Mini ITX Build - Ideas, Thoughts, Opinions?

Myrddin

So, it's high time my old games pc was retired from active service, and replaced with something a hell of a lot more modern, & capable. I'm seriously limited for space (no floor space whatsoever), but I do have shelf space...so I'm thinking a mini ITX build is the way to go here.

The new build will be tasked with playing games, at quite high settings, with very high framerates, at 1080p on a 32" tv panel. I'd also quite like it to be VR ready, so while the tv panel is only 1080p, the machine will likely need to be more capable if VR is added into the mix. The types of games will be modern AAA releases.

1. What is your budget? B]€800-€1000 give or take[/B

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? B]Gaming - modern AAA games[/B

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? B]Yes[/B

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? B]No[/B

5. Do you need a monitor? B]No[/B

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

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? B]32" 1920x1080 TV Screen, no upgrade planned[/B

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Keyboard/Mouse/Wireless Card/Card Reader/Speakers/etc.] B]No[/B

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? B]Yes, but not essential[/B

8. How can you pay? B]Credit card/Debit card/Paypal[/B

9. When are you purchasing? B]I'd like to have it bought & built by Christmas[/B

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

Here's what I've cobbled together so far, I'd appreciate any input or observations on the below:

1) Case - Silverstone Sugo SG13b - £40/€50

2) Mobo - Asus Z170i Pro Gaming - €183

3) CPU - Core i5 6600K - €302

4) RAM - HyperX Fury 16GB - £74/€89

5) Cooling - NZXT X31 Kraken 120mm - £62/€75

5) HDD's - 3TB Western Digital Blue - €110 + Kingston SSDNow 240GB - €83

6) PSU - EVGA Supernova GS650 - £77/€92

7) GPU - Something in the GTX1060 range when available perhaps?

Now, it's been a long time since I've bought PC components, so the above prices will likely be beaten with some shopping around.

Price before GPU - €874

Thoughts?

Digital Solitude

You can get i7s for €300, definitely shop around. Amazon or mindfactory are the spots.


Personally don't think that the K cpu is worth it, by the time a 6400/6500 is obsolete an OC'd 6600k is only going to be keeping pace with whatever the current standard is, it's unlikely to outlive them by any huge margin.

R9 480 is another GPU option for you

K.O.Kiki

For a €1000 budget, you're overspending on the CPU.
Drop to an i5-6500, or i3-6320.

Get an SFX PSU, too. Silverstone SST-SX500 will provide more than enough power.

Graphics card, GTX 1060 isn't out yet (and will be overpriced & out of stock).
Go for mITX version of GTX 970.

Windows, get Win 8.1 & free upgrade, or install Win10 and don't activate. Or w/e

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£174.24 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z170M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard (£105.50 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£60.65 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£72.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (£78.48 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card (£262.98 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Silverstone Sugo SG13B Mini ITX Tower Case (£39.95 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Silverstone 500W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply (£66.00)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM 64-bit (£55.00 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £915.79
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-18 14:09 BST+0100

*edit*
If your budget is low, i3-6320 + GTX 970 is better than i5-6500 + GTX 960 for gaming.

Myrddin

Digital Solitude wrote: »

You can get i7s for €300, definitely shop around. Amazon or mindfactory are the spots.

Personally don't think that the K cpu is worth it, by the time a 6400/6500 is obsolete an OC'd 6600k is only going to be keeping pace with whatever the current standard is, it's unlikely to outlive them by any huge margin.

R9 480 is another GPU option for you

So you think go i7, over i5? I gather the K line just means overclockable, so if not going that route, I could avoid the K line & put the money into a better locked CPU.

I'm a green team fan I'm afraid, never was into ATI cards. I gave them a second chance a few years back & had to RMA it after a few months. I think I'll be sticking with an Nvidia chipset for the foreseeable future.

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

For a €1000 budget, you're overspending on the CPU.
Drop to an i5-6500, or i3-6320.

