Advice gratefully sought on SFF gaming build

jwhalley

jwhalley

jwhalley

Associate
Joined
26 Jun 2007
Posts
185
Hi All,

I was hoping you would be able to help me out with your advice on a SFF PC build. I am looking to upgrade my 4 year old PC with the following three main aims:-
  • Smaller Form (obviously as posting on these forums)
  • Move to SSD
  • Gaming (1920x1200). Not looking to play BF3. Looking at games like Skyrim, SWTOR, D3.

I have been reading the forums, and so far I am looking at something like this:-

  • Case - Silverstone SG07B-W - £177
  • Gigabyte GA-H67N-USB3-B3 H67 Motherboard - £81
  • Intel Core i5 2500 - £165
  • Scythe Shuriken Rev.B Quiet Low Profile Cooler - £26
  • MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III 1280MB - £270
  • Corsair Vengeance Arctic White 8GB - £48
  • 128GB Crucial RealSSD M4 - £149
  • Samsung SN-T083C/BEBE Slimline 8x DVD±RW Slot loading SATA Drive - OEM - £30

Aside from general thoughts I do have (numerous) questions. If any of you are able to help guide for some/all the questions it would be much appreciated.

  1. Any better suggestions to the Cooler (Scythe Shuriken)? I chose it fairly arbitrary based on other forums. Not sure what the best is for a SFF.
  2. Likewise any improvements on the memory.?From what I can ascertain they are all much of a muchness, so I simply chose the weekly deal.
  3. The crucial SSD seems to have poor write speeds in comparison to the competition, but is raved about on these forums. Why is this, surely those with faster speeds are better?
  4. Is a 1280MB Graphics card suitable to play the games mentioned in "ultra" resolutions @ 1920/1200? I've seen a lot of discussion surrounding the need for more Vram, but these generally seems to pertain to BF3 which I have no interest in. Should I look at the 2.5GB models?
  5. Are there any MITX motherboards which will support PCI-E 3.0? I've seen a few ASRock / MSI ones that say they will, but they are all ITX.
  6. Age old question... should I wait? With Ivybridge / Kepplar around the corner, should I wait. Ivybridge in itself doesn't seem a game changer, but Kepplar could be, and if wanted would require a complete new system than the one specced here. Though I do realise the games mentioned all will be released before Kepplar.

Thanks again for any help.
 
Get an AXP-140! But you can only use a 120mm fan in the SG07 but it is still awesome.

Get the cheapest RAM. That mobo only supports up to 1333MHz so no matter what RAM you get it will never run faster than 1333MHz.

The M4 is not plagued by the issues surrounding the other faster Sandforce drives. So your choice is:
Slower (but still faster than HDD) writes and reads that are on a par with sandforce.
OR
Regular BSOD and the chance your PC will stop recognising your SSD.
Bear in mind that writes are largely more important than reads and the reads are faster than HDD reads and the choice is yours.

If you want to futureproof I would get more VRAM as games are only going to start using more. Look at AMD HD 6950/6970.

The Gigabyte will support PCI-e 3.0 with the new BIOS (easily flashed) and an Ivy Bridge CPU.

With IB round the corner (a good few months at least) it is your call. The Gigabyte Mobo will support IB CPUs so you can drop one in easy if you feel the need in a few months (protip you probably wont) and knowing the market you will most likely have to wait a long time before any good 7-series mITX boards become available.
Kepler could well be great. I know I will be upgrading to a GTX680 as long as the price and benches are right. What GPU do you have currently?
 
Thanks for the input. Based on this i'll

1) Definitely get an M4 for stability
2) Get Cheapest Ram as getting a 1600MHZ supporting MB just for the sake of it seems needless and the H67 has had great reviews.
3) I am now tempted by the HIS ATI Radeon HD 6970 IceQ Turbo 2048MB instead for the additional VRAM. 570 and 6970 just seem so neck and neck on reviews!
4) I Probably won't go with the AXP-140 as I don't want to be messing with case fans.

Currently my gfx card is 3870x2... a little old I know! When you say gigabyte will support PCI-e 3.0 do you mean it will be compatible with or will it actually allow the extra bandwidth. I've heard some motherboards will and some won't be compatible.

Thanks again, and any other thoughts more than welcome.... i hate making decisions dropping a grand on a new computer... probably why it takes me so long to upgrade!
 
jwhalley said:
Thanks for the input. Based on this i'll

1) Definitely get an M4 for stability
2) Get Cheapest Ram as getting a 1600MHZ supporting MB just for the sake of it seems needless and the H67 has had great reviews.
3) I am now tempted by the HIS ATI Radeon HD 6970 IceQ Turbo 2048MB instead for the additional VRAM. 570 and 6970 just seem so neck and neck on reviews!
4) I Probably won't go with the AXP-140 as I don't want to be messing with case fans.

Currently my gfx card is 3870x2... a little old I know! When you say gigabyte will support PCI-e 3.0 do you mean it will be compatible with or will it actually allow the extra bandwidth. I've heard some motherboards will and some won't be compatible.

Thanks again, and any other thoughts more than welcome.... i hate making decisions dropping a grand on a new computer... probably why it takes me so long to upgrade!
Click to expand...

It will allow the extra bandwidth. All PCI-e ports are compatible with each other but the bandwidth of the top PCI-e port (or the only PCI-e port on an ITX mobo) is determined by the CPU so if you plonk an IB CPU in there you will get PCI-e 3.0 speeds. The issues about bandwidth only arise when you are sill and have lots of ports as you need special PCI-e 3.0 chips to switch it or something I didn't pay much attention to that bit as it doesn't apply to mITX boards.

If you get the 6970 (which is a great card) then you will probably want to skip Kepler but if you can hold out with your 3870x2 for a few more months...it just depends how desperate you are to build this thing as you could be forever chasing that next piece of tech and never upgrade. The 6970 will last you a good few years yet.

Don't go overboard on cheaper slower RAM though as I think IB will support 1600MHz natively but I need to check that.
 
Last edited:
Thanks, think I am almost settled now on:-

Silverstone SG07B-W - £177
Gigabyte GA-H67N-USB3-B3 H67 Motherboard - £81
Intel Core i5 2500 - £165
Scythe Shuriken Rev.B Quiet Low Profile Cooler - £26
HIS ATI Radeon HD 6970 IceQ Turbo 2048MB - £270
Corsair Vengeance Arctic White 8GB - £48
128GB Crucial RealSSD M4 - £149
Samsung SN-T083C/BEBE Slimline 8x DVD±RW Slot loading SATA Drive - OEM - £30

I could theoretically hold out, and do hate upgrading just before a new gen gfx card release, but everything I am interesting in playing is out now or will be out before Keplar, so might as well bite the bullet :)

If anyone else has any other views, please do share, and thanks again gropingmanits!
 
Have you considered waiting a few weeks for the SG08. Its exactly the same inside as the SG07 but IMO the new faceplate is much much nicer. And the front ports are USB 3.0 (although there is a USB 3.0 upgrade available for the SG07).
 
Definitely considered the SG08, much prefer the look of the front. Is there an official UK release date in November, as reading back on these forums it seems to have been 'coming soon' since about July. Will wait a couple of weeks, then if there is no concrete date on it settle on the 07.
 
I've been using a 64GB M4 as the cache drive for a 2TB WD Green for a few days, few teething troubles to start with but it does seem to help a bit and feels almost as snappy as my older desktop with a 128GB SSD. Don't reboot the SFF much tho so readyboost probably helps more.

EDIT: just thought I'd add - the 69x0 cards in reference versions are really long cards.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom