How does this build look - Budget Mini ITX

rIcK · 19 Feb 2015 at 15:05

I am attempting to build a small powerful system to live under my television and connect in to my surround sound. Will be for light gaming and films. I already have a 256GB SSD. In particular does the power supply look reasonable?

Mini ITX PC Build

MEMORY: £53.52 8GB Corsair DDR3 XMS3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 11-11-11-30, 1.5V

CPU COOLER: £36.11 Noctua NH-L9i Low Profile Quiet CPU Cooler, Intel LGA1150/1155/1156

CASE: £28.86 Silverstone SG05BB-Lite USB 3.0 Sugo SFF mini-ITX Case All Black 120mm Silent Fan w/o PSU (SFX)

PSU: £43.56 300W be quiet! TFX Power 2, 80PLUS Bronze, Black, PCI-E, Sleeved Cables, ErP 2014

MOTHERBOARD: £89.96 MSI Z97I AC, Intel Z97, S 1150, DDR3, SATA III 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0 (x16), DP/DVI/HDMI, Mini ITX

CPU: £53.18 Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 S1150 Haswell Dual Core 3.2GHz, OC up to 4.5GHz, 5 GT/s DMI, 32x Ratio

GRAPHICS: £165.55 2GB Gigabyte GTX 960 ITX OC, PCIe 3.0, 7010MHz GDDR5, GPU 1165MHz, Boost 1228MHz, Cores 1024, DVI-I/DVI-D/DP1.2/HDMI2.0

rIcK · 19 Feb 2015 at 15:33

I changed the PSU to 300W Silverstone ST30SF

Came to £467 in total, not too bad

Telecaster · 19 Feb 2015 at 18:44

You can use a better cooler than that if you like, would be cheaper also.

Twice the amount of heatpipes, denser heatsink and cheaper:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-019-SV&groupid=701&catid=2330&subcat=2334

YOUR BASKET
1 x Palit GeForce GTX 960 "Reference" 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (NE5X960S1041-2060F) £149.99
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 Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G1600HC9DC01) £47.99
1 x Silverstone SST-SG05BB-Lite Sugo USB 3.0 - Black £31.99
1 x Silverstone Argon SST-AR06 CPU Cooler £25.99
Total : £370.94 (includes shipping : ).

Telecaster · 19 Feb 2015 at 18:59

Also, a 960 probably isn't the best value for money TBH.

rIcK · 19 Feb 2015 at 20:49

Cheers for the reply!

Missed off the power supply on yours and that looks like a full length 960? I chose the 960 due to good power efficiency and what looks like reasonable VFM.

The other thing would be the motherboard, losing the Dual NIC, integrated WIFI and overclocking of the Z87 would be ashame.

Telecaster · 19 Feb 2015 at 21:27

That board overclocks the G3258 no problem, case supports 10" GPUs so 960 size shouldn't be an issue.

I couldn't include the PSU because OCUK don't stock it.

960 isn't really very good VFM, at least not until the price drops or they release a 960ti/965 at similar money.

Z97 is a little bit overkill for a Pentium, although there is more choice board wise from other places, I just put you a basket together that saved you a bit of money from here.

rIcK · 20 Feb 2015 at 23:27

The plan is ultimately to stick a beefier CPU, extra slot of memory and a better GPU. Would be ashame to cheap out on the motherboard when I plan on heavily overclocking the pentium! Think I probably screwed up with the motherboard when I am having a proper look now... doh.

Telecaster · 21 Feb 2015 at 00:49

Well in that case a Z97 board is an obvious choice, but I didn't know your intentions, I just went from your first post.