The budget isn't set in absolute stone, but wouldn't go much beyond €1200/€1300. I really don't want the CPU to be any form of bottleneck, so that's why I aimed kinda high enough for the budget. When you say the CPU is overspecced for the build, is that because of what GPU I'll be using?

Get an SFX PSU, too. Silverstone SST-SX500 will provide more than enough power.

That seems to review quite poorly? A lot of issues with noise & coil whine.

Graphics card, GTX 1060 isn't out yet (and will be overpriced & out of stock).
Go for mITX version of GTX 970.

I'm half tempted to throw a bit extra at it & go for a 1070 now. From what I'm reading online, the Sugo SG13 & similar cases work better with blower style cooling solutions for GPU's. So I'm looking at the founder edition of the 1070, which seems to be ready to buy direct from geforce @ £399. Would that pair better with an i7 do you think?

Digital Solitude

Don't get a founders.

I just meant the i5 you linked was horribly overpriced, I'd recommend an i5 for any gaming build. Get a 1060 if it's at 1080p, a 1070 is wasted. An i5 won't bottleneck a GTX1080 once the game is anyway optimised.

*Added an edit there, just to note it

Myrddin

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Don't get a founders.

Any particular reason? I know they'll have a pricing premium, but I really would like to get a reference style blower card to exhaust heat out of the case.

I just meant the i5 you linked was horribly overpriced, I'd recommend an i5 for any gaming build. Get a 1060 if it's at 1080p, a 1070 is wasted.

Is that definitely the case (a 1070 being wasted at 1080p)? I'm looking at how certain games perform on YT with a 1070, & with everything turned up & at 1080p I'm seeing FPS not hugely beyond 60-80fps. I know the rest of the pc will have an effect on that, but they seem to be using i7's, 16GB ram, etc

Digital Solitude

I don't understand your logic with the reference style blower.

Have you a list of those games? All of Guru3Ds benchmarks for it have it running everything at a minimum frame rate of like 90, with the likes of GTAV running at over 150.

i5 vs. i7 makes no difference in almost all cases, same with 8gb RAM vs 16, so you can take whatever benches you find as pretty close to what you'll get

Lu Tze

Digital Solitude wrote: »

I don't understand your logic with the reference style blower.

Often with small itx cases you are better off with a blower style cooler as it vents the hot air out of the case, as opposed to the shroud coolers which essential re-circulate it within the case, which is fine for larger cases with multiple fans, but some itx cases you might have only one front fan bringing in cool air and possibly depending only on the PSU fan to vent it out the back

Digital Solitude

Don't know what a shroud cooler is but that does make more sense to me now, cheers

K.O.Kiki

Lu Tze wrote: »

Often with small itx cases you are better off with a blower style cooler as it vents the hot air out of the case, as opposed to the shroud coolers which essential re-circulate it within the case, which is fine for larger cases with multiple fans, but some itx cases you might have only one front fan bringing in cool air and possibly depending only on the PSU fan to vent it out the back

tl;dw

Fan GPU leaves CPU at less ~4C warmer, but loses to fan models by 11C+

And that's not even factoring in that Founder's Edition cards are known to thermal throttle during gaming! :pac:
And not forgetting that FE cards are much louder during load.

---

And most of these issues can be fixed by having a push-pull fan configuration in the case.

Lu Tze

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

tl;dw

Fan GPU leaves CPU at less ~4C warmer, but loses to fan models by 11C+

And that's not even factoring in that Founder's Edition cards are known to thermal throttle during gaming! :pac:
And not forgetting that FE cards are much louder during load.

---

And most of these issues can be fixed by having a push-pull fan configuration in the case.

