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- Joined
- 17 Feb 2014
- Posts
- 3
I got some sound advice from here a while back while building myself a new machine. I've since forgotten the password for that forum account, and the forum password recovery is just returning an empty web page. Anyhow, one new account later...
I'm back looking for spec check for a friend. They are bounced around the country quite a bit with their work so were looking at a gaming laptop to replace an old one that is dying. Gaming laptops being wildly expensive for what you actually get, I suggested they look at the small form factor cases, and they liked the idea as they've always had a TV available wherever they end up.
So, just a box and contents (no OS - have a Win 7 Home Premium, peripherals etc. needed). To be used for gaming at 1080p. Budget is approx £850-900.
Case & CPU etc I think Intel i5s are still the best choice if you can afford. Not sure how interested in overclocking they'd be, so would consider a non-K chip and a 'H' mobo.
1 x BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Cube Case - Midnight Black £69.95
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x MSI Z87I Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ITX Motherboard £104.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £71.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £43.99
Can Haswell make use of the fast RAM, and would a single 8GB stick be better then 2x4GB?
Insert 8GB of RAM here. @ £60 to £75
Used to be that AMD offered more for the money, but wondering if there is any difference between team red and team blue these days. I've seen the blower type cards recommended for the small cases, would these be better than the Gigabytes?
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X Rev2.0 WindForce 3X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Battlefield 4 PC Game £289.99
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 WindForce 3x OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N770OC-2GD) £259.99
Modular PSU for the small case. A power draw calculating website says the build draws around 410 Watts, the Gigabyte website says the GPUs are recommending 600 Watts though. Will probably up it to a 550W version just to be safe.
1 x Seasonic G series 450w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £65.99
Looking at closed loop cooling, as being able to bolt the radiator to the case should keep it in place and stop anything vibrating loose. Is there any real difference between either of the following (or a better choice)?
1 x Corsair Hydro H60 V2 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler £59.99
1 x Zalman LQ310 Ultimate Liquid CPU Cooler £59.99
Thanks for reading, and looking forward to seeing your comments and tweaks.
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A
I'm back looking for spec check for a friend. They are bounced around the country quite a bit with their work so were looking at a gaming laptop to replace an old one that is dying. Gaming laptops being wildly expensive for what you actually get, I suggested they look at the small form factor cases, and they liked the idea as they've always had a TV available wherever they end up.
So, just a box and contents (no OS - have a Win 7 Home Premium, peripherals etc. needed). To be used for gaming at 1080p. Budget is approx £850-900.
Case & CPU etc I think Intel i5s are still the best choice if you can afford. Not sure how interested in overclocking they'd be, so would consider a non-K chip and a 'H' mobo.
1 x BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Cube Case - Midnight Black £69.95
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x MSI Z87I Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ITX Motherboard £104.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £71.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £43.99
Can Haswell make use of the fast RAM, and would a single 8GB stick be better then 2x4GB?
Insert 8GB of RAM here. @ £60 to £75
Used to be that AMD offered more for the money, but wondering if there is any difference between team red and team blue these days. I've seen the blower type cards recommended for the small cases, would these be better than the Gigabytes?
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X Rev2.0 WindForce 3X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Battlefield 4 PC Game £289.99
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 WindForce 3x OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N770OC-2GD) £259.99
Modular PSU for the small case. A power draw calculating website says the build draws around 410 Watts, the Gigabyte website says the GPUs are recommending 600 Watts though. Will probably up it to a 550W version just to be safe.
1 x Seasonic G series 450w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £65.99
Looking at closed loop cooling, as being able to bolt the radiator to the case should keep it in place and stop anything vibrating loose. Is there any real difference between either of the following (or a better choice)?
1 x Corsair Hydro H60 V2 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler £59.99
1 x Zalman LQ310 Ultimate Liquid CPU Cooler £59.99
Thanks for reading, and looking forward to seeing your comments and tweaks.
-
A
