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- 8 Apr 2004
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Hi all, I'm looking to build a mini-ITX rig to play SWTOR and ME3 at the moment, as well as Diablo 3 and GW2 when they come out. Looking to buy everything from OcUK after payday next week, and budget starts at around £350. I currently am playing SWTOR on 'low' video settings at 1440x900 on my 15" MacBook Pro and it plays anywhere from 15fps to 60fps. I did build a i5 2500K & Radeon 6950 build last year and that was awesome but gave it to my younger brother (stupid mistake). Now I'm back there again, but fancy a mini-ITX build instead as I don't have any space under my desk.
I would prefer to play on my Samsung 32" LCD TV via HDMI but also have a spare 22" and 19" widescreen monitor around as well. I have a spare 2.5" hard drive, 500W non-modular PSU, keyboard, mouse, operating system and speakers already sorted, and have no need for an optical drive.
At the moment, I'm thinking of this build here:
Now I have a few questions regarding this build I hope someone can help me with:
1) Will that case handle 2-slot graphics cards with no issues? Case says maximum VGA card length is 300mm, but I don't know how long the VGA card is.
2) Will the stock CPU cooler fit in that case fine without being blocked by a typical PSU. Is there also enough room for the PSU cables without blocking something else such as the SATA drive bay.
3) If I decide to go up to the i5 2400K, what is a good 'matching' graphics card for it? I was thinking the GTX 560 or Radeon 6870. Both parts would add another £100 together to my build.
4) Will I need anything extra to use my 2.5" laptop SATA hard drive with it? 3.5" ones are too expensive to buy atm, and this one is going spare.
5) I was initially thinking this case Lian Li PC-Q11A Mini-ITX Cube - silver [PC-Q11A] but I'm guessing because it's lower in depth, it will be very difficult, if not impossible to fit everything in? This would certainly take up less space on my crowded desk.
Very exciting times indeed; it's like my annual PC build fix! I hope you experts reading this can offer me some feedback on the build as I want to make sure it all works together, so I can build it and fire it up on the same day. Regards.
I would prefer to play on my Samsung 32" LCD TV via HDMI but also have a spare 22" and 19" widescreen monitor around as well. I have a spare 2.5" hard drive, 500W non-modular PSU, keyboard, mouse, operating system and speakers already sorted, and have no need for an optical drive.
At the moment, I'm thinking of this build here:
Now I have a few questions regarding this build I hope someone can help me with:
1) Will that case handle 2-slot graphics cards with no issues? Case says maximum VGA card length is 300mm, but I don't know how long the VGA card is.
2) Will the stock CPU cooler fit in that case fine without being blocked by a typical PSU. Is there also enough room for the PSU cables without blocking something else such as the SATA drive bay.
3) If I decide to go up to the i5 2400K, what is a good 'matching' graphics card for it? I was thinking the GTX 560 or Radeon 6870. Both parts would add another £100 together to my build.
4) Will I need anything extra to use my 2.5" laptop SATA hard drive with it? 3.5" ones are too expensive to buy atm, and this one is going spare.
5) I was initially thinking this case Lian Li PC-Q11A Mini-ITX Cube - silver [PC-Q11A] but I'm guessing because it's lower in depth, it will be very difficult, if not impossible to fit everything in? This would certainly take up less space on my crowded desk.
Very exciting times indeed; it's like my annual PC build fix! I hope you experts reading this can offer me some feedback on the build as I want to make sure it all works together, so I can build it and fire it up on the same day. Regards.
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