Indeed, but we are talking about an itx case that is likely ~30-40% the size of the one in that video, with usually a max of two fan mounts. And he did mention that the whole thing was louder with the wind force than the reference cooler. Would be worth seeing if anybody did a similar comparison in a small case

K.O.Kiki

Lu Tze wrote: »

Indeed, but we are talking about an itx case that is likely ~30-40% the size of the one in that video, with usually a max of two fan mounts. And he did mention that the whole thing was louder with the wind force than the reference cooler. Would be worth seeing if anybody did a similar comparison in a small case

If the 1070 coolers are similar to the 1080 coolers, I'd say that's a problem with the Gigabyte model more than an inherent design flaw.

https://www.computerbase.de/2016-07/geforce-gtx-1080-partnerkarten-vergleich-test/4/

Instead of Nvidia reference or Gigabyte G1, get a model by Palit/Gainward.

Myrddin

Digital Solitude wrote: »

I don't understand your logic with the reference style blower.

As above, the blower style coolers (from what I've read anyway), are better suited to smaller cases. Particularly the Mini ITX case I'm looking at. There's a real tight squeeze inside, and the blower style cooler seems to be better at removing hot air from the confines of a mini ITX case, more so than a shroud type is.

Have you a list of those games? All of Guru3Ds benchmarks for it have it running everything at a minimum frame rate of like 90, with the likes of GTAV running at over 150.

Well take GTA V for example. Here's a video of a system running it with the following specs:

I5 4690k At 4.5GHZ
16Gb Of Ram
Nvidia GTX 1070 Founders Edition

And yet at certain parts it's dropping below 60fps!

i5 vs. i7 makes no difference in almost all cases, same with 8gb RAM vs 16, so you can take whatever benches you find as pretty close to what you'll get

Interesting. I originally felt the i5 was the sweet spot alright, is this widely accepted (for 1080p gaming)?

Eoinmc97

Myrddin wrote: »

As above, the blower style coolers (from what I've read anyway), are better suited to smaller cases. Particularly the Mini ITX case I'm looking at. There's a real tight squeeze inside, and the blower style cooler seems to be better at removing hot air from the confines of a mini ITX case, more so than a shroud type is.



Well take GTA V for example. Here's a video of a system running it with the following specs:

I5 4690k At 4.5GHZ
16Gb Of Ram
Nvidia GTX 1070 Founders Edition

And yet at certain parts it's dropping below 60fps!

Interesting. I originally felt the i5 was the sweet spot alright, is this widely accepted (for 1080p gaming)?

Well, the GTA V benchmark is showing you the 0.1% lows on a system with a HDD. GTA V often pages to the HDD so that's why Guru have higher minimums.
As for the core i5 being worth it, I think it's the minimum needed, as Hyperthreading doesn't help much in VR. i5s are the standard for solid 1080p gaming, as it offers a sweetspot of high clocks and decent core count.

If you want an idea of my build which is also m-ITX:

Core i5 6400: €170
8GB 2133MHz DDR4 RAM: €30
240GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD: €65 (picked it up in a sale)
1 TB HDD: €45
RX 480: €300 (OCUK FINALLY let me pre-order XD)
Ggigabyte B150N Phoenix Wifi: €90
Corsair 380T: €113 (another sale!)
550W EVGA GS Supernova PSU: €90 (it was either this or the Silverstone SFF PSU, but seing as this fitted no problem, I bought the EVGA)

thegreenbean

Be careful with that case. It's tiny. Ram modules can touch the cpu coolers, cpu coolers can cover ram slots, 4/8 pin power connectors can be covered, cable length can be a huge issue for air flow, gpu connectors can be squashed up on the top of the case and so on. I speak from experience, very painful experience lol. Good luck with the build. All the builds up above look pretty good but i'd stay away from K chips heat wise it would melt your shelf.

Myrddin

Cheers for that! Yeah I've seen a few build videos using this case...it's a damned tight squeeze. Most of the parts I picked were either used in build vids, or recommended in Amazon reviews...so I know most of them should be compatible (minus my skin no doubt)!

Do the K's run a lot hotter yeah? More than the X31 Kraken could handle I presume?

thegreenbean

Myrddin wrote: »

Cheers for that! Yeah I've seen a few build videos using this case...it's a damned tight squeeze. Most of the parts I picked were either used in build vids, or recommended in Amazon reviews...so I know most of them should be compatible (minus my skin no doubt)!

