The one thing that will give it away is the i5 sticker on the front panel.

I do not have the CPU yet but I had an extra sticker here.

Socket 1155 H61 Motherboard with 4GB Crucial DDR3 and Celeron G1610 that will be replaced with a i5-3570k soon.

Audigy with front panel audio, front panel USB and of course the GTX 285.

Another shot

Ooh I love the idea of this build! Like a sleeper PC (if you're familiar with the concept of a sleeper in car culture)!

@ CapnCrunch53

I grew up in the US and was in highschool during the late eighties. I know what drag racing is 😉 Not that I ever street raced mind you, cough, cough. I had a buddy with a good sleeper. He had a Buick Regal T-Type which if you don't know had the same engine as the Buick Grand National.

Anyways, yeah that is exactly what I was going for on this build. An extremely fast DirectX 9.0 system that no one would give a second look if they saw it. It also generates a lot less wife aggro if it doesn't look fast.

EDIT:

For an OEM Micro-ATX case i really like this one.

Front panel headphone out that is compatible with a wide range of creative sound cards is awesome and yes it is a smart headphone jack that changes the configuration of the soundcard when it detects that headphones are plugged in.

It is a quality thick, rugged, steel box with tool-less entry and it has much better ventilation than it might first appear. Remove the shroud from the CPU fan and it just becomes a high quality case fan. You cannot see the front air inlet as it is kind of hidden in the geometry of the front panel but it is below the big Dell emblem. I will try to post a decent picture of it tomorrow.

Although it is slightly proprietary it takes a standard ATX PSU and standard Micro-ATX motherboards. It is not hard to change the LED and switches out to use with any motherboard.

Gonna be following this thread, looks very nice!

Thanks!

If anyone is interested I can show in better detail on how to rewire the front panel USB with a longer cable. It isn't hard and I didn't think to show it. I need to pickup a few more of these and I only have to give $10 each for complete systems (original P4 hardware).

squareguy wrote:

Thanks!

If anyone is interested I can show in better detail on how to rewire the front panel USB with a longer cable. It isn't hard and I didn't think to show it. I need to pickup a few more of these and I only have to give $10 each for complete systems (original P4 hardware).

I'm not sure if you've seen my Athlon 64 X2 build log here on Vogons which uses an original Audigy and I'm considering doing a similar project where I create an adapter cable for the front panel audio, I'll need to buy the connectors, cabling/wires/crimp leads, and crimping equipment. Did you have to do that or was the Dell case's front panel audio cable already designed for use with an Audigy careld with the weird connector?

EDIT: WHOOPS I misread your post, you're doing the USB wiring not the audio.

Luckily this case comes with the proper audio connector. Look for this case and get it for free or $10 and use that connector to solder onto your front panel to save a lot of time.

More pics will follow soon but I wanted to talk about the hardware a little bit. I will talk about software later. I'm not really going into depth here because you guys know more than me 🤣.

Audigy 2 SB0350 sound card

It is easy on drivers, sounds good, EAX, has front panel audio connector (if you have the right connector) and it doesn't crackle/pop like a PCI X-Fi does for a lot of people, including me.

I will do some tests later to make sure I'm not crazy but I believe the headphone out through the front panel connector has a separate audio amplifier and more reverb than the green jack on the back. This is when the green jack on the back IS set to headphones in control panel.

4GB Crucial DDR 3 RAM

Most 32-bit XP can handle and it is from a company I trust.

Intel i5 3570k CPU

Fastest 1155 quad core available that isn't an i7, the price difference on the used market right now is about the same for the i5 3570k, i5 3570s and the i5 3570 so it makes sense to get this one. Even the much slower i5's aren't really that much cheaper right now. I am not planning on overclocking but might later on.

ASUS P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 1155 motherboard

Not my first choice in brands but it will do what I need, is cheap and most importantly is still sold brand new. Not an overclockers board but that isn't a concern for me. I believe I can still use it to overclock a little if needed.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 video card

Simple, fast, good drivers, good compatibility, good DirectX 9.0, doesn't draw tremendous amounts of power, inexpensive, Tesla based, quiet. (EDIT: corrected, NOT Fermi based!)

SeaSonic SSP-450RT 450W PSU

Not fancy, good quality, will really push 450-Watts (unlike those overrated pieces of junk), not expensive, had the right amount of connectors and not too much extra cabling for a small case.

ASUS 24X DVD Burner

Whatever black, SATA DVD burner that was cheap and had good reviews

Dell 4600 case

Stealth system, very good quality case, good (not awesome) airflow, easy to work with, front panel audio for Creative sound cards.

