My cousin needed a budget photo editing PC to finish a few critical projects. He needed the build to be completed in a few weeks to meet his deadlines. To make a long story short his Dell Inspiron with a i7 7700 was just not cutting it with Luminar AI . . . GASP! We focused on getting the fastest CPU for the money and more/faster RAM. He didn't have budget for a new GPU so I donated an MSI GTX 980. His workflow didn't really need an all powerful GPU.

The CPU was cooled using one of my fav air-coolers, the NH-U12S. I haven't done an air-cooled build in a while, so I knew I'd have some extra time to mod things, I might as well surprise him and add some bling to his build. I modded the built-in PSU shroud and the GTX 980.

Once complete, I tuned his PC to optimise performance. I undervolted his 5800x to reduce temps without losing performance, OCd his RAM using XMP profile 1, manually adjusted fan curves to optimise cooling and noise. I ran Cinebench R23 3x for an average score of 16,140 with max temps at 79C. He's good to go and he loved the mods!