UPDATE 7/15/2016: I found a great deal at Microcenter for an Open Box R9 290, this was a decent upgrade from the GTX 960. It runs hot and loud at full load, but I don't mind with my headset on.

UPDATE #2 7/28/2016: So I switched the GPU out 2 more times. The R9 290 , while nice, ran really hot, and really loud, so I found an open box XFX Reference RX 480 and returned the 290. Unfortunately, the RX 480 was defective. The fan wouldnt change speed and it had a case of the coil whines. So then I returned it for an Open Box MSI 780 Ti Reference card. This 780 Ti had a defective BIOS and I couldnt figure out why it wouldnt work with any drivers. Id like to thank c0deater for suggesting to flash the BIOS, it worked. This 780 Ti, while being 3 years old is a beast at 1080 p still, and it still a very capable card. Also I installed an Arctic Freezer 240 AIO cooler, its awesome, I love it.

Note: For the most recent pictures, the first picture and the last couple starting from the one with the GPU box are the most recent.

As some of you may already know, Ive been talking about this upgrade for a month or two now and you're probably speculating though your head "Are you going to post the damn thing already or what?"

Well here she is:

This build in its original form was forged on December 25th, 2015 as a Christmas gift from my Grandparents. With a stronk Core i3-6100 and a GTX 960, the first build was born into the world as a newbie gaming PC. Times have changed my friends, I have learned more since then.

Before I divulge into this, here is whats new and what now:

• CPU: NEW
• CPU Cooler: UPDATE - NEW
• Memory: Reused *
• Storage: Reused
• GPU: UPDATE - NEW
• Case: NEW
• PSU: NEW

Total Cost of Upgrades: $638.06 USD

• Note: The new RAM I ordered for some reason will not fit even though its DDR4 DIMMs.

THE BUILD

With Six cores and 12 threads, this thing rips through absolutely everything I throw at it. At first this wasnt my original build plan. I was originally going to pick up a new mATX Z170 mobo for the case I bought, an i5-6600K to overclock it on, and a 240 mm AIO Cooler to top off that nice and toasty overclocked i5.

To my amazement, I found this EVGA X99 Micro for sale in the For Sale or Trade section of the forums (Thank you royalba94 for selling this to me , it came with no I/O shield btw, if anyone was about to comment that I forgot it :P). My whole plan changed and I thought "Well I dont need it, but if I can get into the X99 Platform for cheap, I might as well try it." I found this i7-6800k for $330 before tax at Microcenter, a week after Broadwell-E launched, best Open Box deal ever.

This PC to me is great, I love almost every bit of it (Ugh 960, y u no 380?), and it will serve me very well for years to come.

The future of this build? Well I really want to upgrade the GPU to something like the RX 480 or get a used R9 Nano for fun. A new cooler to overclock, and a new 1080p gaming monitor at 144hz for that GPU.

Pro Tip for those upgrading to Broadwell-E from Haswell-E

In my case I wasn't upgrading, but I still needed to do it:

Make sure you flash the BIOS of your Motherboard to the latest version that supports Broadwell-E and EP CPUs if you're upgrading, or the PC WILL NOT boot.