Mini-ITX build for a friend, your thoughts...

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by CPC_RedDawn, May 13, 2013.

  1. CPC_RedDawn

    CPC_RedDawn Ancient Guru

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    Friend has a budget of £1100 and wants a compact LAN gaming PC he can take with him to events, friends houses, and eventually to uni with him. He is adamant he wants it to be blue (his fav color), and he wants a Blu-Ray drive for watching movies.

    Here is the build I have proposed to him,

    [​IMG]

    Will use the 230mm fan for the front to improve airflow over all components, will mount the H80i at the back and will be using the stock fans that come with it. He needs Wi-Fi enabled on the motherboard for when he goes to Uni in September. Hoping to get around 4.4GHz out of the 3570K and I chose that motherboard because of its overclocking options and it matches he blue case too. Also the 7870 Tahiti LE should give him ample gaming headroom for 1080p with minimal AA and it should overclock very well too. Also went for the Samsung memory as it also overclocks like a beast.

    Any thoughts on improvements or different options? Hoping to buy all the parts by the end of next week.
     
  2. BLEH!

    BLEH! Ancient Guru

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    Seems reasonable, though I'm sure you can get a slightly cheaper mobo such as: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-...-6gb-s-raid-pcie-30-(x16)-d-sub-hdmi-mini-itx and some faster RAM, 2133 MHz isn't much more expensive (actually the ones you've picked there seem a bit naff TBH). I'd also avoid Seagate drives like the plague (bad personal experiences with them dying on me), for WD, Samsung or something else, and maybe ditch the H80i for a standard heatpipe cooler. Probably perform similarly in such a small case (you aren't going to get such a mad overclock on a mini ITX board).

    Hope that helps.
     
  3. anticupidon

    anticupidon Ancient Guru

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    As Bleh said ,Seagate has a high RMA rate on those models,so try another brand.
     
  4. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Seagate released a fw update for those drives....but the ST1000DM003 is an excellent drive with no real issues.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2013

  5. Chillin

    Chillin Ancient Guru

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    To be honest, it sounds to me that he is looking for a laptop more than a small desktop in my opinion.

    In any case, the specs look fine. The only thing I might change is the 7,200RPM drive to a 5,400 RPM or something similar. Less noise and heat for a storage drive.
     
  6. Matt26LFC

    Matt26LFC Ancient Guru

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    Looks good, however it is really necessary to spend £150 on a Mini ITX board? Perhaps something around the £100 mark, like a Gigabyte Z77N-WiFi?
     
  7. CPC_RedDawn

    CPC_RedDawn Ancient Guru

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    The reason I chose the motherboard is because of its high overclocking capabilities as it has extra VRMs to power the chip and a 4.4GHz overclock on this board should be easily achieved googling this board just proves its worth. Most of the other mini-ITX boards dont allow overclocking at all and some reviews of others show poor results compared to this board. Plus, its blue lol :p and matches his color choice, was going to get braided cables for the PSU as its semi-modular but he decided not too as most the cables will be hidden as much as possible.

    The RAM is by far and wide NOT rubbish. This the Samsung green memory which is probably some of the most overclockable memory on the market today.

    I will definitely consider changing the HDD due to a google search coming up with all manner of faults and problems on these SG drives. Will look into a WD or Samsung drive. And I definitely wont be changing it to 5400rpm drive as this is going to be his main hard drive for games, movies and music whilst the SSD will be his OS and main programs.

    Thanks for the input.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2013
  8. smashly

    smashly Master Guru

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    4.4Ghz on a 3570k is where temps and volts starts to rise.
    4.2Ghz and it barely a diff to the default 3.8Ghz temps and volts.
    That 200Mhz more just seems to run hotter and mid air cooling or 120 AIO wc solutions only hold temps at bay when they have fans making to much noise.
    Maybe you'll be lucky and get a better chip, but I've seen the same results with 3 different setups using 3570k on air and with 120 aio wc.
    Sure they can clock higher then 4.4Ghz, but 24/7 4.4Ghz temps were not a pleasure unless there were fans making to much noise.
    Even then the temps were only just acceptable when at 100% load when using mid type cooling.All what I have seen were in rooms wit an ambient temp of 25c+ (more like 27c ~ 29c depending on time of day)
    I'd imagine you'd have better results if the ambient room temp was 21c~22c
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2013
  9. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Samsung HDD's are made by Seagate....

    Nothing wrong with Seagate btw, but if you want a better warranty go with WD.
     
  10. Fender178

    Fender178 Ancient Guru

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    I agree there is nothing wrong with Seagate drives in my experiences with them. Also with OCing with a small form factor just be careful because you might run into air flow problems and overheating issues. Other than that not a bad build.
     

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