Associate
- Joined
- 21 Dec 2008
- Posts
- 2
Hey all,
I am building a small form factor PC which should primarily be used for gaming as well as a bit of 3D work (level design). I actually bought a Shuttle PC, but the vendor had replaced my desired HD 4870 with an 9800 gtx+, just before shipping. He said the two cards were identical in performance, "some even say the 9800 is better" and he couldnt install the 4870 because Shuttle did not have big enough power supplys. Knowing that its ******** (regarding 9800 having same performance as 4870), I have decided to return the Shuttle and build a SFF rig myself instead.
I haven't got a lot of details pegged down yet. It is a long time since I build a PC myself and I have never build a SFF PC. I need the SFF because in my current situation i travel around by plane a lot, and I need some portable PC power for my games, without paying excessively for a high power laptop.
My budget is around 13-1400 british pounds (guess around 2700 dollars) for the PC. This does NOT include monitor, keyboard, mouse etc.
I am going for the SUGO 01 or 02 cabinet, as it fits my requirements dimension wise, and it has gotten good reviews. However, I need to decide on:
-A very good micro atx motherboard (motherboards is what I know the least about), so I have no idea what I should buy in this category.
-A great processor. Not necessarily the I7, but something very fast. Thinking of an intel 2.9 dual core (E8400 or is it E8500). I heard quad core is not really worth it yet related to gaming, as most games perform better on dual core than quad (at least for the time being) - Myth or? I can see some advantes to going with a quad core, as it seems 3D graphics tool benefit a lot from quad core.
-Some good RAM (DDR3 maybe?). I intend to go for 4 GB as I believe that should be enough. Have heard a lot good about Corsair... Any better alternatives?
-A powerfull enough PSU to run the components without hitches. The more silent the better. I expect 700W to be enough?
-A kickass graphics card. It doesn't have to be the newest, most expensive one, though it needs to be at least as powerful as the HD 4870. I am not a fan of dual cards like running Gforce cards in SLI or ATI cards in Crossfire. I think it will be too much heat for such a small cabinet, and also there seems to be a lot of problems running games with such setups. I don't really care if ends up to be an ATI or GFORCE card, just want to make sure that it runs well with the rest of the components.
As for HD, optical drive etc, I have it sorted. Operating system will be Windows XP 32 or 64 bit.
Hope you guys can help me out, especially with regards to the motherboard. Any other ideas would be very welcome as well, in regards to for example minimizing noise levels and heat (as it is a small cabinet), etc.
Thanks on advance!
I am building a small form factor PC which should primarily be used for gaming as well as a bit of 3D work (level design). I actually bought a Shuttle PC, but the vendor had replaced my desired HD 4870 with an 9800 gtx+, just before shipping. He said the two cards were identical in performance, "some even say the 9800 is better" and he couldnt install the 4870 because Shuttle did not have big enough power supplys. Knowing that its ******** (regarding 9800 having same performance as 4870), I have decided to return the Shuttle and build a SFF rig myself instead.
I haven't got a lot of details pegged down yet. It is a long time since I build a PC myself and I have never build a SFF PC. I need the SFF because in my current situation i travel around by plane a lot, and I need some portable PC power for my games, without paying excessively for a high power laptop.
My budget is around 13-1400 british pounds (guess around 2700 dollars) for the PC. This does NOT include monitor, keyboard, mouse etc.
I am going for the SUGO 01 or 02 cabinet, as it fits my requirements dimension wise, and it has gotten good reviews. However, I need to decide on:
-A very good micro atx motherboard (motherboards is what I know the least about), so I have no idea what I should buy in this category.
-A great processor. Not necessarily the I7, but something very fast. Thinking of an intel 2.9 dual core (E8400 or is it E8500). I heard quad core is not really worth it yet related to gaming, as most games perform better on dual core than quad (at least for the time being) - Myth or? I can see some advantes to going with a quad core, as it seems 3D graphics tool benefit a lot from quad core.
-Some good RAM (DDR3 maybe?). I intend to go for 4 GB as I believe that should be enough. Have heard a lot good about Corsair... Any better alternatives?
-A powerfull enough PSU to run the components without hitches. The more silent the better. I expect 700W to be enough?
-A kickass graphics card. It doesn't have to be the newest, most expensive one, though it needs to be at least as powerful as the HD 4870. I am not a fan of dual cards like running Gforce cards in SLI or ATI cards in Crossfire. I think it will be too much heat for such a small cabinet, and also there seems to be a lot of problems running games with such setups. I don't really care if ends up to be an ATI or GFORCE card, just want to make sure that it runs well with the rest of the components.
As for HD, optical drive etc, I have it sorted. Operating system will be Windows XP 32 or 64 bit.
Hope you guys can help me out, especially with regards to the motherboard. Any other ideas would be very welcome as well, in regards to for example minimizing noise levels and heat (as it is a small cabinet), etc.
Thanks on advance!
