrading one of my cases:

That’s a JONSPLUS BO 100 … interesting, huh. However, 9.4” (Wi) x 11.1” (H) x 9.17” (L) seems a little big for a case designed for an ITX or DTX MoBo, especially with no external drive bay/s (a deal breaker for me – need Hot Swap bay to swap SSD’s quickly). My ‘InWin’ case is smaller ‘n it has a “1x slim ODD or 1x 2.5″ HDD” bay. Have definitely been scoping out cases for the past month or so, i.e. Building a Computer starts with a great Case, but most of my computers’ have fairly new components – especially ‘Antec Jr.’ ‘n ‘Apevia’ – which is why a upgrade appeals at this time.

Like I said earlier, have been ‘da Mood to build or upgrade ‘sOmEtHiNg’, but haven’t reach that point where ‘da kick a little ass mood kicks in…so to speak of Kate Moseley:

I may end up upgrading the cheap MoBo in ‘Apevia’ since I was on a tight budget when buying that AMD MoBo, and the better AMD boards were so expensive at that time. However, haven’t got to the point of checking on those prices yet…mainly looking at cases. Here’s the case that got me pondering seriously:

That’s an APEVIA X-Fit-200 Mini-ITX Case – 1’ (D) x 7.87” (Wi) x 4.1” (H) – which stays “OUT OF STOCK”. Comes with an External 5.25″ Drive Bay, but is just for a Mini ITX MB. Am actually planning on moving from the ATX boards for my next main computer build to a microATX board…maybe a DTX board. Will have to be a board that can handle serious processors ‘n GPU’s without any need for the major throttling that laptops and smaller cased computers require. Those small cased throttled ‘Thangs are mostly for suckers, IMHO. Look at the gaming computer requirements for ‘Tips’ on proper cooling ‘n air-flow, i.e. the serious gaming community wants *NOTHING* to do with forcing their CPU’s to throttling down to about half speed – unless they are turning the computer off. Why spend extra money on a CPU that needs to run @ half speed all the time in order not to burn up? Get a Celeron…on average, it will probably run faster in those small cases.

Hard to find the right small case that can do a lot, i.e. a 15″ x 8.2″ x 15.4″ case that handles microATX or smaller boards is still a big case. The ‘Antec Jr.’ Sonata Proto case is 16.70″ x 8.10″ x 18.20″ ‘n can handle it all, plus its quiet ‘n easily cooled inside.

Cooler Master labels its MasterBox E300L case as a “Mini Tower” @ 14.33″ (H) x 7.09″ (Wi) x 17.64″ (D)!?! My APEVIA X-Qpack3 case is “15.25″ x 10.25″ x 12.75″ (13.75″ in height including case feet)” ‘n easy to work in. The ‘Rose’ Rosewill FBM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower case was like $19.99 when I purchased it, and it’s only 13.78″ (H) x 6.89″ (Wi) x 13.86″ (D)…uummmmm. That’s actually not a bad size at all.

I don’t want a case with a glass “Window” – nor do I want flashing lights in ‘n around my computer, so that is something else that needs considering when looking for a case. I have a bunch of good cases already, so may just end up upgrading the MoBo in ‘Rose’ for a future ‘CPU Transplant’ of the ‘Antec Jr.’ Intel i9 9900. The Intel i9 9900 @ $355 is $125 less than the Ryzen 9 3900X @ $480 *AND* it’s Faster. AMD suckers a lot of people with all their hyped promotions. Fact is, I may just do a full Intel i9 9900 upgrade to ‘Rose’ now, and move all the ‘Guts’ outta ‘Antec Jr.’ ‘n into ‘Antec Sr.’ later when I move main computer to a newer processor. Hard to beat that Intel i9 9900, IMHO. Try to use as many ‘older‘ components in these upgrades as I can, e.g. memory, SSD’s, Hot Swap SATA bays, case, PSU, CPU, GPU, etc.

That MoBo in ‘Rose’ was cheap junk ‘n has been terrible for testing. Heck, the Intel i7-8700 in ‘Rose’ now is ranked #34 Effective Speed, and Effective Speed is what you look for in a Desktop computer. May try to find a good microATX board that can take either the i7 or i9 in case I wanna move that i9 9900 into ‘Rose’ later. Probably don’t make a MoBo that can do that, but I will check. Maybe add a new GPU in ‘Antec Jr.’ and move the old one into a new ‘Rose’ upgrade ‘n get ‘Rose’ back into testing. Need an Intel test machine with an Nvidia GPU in it. The Boot Menu key never worked right with the MoBo in ‘Rose’ which makes it difficult to boot with more than one drive attached.

      • UPDATE: Well, I fixed the MoBo in ‘Rose‘ – or should say Q-Flashed it.  😉   After posting this earlier today, I went to the Gigabyte H310M support page for CPU’s and this MoBo supports the Intel i7-8700 now in it (of course) ‘n also the Intel i9 9900. Watched a few episodes of my new Sons of Anarchy Blu-ray complete series, and then went back to Gigabyte’s H310M support page to check the BIOS versions. BIOS was 2 years old and there were 3 newer versions, so I downloaded the newest – F15b – extracted that to a USB ‘n then Q-Flashed it. F12 Boot Menu key now works perfectly with all kinds of drives plugged in. Sorry, ‘InWin‘, but you are demoted. ‘Rose‘, congrats on the new promotion!
      • UPDATE 2: ‘Rose‘ has never been this fast!! Had put the new Intel Core i7-8700 in back around 7/30/2020, but never updated the BIOS or anything else.
      • UPDATE 3: 2/07/2021 – well, forget the GPU for ‘Rose‘!? The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER DirectX 12 GTX 1660 SUPER VENTUS XS OC 6GB I paid $237.99 @ Newegg on 8/6/2020 is now out of stock there … @ Amazon its $639.99 … $955.91 @ Walmart, mostly out of stock elsewhere!? The EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 XC Black Gaming, 6GB GDDR5, HDB Fan, 06G-P4-1161-KR I paid $209.99 for on 10/21/2019 @ Amazon is now at least $466.99 @ Amazon … $524 @ Newegg … $499.00 “Open box” (used?) @ebay!?! Definately not a good time to buy a GPU…sorry, ‘Rose‘.  😉

      Will need to do some more pondering…’Rose‘ could use a real GPU.  😉

      LINUX IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES – you never know what you’re gonna get!

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