Do the K's run a lot hotter yeah? More than the X31 Kraken could handle I presume?

When it's pushed past it's stock clock speed the heat increases a lot. My 4790K runs stock at 30/35c on a custom loop. OC'd to 4.5GHz at 1.25v it ramps up to 40c idle, under 100% load it hits 50/60c.

Myrddin

thegreenbean wrote: »

When it's pushed past it's stock clock speed the heat increases a lot. My 4790K runs stock at 30/35c on a custom loop. OC'd to 4.5GHz at 1.25v it ramps up to 40c idle, under 100% load it hits 50/60c.

I'd likely not bother overclocking, I know that defeats the purpose of the K, but there's only something like £10/€15 euro in the difference between a 6600 & a 6600K. The K has a higher base clock of 3.5Ghz, compared to the base of a 6600 @ 3.3Ghz...so I figured the extra few euro was worth it?

thegreenbean

Myrddin wrote: »

I'd likely not bother overclocking, I know that defeats the purpose of the K, but there's only something like £10/€15 euro in the difference between a 6600 & a 6600K. The K has a higher base clock of 3.5Ghz, compared to the base of a 6600 @ 3.3Ghz...so I figured the extra few euro was worth it?

It would be a sin to own a K and not push it to it's limits imo. The non K will auto boost anyway so you won't loose much. It sounds like a really cool build. Will you post a few pictures when you're done? I love itx builds, i'm trying to convince myself to build an ultimate itx watercooled one atm lol. Best of luck with the project.

Myrddin

thegreenbean wrote: »

It would be a sin to own a K and not push it to it's limits imo. The non K will auto boost anyway so you won't loose much. It sounds like a really cool build. Will you post a few pictures when you're done? I love itx builds, i'm trying to convince myself to build an ultimate itx watercooled one atm lol. Best of luck with the project.

I wouldn't mind pushing it a little, I'd have to be mindful of the temps & the fact that the X31 is a small enough radiator with only a single fan on it. As I said though, for €15 it seems well worth it to at least have the option there incase I throw a Rift at the build next year.

I will indeed take some pics, & log the build

thegreenbean

Myrddin wrote: »

I wouldn't mind pushing it a little, I'd have to be mindful of the temps & the fact that the X31 is a small enough radiator with only a single fan on it. As I said though, for €15 it seems well worth it to at least have the option there incase I throw a Rift at the build next year.

I will indeed take some pics, & log the build

You have a point. If it's only 15euro then why not?

Myrddin

Here's a roughly similar build vid (though I'll be going modular psu), just to show the bits will just about go in!

thegreenbean

Myrddin wrote: »

Here's a roughly similar build vid (though I'll be going modular psu), just to show the bits will just about go in!



Hehe that's tight. It's all in there though :eek:

Myrddin

Myrddin wrote: »

1) Case - Silverstone Sugo SG13b - £40/€50

2) Mobo - Asus Z170i Pro Gaming - €183

3) CPU - Core i5 6600K - €302

4) RAM - HyperX Fury 16GB - £74/€89

5) Cooling - NZXT X31 Kraken 120mm - £62/€75

6) HDD's - 3TB Western Digital Blue - €110 + Kingston SSDNow 240GB - €83

7) PSU - EVGA Supernova GS650 - £77/€92

8) GPU - Something in the GTX1060 range when available perhaps?

Ok, one or two slight changes:

1) Case - Silverstone SUGO SG13b - £40/€50 - ORDERED

2) Mobo - Asus Z170i Pro Gaming - €183 - ORDERED

3) CPU - Core i5 6600K - €302

4) RAM - HyperX Fury 16GB - £74/€89 - ORDERED

5) Cooling - NZXT X31 Kraken - £62/€75 - ORDERED

6) HDD's - Seagate 2TB SSHD - €110 + PNY CS1311 120GB SSD - €45 - ORDERED (PNY SSD, not the SSHD)

7) PSU - EVGA Supernova GS650 - €115

8) GPU - Geforce GTX 1070 FE (Reference style blower setup) - £400/€500

So I've changed to the idea of an SSHD for the storage drive, & went with the PNY for the SSD because the new V300's are reviewing terribly (the nand chips have been changed for cheaper slower ones). I've also more or less decided to go 1070 over 1060, so am thinking one of the FE variants.

