Mini ITX Build - Programming, Linux and some gaming

Dancer · 18 Apr 2013 at 11:17

I'm doing my first Mini ITX build as I want a small machine that takes little space and is easy(ier) to transport. I've been researching, but appreciate any help from experienced dudes here.

Budget: around £500 (ideally less)
Purpose: Dual boot (separate SSDs) Windows/Linux for visual studio C++/C# development (second priority will be as mobile gaming rig).

I'm thinking something like this, but welcome any alternative suggestions or criticism of my choices/compatabilities:

Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced (£40)
MSI B75IA-E33 (£54) or Gigabyte H77N-WIFI Intel H77 (£90)
Probably Pentium G2120 (£74), but maybe i3 3220 (£93)
Sapphire 7750 (£75) - don't think need low profile in this case (?), NVIDIA equivalent suggestion welcome!!
Patriot DDR PC3-14900C (£40 to £50)
OCZ Vertex 4 128G (£110) x 2 - may need cheaper to stay within budget
Aerocool GT-S Series 500w (£57) - any good alternative suggestions?
Low profile cooler: Akasa AK-CC7118HP01 K25 (£12) or Xigmatek LD963 Praeton (£16)
Potentially a small cheap-ass storage drive

Dancer · 18 Apr 2013 at 11:32

Thanks for trying.

By all means if a few extra ££ will make all the difference suggest some quality stuff, but I'm less concerned about top performance and more interested in a cheap, quiet, quality mini ITX solution which has adequate power for visual studio, maybe some video editing and playing modern GPU intensive games at decent settings (not ultra of course, but medium to high). If that is not possible with £500 then I'll just do less gaming

PS! Any Linux experts who can say if 64GB SSD is enough space for one of the main distros (debian, ubuntu, mint...?) mainly for learning, probably some apps like open office writer, gimp, notepad++ and light development work?

Dancer · 18 Apr 2013 at 11:56

Some good ideas there I wouldn't have thought of.

Is the Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz really that much better than the cheaper Pentium G2120 3.10GHz? Especially as I note the nice motherboard you picked is not an overclocker (which is fine with me).

@snips86x: Why the BitFenix Prodigy? I did read reviews about it and it seems like a really nice box, but more expensive and a bit chunky (+ complaints about plasticky parts breaking) which is why I ended up with the Coolermaster.

@ThaReaperGuy: Thanks, I might go with one 128G and one 64G just to keep them separate for the modularity/swappability aspect, then again the Samsung 250GB which Incrauze suggests looks to be a good deal...

Dancer · 18 Apr 2013 at 12:37

neocon said:
I was thinking about building something similar and I just don't think it's worth getting an itx. It probably won't be that quite in which case you'll want to put in the floor so may aswell get an ATX case.

Yes, keeping it as quiet as possible is a concern, but for me size is also an issue as space is limited and I need to transport it occasionally. Gaming for me is not the priority anyway as I have my midi-tower rig for that, although I want it to be as capable as possible for use by friends and to for when traveling.