Western Digital Black 1TB hard drive

Fast, good quality, got locally at an ok price. It works tremendously well.

What games is this targeted at? And also, what are your expectations? E.g. 1080p resolution at 60 frames, something along those lines.

I want to throw about anything I want at it. Probably DirectX 7.0 - DirectX 9.0 games.

I am holding off on some testing until I get the new CPU but so far everything looks good.

Can you disable cores in the BIOS? Would be interesting to see if 4 cores are being used or not.

It's been proven that certain games use all four cores like GTA IV. The cost of a dual core Pentium 3.4 was so high that it made sense to go ahead and spend a little more for a quad core for the games that can use it plus the option of upgrading video cards and running Windows 7 or 10 if I ever needed to. I have a few games to try before and after. Morrowind really needs the extra speed boost since I have the Overhaul 3.0 installed. Going from 2.6-GHz to 3.8-GHz Turbo is a 46% increase in speed. I will try to have some hard numbers soon. I wasn't ready to talk about performance yet hehe. It smokes F.E.A.R. already, maxed out @ 1600x1200 with the lowly Celeron.

squareguy wrote:

More pics will follow soon but I wanted to talk about the hardware a little bit. I will talk about software later. I'm not rea […]
Show full quote

More pics will follow soon but I wanted to talk about the hardware a little bit. I will talk about software later. I'm not really going into depth here because you guys know more than me 🤣.

Audigy 2 SB0350 sound card

It is easy on drivers, sounds good, EAX, has front panel audio connector (if you have the right connector) and it doesn't crackle/pop like a PCI X-Fi does for a lot of people, including me.

I will do some tests later to make sure I'm not crazy but I believe the headphone out through the front panel connector has a separate audio amplifier and more reverb than the green jack on the back. This is when the green jack on the back IS set to headphones in control panel.

4GB Crucial DDR 3 RAM

Most 32-bit XP can handle and it is from a company I trust.

Intel i5 3570k CPU

Fastest 1155 quad core available that isn't an i7, the price difference on the used market right now is about the same for the i5 3570k, i5 3570s and the i5 3570 so it makes sense to get this one. Even the much slower i5's aren't really that much cheaper right now. I am not planning on overclocking but might later on.

ASUS P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 1155 motherboard

Not my first choice in brands but it will do what I need, is cheap and most importantly is still sold brand new. Not an overclockers board but that isn't a concern for me. I believe I can still use it to overclock a little if needed.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 video card

Simple, fast, good drivers, good compatibility, good DirectX 9.0, doesn't draw tremendous amounts of power, inexpensive, Fermi based, quiet.

SeaSonic SSP-450RT 450W PSU

Not fancy, good quality, will really push 450-Watts (unlike those overrated pieces of junk), not expensive, had the right amount of connectors and not too much extra cabling for a small case.

ASUS 24X DVD Burner

Whatever black, SATA DVD burner that was cheap and had good reviews

Dell 4600 case

Stealth system, very good quality case, good (not awesome) airflow, easy to work with, front panel audio for Creative sound cards.

Western Digital Black 1TB hard drive

Fast, good quality, got locally at an ok price. It works tremendously well.

The GTX285 is Tesla based, the same as the 8800GTX only with more of everything except power draw 😀

@skyscraper

Oops, I meant Tesla... thanks for the correction. It is one of the major reasons for my choosing this card.

Wait....the that 4600 is a standard mATX? All this time I thought it was some Dell proprietary crap. Thanks for unintentionally telling me this. 😀

Waiting on the new CPU is killing me hehe... anyway here are some more pics.

Here you can see the front panel, hidden air intake.

Here are some shots with everything wired up. Not the best wiring job but it works. I used the original CPU fan with the shroud removed as a case fan. When it starts to make noise I will replace it, it is a pretty high quality fan that is rubber mounted. I rewired the Power LED, Power Switch and Hard Drive LED with longer wires and normal connectors.

@zstandig

yes it's standard Micro-ATX except the front panel LED's and switch that is on a very short cable with a single connector. Replace that and good to go. Depending on where motherboard USB header is you might need a longer USB cable like I did.

I am contemplating coming up with some sort of fresh air intake for the GTX 285 but I doubt I will take the time for that.

This is honestly the cleanest Dell case I've ever seen, great job on this build. I had one of those cases with a Celeron D way back and it was so dusty and dirty. Any plans on doing case mods or drilling holes for fans?