Discreet gpu for this mini-itx

xiorell · 19 May 2015 at 17:37

Hi

I'm playing with the idea of putting together a cheap, quiet mini-itx rig, specs to follow.
A bit of a step backwards for me as I'm used to running high end rigs but my last one met a with its doom (long story) and I have ps4 and xb1 for a bit of gaming, so won't be asking an mini-itx to run the latest games.

That being said I have got it in mind to use it for older PC games, (deus ex, half life 1/2 and such), emulation, office use, media playback (both digital and from disc), download station etc

I need to work out if there's any gpu I can (or would even be worth) put in the intended case and run from the integrated PSU.
All my power calculations come up a bit dubious

Potential spec

MSI AM1I AMD (AM1)
AMD Athlon 5350
In-Win BP655, USB 3.0 Mini-ITX Enclosure, 250 Watt Power Supply
Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2x4gb)
Crucial BX100 250GB SSD
Pioneer BDC-207DBK 8x BluRay ROM

I can shake up these specs and I'm also considering selling off one (or more) of my consoles to take the sting out of building a "proper" pc but I just want to get a feel for where I can go with those specs

stulid · 19 May 2015 at 17:40

Hi and welcome.

You can run a R6 250/250X at around £60.

Height is a problem in that case as it needs half height expansion cards.

What is your budget for all this? I might be able to suggest a different case+PSU that can take more GFX options.

xiorell · 19 May 2015 at 18:17

stulid said:
Hi and welcome.

You can run a R6 250/250X at around £60.

Height is a problem in that case as it needs half height expansion cards.

What is your budget for all this? I might be able to suggest a different case+PSU that can take more GFX options.

Needs to be cheap. That's not me being a Scrooge , just I don't wanna be in that no mans land where it's not particularly small and quiet yet nor is it packing much punch.
If it was gonna creep up to 500quid Region, it wouldn't be meeting the mission parameters and I'd rather just go build a high end rig again and spend much more you see.

stulid · 19 May 2015 at 18:21

YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £74.99
1 x MSI Radeon R7 250 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £65.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £39.95
1 x AMD Athlon 5350 2.05GHz Quad Core Processor - Retail (Socket AM1) £35.99
1 x BeQuiet System Power 7 350W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £32.99
1 x Asus AM1M-A AMD AM1 (Socket FS1b) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £27.95
1 x Zalman T1U3 Mini-Tower USB 3.0 - Black £16.99
Total : £308.34 (includes shipping : £11.25 Ex.VAT).

I do feel the AMD AM1 apu is a weak point and maybe you should go intel H81 chipset+Pentium/i3 CPU if you are going to get a discrete GFX card.

Or go for a proper APU+A88X board.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-4160 3.60GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £99.95
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £74.99
1 x MSI Radeon R7 250 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £65.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £39.95
1 x Gigabyte H81M-S2H Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £38.99
1 x BeQuiet System Power 7 350W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £32.99
1 x Zalman T1U3 Mini-Tower USB 3.0 - Black £16.99
Total : £383.34 (includes shipping : £11.25 Ex.VAT).

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri 7700K 10 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 6 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £99.95
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £74.99
1 x Asus A88XM-A AMD A88X Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £55.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £47.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 350W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £42.95
1 x Zalman T1U3 Mini-Tower USB 3.0 - Black £16.99
Total : £352.36 (includes shipping : £11.25 Ex.VAT).

A proper APU has a built-in GFX core equivalent to a R7 240/250 and thats also why you add faster RAM as it relies on that.

xiorell · 19 May 2015 at 18:50

That last one isn't far off something I put together last night actually but I'd paired it up with a gpu an 16gb.
Thing is though with larger cases and higher power draws etc isn't that moving away from the small, near silent appeal?

Part of me is thinking I should just stop messing about and build a full-on piledriver fx rig (last system was i7 build and I don't think it was worth the cost to be honest so back to amd next gaming rig), but the tiny, low noise, low power thing does have a certain charm

stulid · 19 May 2015 at 18:56

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-010-RT

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-072-CT&groupid=2362&catid=2279

Could find a itx board and stick it in a small case like that.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £74.99
1 x MSI Radeon R7 250 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £65.99
1 x Asus H81I-Plus Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £58.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £39.95
1 x Raijintek Metis*- Black Mini ITX Case £35.99
1 x BeQuiet System Power 7 350W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £32.99
Total : £378.98 (includes shipping : £11.75 Ex.VAT).

Idleman · 20 May 2015 at 13:09

mITX.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £74.99
1 x MSI Radeon R7 250 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £65.99
1 x Asus H81I-Plus Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £58.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £43.99
1 x **B Grade** Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Mini-ITX Chassis with Window £39.95
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £39.95
Total : £389.45 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).

mATX.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £74.99
1 x MSI Radeon R7 250 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £65.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte H97M-HD3 Intel H97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £49.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £43.99
1 x **B Grade** Antec ISK600M mATX Cube Case - Black £41.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £39.95
Total : £382.49 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).