Any thoughts on SSHD's over a traditional HDD for a storage drive (games use)?

MarkAnthony

SSHDs where sort of a good idea a few years back but even then they didn't really take off. Now they're completely obsolete IMHO. You can get 1TB of SSD for about £150 given the right offers - stick everything OS, Games etc on that then media files etc. on a regular HDD.

€183 for a mobo :eek:

Myrddin

MarkAnthony wrote: »

SSHDs where sort of a good idea a few years back but even then they didn't really take off. Now they're completely obsolete IMHO. You can get 1TB of SSD for about £150 given the right offers - stick everything OS, Games etc on that then media files etc. on a regular HDD.

I'd be needing more than 1TB storage though, so felt originally 2TB Blue would be ideal. Then it seems that the WD Blue's that are 2TB are 5400, so essentially relabelled Green's. That led me to SSHD's, & everything I'm reading suggests they're a nice solution, & lie in between SSD's & HDD's performance wise.

When considering the running of games, & the specs of the pc itself, would there be much offset between a 5400 hdd & a 7200 one?

€183 for a mobo :eek:

Pricey, I know. Amazon only offered it via their marketplace (3rd party seller with no postage to Ireland), & OCUK have a pretty high delivery charge so it evened out really. I don't mind the likes of Parcel Motel for small value stuff, but not stuff like this (plus retailers can dig heels in, in the event of problems due to 3rd party handlers).

MarkAnthony

If you're not worried about noise RAID 0 2x1TB 7200 RPM drives. It (and an SHDD) isn't going to overcome the issue of loading small files though. 2TB of games is massive, are there not some older games which won't benefit for SSD install?

In regards to the mobo are you going to be overclocking? If not I'd consider a business Motherboard and go for a i7.

Myrddin

MarkAnthony wrote: »

If you're not worried about noise RAID 0 2x1TB 7200 RPM drives. It (and an SHDD) isn't going to overcome the issue of loading small files though. 2TB of games is massive, are there not some older games which won't benefit for SSD install?

Striped drives though are going to push up the cost, and for what it'll be used for, I'm not sure it's worth the hassle/expense. Then again, I'm not at all well up on RAID so if there is significant benefits there, perhaps it's something I could look at?

In regards to the mobo are you going to be overclocking? If not I'd consider a business Motherboard and go for a i7.

Overclocking will be an option for sure. Again from what I'm reading, for gaming, there's little reason to look at an i7 over an i5...what do you reckon?

MarkAnthony

Myrddin wrote: »

Striped drives though are going to push up the cost, and for what it'll be used for, I'm not sure it's worth the hassle/expense. Then again, I'm not at all well up on RAID so if there is significant benefits there, perhaps it's something I could look at?

Tomshardware etc. but much of it is out of date these days as people have moved over to SSDs (and are raiding them now). I think it would be best to read up on SHDDs. My reading is that they simply don't offer much of a performance boost unless they just happen to have the data in cache. If you're playing the same games regularly why not just pop them on a fully fledged SSD then copy them back.

Myrddin wrote: »

Overclocking will be an option for sure. Again from what I'm reading, for gaming, there's little reason to look at an i7 over an i5...what do you reckon?

The landscape is changing with DX12, we don't exactly know how yet. The other point I tend to agree with is that 8GB or RAM and and i5 is fine in a newly installed or properly maintained system. People who tend to just use the machine or people like me who'd have all sorts of peripherals hanging off the thing benefit from the extra leeway.

I'm a bit dubious about overclocking in general unless you're at the limit of a price point but I'd be very dubious about it in an ITX case and on an ITX board.