Family SFF build - Mini ITX help

BlastRadius

BlastRadius

BlastRadius

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Joined
10 Oct 2006
Posts
643
Location
Chichester
YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial M500 240GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - (CT240M500SSD1) £107.99
1 x Silverstone Sugo SG05 HTPC USB 3.0 Case with 300W Power Supply - Black (SST-SG05B USB 3.0) £86.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £79.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CML8GX3M2B1600C11) £71.99
1 x Asus H81I-Plus Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £68.99
1 x Gigabyte KM7580 Wireless 2.4GHz Keyboard & Mouse Set £19.99
Total : £435.94 (includes shipping : FREE).



Need a new family PC, will be used for surfing, shopping, kiddies homework. It will mainly be in the living room but will need to be used in eldest daughters bedroom too.

I need something that will cope with school homework type stuff with the odd bit of sims3 or simcity5.

Am hoping the above will do, it's a bit of a stab in the dark to be honest. Don't need optical as have a slimline dvd, already got some windows too.

Anything else needed? Low profile cpu cooler?
 
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Looks good, though I'd be tempted to go AMD with an FM2 chip that I think would give better built in graphics power.

For what it is unless you are set on that case I'd go for the coolermaster 120 for half the price.

Depending on storage too you could possibly go for a hybrid 2.5" drive to boost storage?
 
The Sugo comes with a PSU, so I guess it makes sense. I'm not sure how Haswell's integrated graphics will cope with Sim City, though.

The processor comes with a cooler, so you only need an aftermarket one if noise is a particular concern. The stock one is hardly deafening, but there are certainly quieter options out there.
 
If its going to be used for mild gaming i'd certainly go down the AMD APU side of things as mentioned above!
 
Although I love the SG05 (my main rig is inside one), if you're not using a discrete GPU then you can go even smaller. I agree with the above that going for an AMD APU will give better graphics performance for the games you list, unless you put a graphics card in the SG05. I have a Sandy Bridge Mini ITX system built into an Antec ISK-110, and the 90w external PSU should be enough to run all but the top-end A10 series APUs. Plus you can fit 2 2.5" drives into the ISK-110 so you may be better off getting a smaller SSD purely for Windows boot and programs, then a mechanical laptop drive (I swear by WD Scorpio drives) for storage.

There are a few things to consider with an AMD APU though which can be discussed if you're interested in that route.


With the SG05, you have anough space to get a cooler like the Noctua L9i, Prolimatech Samuel 17 or Thermalright AX100 before you hit the PSU above the CPU area. If you're prepared to get a bit creative with positioning of components, you can fit a 120mm AIO water cooler too.
 
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YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri 7700K 12 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 8 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £125.99
1 x Silverstone Sugo SG05 HTPC USB 3.0 Case with 300W Power Supply - Black (SST-SG05B USB 3.0) £86.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A88XN-WIFI AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £85.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CML8GX3M2B1600C11) £71.99
1 x Crucial M500 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - (CT120M500SSD1) £65.99
1 x OcUK Compact Wireless Desktop Set (6309ARF) £19.99
Total : £470.44 (includes shipping : £11.25).



How does this look now, have read a lot about the AMD APUs, I must admit I hadn't paid them any attention. That mobo is the only one for that APU so quite handy that it comes with a wifi thingy.

I still cannot get my mind away from the Sugo, help me change my mind?... Thanks for replies, I'm listening :-)
 
Trust me, it's hard for me to break you away from the SG05 too :)

Before I do that, I will say you'll need faster RAM. Go 2100MHz if you can simply because the graphics in the APU will benefit from it.

Have a look at the Antec ISK-110 case - Not much bigger than the ITX board itself and I *think* the 90W PSU will run the 7700K fine if you don't try to overclock.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-002-AN&groupid=2362&catid=2279


You will need a decent aftermarket cooler for the APU to keep the noise down, since the case is just mesh on one side. I'd recommend the Noctua L9a which is NOT on OcUK and different to the L9i, so be careful. Alternatively, grab something for FM2 socket that's no taller than 37mm. In fact I'd recommend getting a new cooler anyway even if you stick with the SG05.
 
If you can live without built in optical the isk110 is fantastic. I have one and the VESA mount in this instance means you could hide it out the way and it's truly portable
 
The A8-7600 APU is due to be released soon and you can run that in either 45w or 65w mode in the Gigabyte board.
That's a better bet for the ISK 110.
 
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