Mini ITX or Micro ATX build (€500 - 600)

TheSegal

I'm looking at building a small cheap mini ITX or Micro ATX build for transporting to LAN events, me and my friends regularly get together for big gaming sessions. My gaming tastes have reduced to a lot of multiplayer games (rather than big budget games like BF4) that me and my friends get together and play. It's mostly League of Legends and DOTA2, but there's also L4D2, Civ 5, Borderlands, AOE2 and a few others. I've been looking at a bitfenix prodigy case and really like the look of them! If I could get advice on a build it would be great. Started a new job aswell so I have some disposable income for a build and want to treat myself

1. What is your budget? [€500-600]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [LAN gaming, League of Legends, Counter Strike, Borderlands]

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [No]

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Yes see below.
[1 1TB HDD]
[1 no. 120GB Crucial SSD]
[1 generic DVD-RW]
[8GB of DDR3 RAM]
[LG 23 inch monitor]
[Mouse, Keyboard]

5. Do you need a monitor? [No]

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [N/A]

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? [1920x1200] [N/A]

6. Do you need any of peripherals? [No]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [Yes]

8. How can you pay? [Credit Card]

9. When are you purchasing? [about 1 month]

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [No]

Serephucus

I've used a Prodigy in the past, and it's actually quite a bit bigger than you'd think. When it's actually sitting on the floor, it ends up being somewhere between an mATX and ATX case, just because of its bloody footprint.

Since you have half the guts already, maybe take a look at something like Silverstone's FT03 Mini. It's my personal favourite ITX case. There's also CM's Elite 110 (I think), if you're after something cheaper.

As for other guts, I'd think H97 board, G3258, 750 Ti, type of build. Should max out everything on that list nicely, and you could always Step Up (if you buy an EVGA card) to a 960 or something similar down the line if you wanted more power.

TheSegal

Thanks for the advice, I had a look at cases and I think i'm going to go with a thermaltake core v1. I'm going to go with a cheaper GPU at the moment and upgrade to the 960 in the future when I need it. Been browsing through ITX builds over the last week and some people are getting insane performance out of them! Nice to know if I ever need to I can upgrade it in the future again!

Timmyctc

This is slightly OT but do you play AOE2HD or Classic through Voobly etc? :P

BloodBath

You could up the specs a good bit with that budget. Something like this.

You could still upgrade to the gtx 960 cheaply if it comes out within 3 months of buying this.

Set those small fans to low speeds and they will be quiet but improve airflow.

Prices got using geizhals.de


Total build cost: €€ 554, + €11.99 shipping
ASRock H97M-ITX / ac, Socket 1150, ITX €€ 89,
Thermaltake V1 Core €€ 39,
Corsair CX Series Modular CX500M, 500W €€ 54,
2 x ARCTIC COOLING ARCTIC F8 €€ 3,
Intel Core i5-4460 Tray €€ 147,
Thermalright True Spirit 90 M Rev.A €€ 20,
BitFenix ​​3-Pin to 3x 3-Pin Adapter 60cm, sleeved black / black €€ 6,
EVGA GeForce GTX 760 SuperClocked AX, 2GB DDR5, PCI-Express €€ 187,