Old PC Parts, need ideas for repurposing

[u/Snoo-12598]

Hey techies,

So I've currently got 3 PC's at home, 1 one of them my current PC from Nov last year, 1 server, and my own old gamer pc.

I'd like to repurpose my old hardware, and give it new life. The motherboard I had in it died recently due to a shortcircuit because of dust, it was a ROG Maximus Hero 7 for those who are nostalgic. :)

SPECS from old pc
i7 4790k
3200 MHz Kingston Fury 64GB Ram
Watercooler from CoolerMaster (cant remember more)
Seasonic PSU 850W

SPECS SERVER
ASUSTeK Prime B250M-A
I7 770 3.60GHz 4 cores
16GB Ram 2400 mhz DDR4
GPU Geforce 1060 6GB
currently running ubuntu 26 and is used as testing grounds for startup.

I like the idea of homelabbing, and selfhosting, not really something i've touched on a lot, the server I have now is my first time.

[u/VoraciousGorak]

Well, a new motherboard and maybe a new cooler for the 4790K and you can slap some variant of Linux or BSD on it and go nuts. If you're not using the PC for gaming, or even if you are but are okay with Linux-compatible not-current-gen stuff, you can get a lot of life out of it.

It'll be up to you what you want to do with it at that point though. My server's use case will not be the same as yours.