Advice gratefully sought on SFF gaming build

jwhalley · 24 Oct 2011 at 21:35

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.

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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.

jwhalley · 25 Oct 2011 at 00:07

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 · 25 Oct 2011 at 11:55

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!

jwhalley · 26 Oct 2011 at 14:13

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.