Downsizing

[Tacitus]

Hi all

At the moment my PC is built in a Corsair Air 540. It's huge. I don't have a desk, and it sits collecting dust. I want to downsize it to an ITX build to go next to or behind the TV. If it's on display it can't look terrible.

Current components are 4670k, Z97 ATX board, 980ti.

I've managed to snag a FE 3070 so I plan on using that. The question then becomes whether I keep the CPU and gamble on a second hand ITX board or upgrade basically everything.

Would be good to get some thoughts on what the best route to go for around £600 (excluding GPU) would be. Need case, PSU, mobo, CPU, cooler, Ram and storage.

Will probably be using this for 4k gaming on the TV. Keep 4670k or ditch it?

Thanks everyone

 

[dfour]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P200 Air Mini-ITX Case - Black= £39.95
• 1 x Intel Core i5-11400F 2.60GHz (Rocket Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail= £149.99
• 1 x Asrock Z590M-ITX/AX (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 Mini ITX Motherboard= £165.95
• 1 x Corsair RM Series RM750 750W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020195-UK)= £74.99
• 1 x Patriot Viper VPN100 M.2 2280 PCIe 1TB SSD (VPN100-1TBM28H)= £79.99
• 1 x Crucial Ballistix 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit= £49.99
• 1 x Alpenfohn Brocken ECO Advanced CPU Cooler - 120 mm= £29.99

Total: £603.15 (includes shipping: £12.30)
​

I cant get a alder lake in your budget because of the price of motherboards. The 11400 was the best budget chip and will be much faster than your 4670.
A 12400f can be had from other comapnies (OCUK dont stock it) for about £170.
I have seem cheap asrock itx boards (£135+)but i have seen people saying to avaoid the cheap asrock boards.
Also the above cooler has no support for the alder lake socket yet.
AMD 5600x is beter than the 11400 but also £80 more expensive (but slower than the 12400f) but they have a better choise orf itx boards but again the cheaper ones are asrock and gigabyte (sub £150)

 

[Journey]

Will probably be using this for 4k gaming on the TV. Keep 4670k or ditch it?

You can risk a used board, but the prices they command are pretty high unfortunately. You can get a nice B450-ITX board for under £100 with Wi-Fi, and drop in a 5600X, for under TV use I'd go with a truly compact case not a mini-tower monstrosity look at the Streacom DA2 (not cheap) or similar, and with a 5600X you can use a low profile Noctua or similar and have near silence, you'd also need an SFX PSU.

 

[Craig_d1]

ASRock Intel B660M-ITX/ac PCIe 4.0 Mini-ITX Motherboard...due 8th march on site I've seen £134.99
the 12400F £170
12400 £190
12500 £205
12600 £215

I was surprised in 2nd vid how the 12600 gave practically same fps to the 12600k, considering it's £60 less
to look at if you want current cpu's

 

[tonys]

Fractal node 202 case is the one I got for under the TV. Able to fit most full sized cards just check the length.

 

[Tired9]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P200 Air Mini-ITX Case - Black= £39.95
• 1 x Intel Core i5-11400F 2.60GHz (Rocket Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail= £149.99
• 1 x Asrock Z590M-ITX/AX (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 Mini ITX Motherboard= £165.95
• 1 x Corsair RM Series RM750 750W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020195-UK)= £74.99
• 1 x Patriot Viper VPN100 M.2 2280 PCIe 1TB SSD (VPN100-1TBM28H)= £79.99
• 1 x Crucial Ballistix 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit= £49.99
• 1 x Alpenfohn Brocken ECO Advanced CPU Cooler - 120 mm= £29.99

Total: £603.15 (includes shipping: £12.30)
​

I cant get a alder lake in your budget because of the price of motherboards. The 11400 was the best budget chip and will be much faster than your 4670.
A 12400f can be had from other comapnies (OCUK dont stock it) for about £170.
I have seem cheap asrock itx boards (£135+)but i have seen people saying to avaoid the cheap asrock boards.
Also the above cooler has no support for the alder lake socket yet.
AMD 5600x is beter than the 11400 but also £80 more expensive (but slower than the 12400f) but they have a better choise orf itx boards but again the cheaper ones are asrock and gigabyte (sub £150)

Nice case choice, I have a 3 slot RTX 3070 in my P200A Performance Edition that runs really well.

 

[Tacitus]

Thanks everyone.

Couple questions:

@tonys - I like the idea of the Node 202 sitting on its side in the TV stand, rather than something bigger which would need to go behind or beside the TV. Are you able to do that and maintain acceptable temperature/noise levels?

@dfour - what are the issues with the cheaper asrock ITX boards and does the same apply to the Gigabyte boards?

Finally, open question, what's the story with the Intel 10400F. It's disgustingly cheap. What am I giving up by going for this slightly more dated chip?

Thanks again everyone!

 

[dfour]

If I remember correctly its mainly missing features like decent sound chips, few sata etc and poor quality vrm and cooling on board for both cheap asrock and gigabyte boards.

The 10400f is the first intel 6/12 mainstream thread chip. The 11400f is the refresh that brought up to 20% ipc performance over the 10400f. Depends what you do you may never notice the difference between the 11400 and the 10400 except in your wallet.

 

[Journey]

If you are scrimping and scraping, then the 10400 with a B560 is the best choice. Motherboard choice is irrelevant unless you need a certain external port, as Mini-ITX limits you too onboard devices due to the form factor. Sound will make no odds either as I assume you'll run HDMI from the GPU to the TV.

A £95 ASRock board will be fine for you use case. Take an 11400 if you think you will want PCI-E 4.0 as there is no real performance difference other than that.

 

[tonys]

I have 2 node 202's, 1 is in a unit under the TV. It uses the AMD cooler so does rev up and down slightly but isn't to loud. The other is used as a games machine with a 3800x, aftermarket cooler and Gtx 1080, so is a little bit louder. Both are Gigabyte boards(450 and 570). Temperature wise they are fine normally but obviously summer time is a bit of a struggle but the temperature is within the limits.