Question I had been mulling over a graphics card upgrade before a more comprehensive upgrade, but...

[mikeymikec]

I'm not sure I have room in this case (Cooler Master Elite 330, from my last complete re-build circa 2010), practically speaking. I've been considering a 6700XT to replace my R9 380X. The 6700XTs I've been looking at are typically 295mm (the max theoretical card length to the non-removable 3.5" mounting points is 300mm, which I already thought was kinda tight/chancy), and the triple slot size rather than the 380X's double-slot (length 237mm according to specs). That 3.5" HDD could theoretically move down another slot, but I've still got to get sata power to it which typically is done by using the same cable chain as is feeding the SATA SSD (top-right) past the wide-boy 6700XT not to mention the extra length needed to reach a drive further down the case, . There's potentially room up in the 5.25" bay department (two spare slots beneath two optical drives), but that's where I often stick excess PSU cabling and I just think it's going to become even more of a rat's nest up there.

I'm thinking that instead of my original plan of going for the graphics card upgrade first followed by a platform upgrade (most likely AM4/AM5) in a new case a little further down the line, it ought to be done the other way around so the new graphics card goes in a bigger case.

I might open the case back up this evening and take another look in the 5.25" bay area / take a pic.

Thoughts?

 

[mikeymikec]

When I look at the cabling in my PC, I'm reminded of Gary Oldman's character in 'True Romance': "yeah, I know I'm pretty..." . TBH I couldn't care much about cable tidiness unless I actually get something out of it (like say practically fitting in a 6700XT into this case), otherwise I prefer not having to un-tidy cabling arrangements to make changes. Plus I like the little details one can easily miss, such as where I swapped out the second SATA SSD for M.2 and the SATA power connector is still sitting in the exact position where the SSD used to be

 

[VirtualLarry]

I remember the Cooler Master Elite 330 case. It was a GREAT case... for BUDGET office builds.

You're building an "Extreme Gamer" rig now, with a 6700XT, so you deserve at least an updated case.

Front intake fans or rad, front mesh. top mesh, rad or fan. bottom PSU with "basement", tempered glass. etc.

Edit: Oh yeah, might want to dust, LOL.

 

[mikeymikec]

I remember the Cooler Master Elite 330 case. It was a GREAT case... for BUDGET office builds.

You're building an "Extreme Gamer" rig now, with a 6700XT, so you deserve at least an updated case.

Front intake fans or rad, front mesh. top mesh, rad or fan. bottom PSU with "basement", tempered glass. etc.

Edit: Oh yeah, might want to dust, LOL.

I don't know about you, but I've never seen a fully loaded budget office build (graphics, PCIE, storage, optical, etc) Or did you mean, "the case was cheap"?

I wonder if your argument is a vanity-based one, because this is hardly 'extreme gamer' (ignoring the age of the build), which I'd class as either multi-GPU or very high end single GPU combined with overclocking. While the size of graphics card I've been investing in has steadily increased over the years, the 6700XT is still pretty mid-range. I'm also never going to go for tempered glass unless it has a decisive cooling/noise superiority argument going for it

The SATA power lead going to the HDD clearly has some slack on it, I'm just doubtful that it has sufficient slack to go around a full-length (relative to this case) graphics card and reach the HDD in a lower position. It might be the case that the HDD doesn't strictly speaking have to move down, but IMO if that's the case it's probably going to be (nearly?) touching the 6700XT.

Admittedly I've been pondering a case for the platform upgrade, in particular the Be Quiet Pure Base 600 because I like noise suppression, but I'm wondering whether I've been underestimating the Elite 330's cooling potential as pretty much the entire front is a filtered cooling vent and yet I've achieved virtually complete silence with this build (when the HDD powers down).

I suppose a platform upgrade first does allow me to extend my middle finger at extortionate graphics card prices for a bit longer, but then board prices seem to be very high as well and supply doesn't seem to be that great either (the boards I've been considering tend to be B550 and going for about £180UKP compared to when I paid £100 for the Z97 PRO GAMER in 2015)

 

[igor_kavinski]

Be Quiet Pure Base 600 because I like noise suppression

One way they suppress noise is by curbing airflow so it would get hot inside, especially with a GPU.

 

[RLGL]

It is entirely possible the old hardware will not support the new graphics card.

 

[mikeymikec]

It is entirely possible the old hardware will not support the new graphics card.

Could you be a bit more specific?

 

[In2Photos]

I recently upgraded my system from an i7-920 with 24GB DDR3 and a GTX1060 6GB in a Cooler Master RC590 case to the new system in my signature. The new system, despite the glass and lots of mesh openings for air flow, is nearly silent compared to my old system and the new one has 2 times as many fans. CPU and GPU run about the same temps as the previous system but will outperform it significantly. My 6800XT has more coil whine than the 1060, but otherwise it's very quiet and NVME drives don't make noise. I'm super impressed with my new system over what I had before. It was a great machine for 13+ years and is actually still running Folding At Home 24/7.

If you're contemplating an entire new system I would seriously look towards that over just the GPU upgrade.

Old vs new

 

[Ajay]

(the max theoretical card length to the non-removable 3.5" mounting points is 300mm, which I already thought was kinda tight/chancy)

Nothing is non-removable. drill out the rivets, etc. Plant the HDD down with double stick foam tape. MacGyver time!

 

[mikeymikec]

Update - I decided to have a crack at creating some room for a potential 6700XT upgrade. HDD is now in the lowest 5.25" slot (it would have been nice to get it directly beneath the SATA SSD but those are floppy drive slots and a full-height 3.5" HDD just isn't going in there). I toyed with the idea of having it in the 3.5" bay immediately above the graphics card but I felt that there would be nearly an inch overlap between a long graphics card and the HDD and heat/cable wise it didn't seem like a great idea. Ideally I would have it in a 5.25-to-3.5 adapter but it's sat on the deck of the 5.25" bay and screwed in heavily on one side.

I hoped to tidy the cabling some more, and I played with creative cable routing tactics (like having a long SATA power lead going around the back of the 3.5" bays and feeding the HDD in the bottom slot, but no. Trying to feed the SATA SSD and HDD took some doing as well; I ended up looping the cabling for the two drives around the motherboard power connector in order to try and keep as much area clear around the graphics card. What would have been a real win would have been if I could have fed all four SATA devices off one SATA power cable, but it was causing the SATA power connector on the SSD to flex in a way that made me uncomfortable.

The graphics card leans a bit less now that I've screwed it in rather than relying on that little clampy thing for PCI slot cards.

I reckon I can fit the 6700XT in now. Now that I've done it though, I'm still debating the wisdom of dropping ~400UKP on a graphics card when the prices seem to be very slowly dropping. Much like my dithering the other day when I spent about 30 minutes drafting a forum post mulling over 'should I wait for cashflow and go AM5 or just go for AM4 as AM5 is 1.5x the price of AM4', then deleting the post when I realised I had answered my own question.

 

[WelshBloke]

Admittedly I've been pondering a case for the platform upgrade, in particular the Be Quiet Pure Base 600...

Be Quiet make some nice stuff but I am not a fan of mid tower cases. Sure they can look fantasic when someone with uber cable routing skills has a minimal set up but when you end up routing a bunch of sata cables around and have a few addin cards they just become a pain to work in. Get the biggest casse you can.

Also Silverstone why do you torture me with your flat cables and 8pin pcie cables with two headers?