Mini ITX Build

DigitalEnigma

DigitalEnigma

DigitalEnigma

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30 Jan 2014
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Hi,

I'm in the process of spec'ing up a mini ITX build and was hoping for some feedback on the components I have selected for the build.

I'm looking to build something that will last a good few years and will be able to handle max settings on the likes of BF4 without breaking a sweat.

Here's the build I have come up with:-

Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £269.99

MSI Z87I Gaming AC Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ITX Motherboard £134.99

Corsair Dominator PLATINUM 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMD16GX3M2A2400C10) £215.99

MSI Geforce GTX 780Ti 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £539.99

Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW) £184.99

Western Digital Caviar Black 4TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD4003FZEX) HDD £199.99

Corsair Hydro H105 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060016-WW ) £93.95

Corsair AX860i Digital ATX '80 Plus Platinum' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020037-UK) £161.99

Corsair Obsidian Series 250D Mini ITX Compact Gaming Case - Black (CC-9011047-WW) £71.99
 
The h105 won't fit in the 250D - the radiator is too thick. The h100i will, though.

You don't need 16GB RAM in a gaming system.

The PSU is overkill for a single-card system.

Aaaand...do you really need a 4TB hard drive? The WD Blacks are loud, and while they may be fast, we've got SSDs for speed these days.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780Ti WindForce 3x OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N78TOC-3GD) £539.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £269.99
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £149.99
1 x MSI Z87I Gaming AC Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ITX Motherboard £134.99
1 x Corsair Dominator PLATINUM 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMD8GX3M2A2400C10) £129.95
1 x Seasonic G series 750w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £99.95
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060009-WW) £99.95
1 x Corsair Obsidian Series 250D Mini ITX Compact Gaming Case - Black (CC-9011047-WW) £71.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EZRX) HDD £65.99
Total : £1,576.87 (includes shipping : £11.75).



EDIT: Just playing around with your original budget - a black/silver Parvum mATX:

YOUR BASKET
1 x KFA2 Geforce GTX 780Ti HOF 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £559.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £269.99
1 x Asus Z87 MAXIMUS VI GENE Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £159.95
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £149.99
1 x Corsair Dominator PLATINUM 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMD8GX3M2A2400C10) £129.95
1 x Parvum Systems S1.0 MicroATX Case - Black with White £129.95
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060009-WW) £99.95
1 x Seasonic G series 750w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £99.95
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EZRX) HDD £65.99
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Cable Bundle - Silver £28.45
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Premium Modding LED Strip - Connect White 60cm £25.99
1 x Corsair Fan, SP120 PWM High Pressure Fan 4 pin, Dual Pack (CO-9050014-WW) £25.99
1 x Corsair Air Series AF120 1500RPM LED White Quiet Edition - Dual Pack (CO-9050016-WLED) £16.99
2 x Noiseblocker Multiframe S-Series M8-P Fan - 80mm PWM £12.95 (£25.90)
1 x BitFenix Alchemy 6+2-Pin PCIe Extension 45cm - sleeved white/black £5.99
Total : £1,809.11 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
Last edited:
Hi Fulax,

Thanks for the reply.

I had watched a review of the 250D that said the Asus Direct CUII cooled cards would not fit due to the heat pipes sticking out, which had put me off the non-stock coolers on the 780Ti to ensure the card would fit. I'm not sure the Gigabyte card would have the same issue.

I had debated putting the 1TB Samsung SSD in rather than the 4TB WD as the secondary drive. It's only going to have a few games on at most. My only thoughts with the 4TB was plenty of space and not needing to remove games I may come back to later. I have a slow net connection so tend to not remove games I have stopped playing just in case I got back to them later.
 
The Gigabyte card should be fine, but there's nothing particularly wrong with the reference coolers if you want to play it safe.

4TB is a ton of space. That's 400 10gb games. A 250gb SSD and a 1-2TB HDD is probably the best combination money-wise.
 
Hi Fulax,

Is there much difference between the Samsun Pro 840 and the Evo 840?

I quite like the look of the BitFenix Phenom Mini-ITX Cube Case, this was actually the original case I had picked for the build until I saw the 250D. I'm still on the fence over the case, I just know I'm wanting to go mini ITX.

It's a shame Corsairs H105 does not fit in the 250D, I have the H75 in my current system and preferred the design of CPU block on the H75/H105.
 
There isn't much difference between the Pro and the Evo, no. The Evo replaced the 830, coming in at the same price but faster. The Pro is still a little faster than the Evo, but nothing you'd notice outside benchmarks.

Of the two I'd go with the 250D. But mATX cases aren't that much bigger than ITX enclosures designed for high-end gear - so I'd say have a look at some mATX cases, too, if you haven't done so already. The Parvum cases are beautiful (I've got one myself), and the Aerocool Dead Silence is pretty snazzy too.
 
I think Fulax covered pretty much most of what i was thinking reading through your list.

Only thing i did pick up on, i assume your considering overclocking ? given the CPU, motherboard, cooling and RAM selection.

nothing wrong with overclocking on mITX, just beware of the air flow, as someone mentioned stock blower type coolers on GPUs are not always a bad thing.

Also, the RAM, that's a lot of money to spend on possibly more RAM than you need, not to mention quite high size wise, although i can see the logic, because you can't add to it later with mITX standards only having 2 slots, but 2400mhz ? are you planning on over clocking into that sort of range ?
 
Hi Gunslinger,

Initially I won't be overclocking, but may do down the line so wanted to allow some scope for some overclocking.

I'd still like 16GB, I had 8GB in my current system and upgraded that to 16GB and found things to run a bit smoother - I tab out of games a fair bit which seemed to like the extra ram. I was debating going with:-

Corsair Dominator PLATINUM 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit with DHX Pro

Assuming it would fit ok, I really like the looks of the dominator ram and is what I have in my current system.

I'm hoping to build something in a small form factor that's going to last me a good few years, this is likely to be the last PC build I do for quite some time.
 
I have been looking to downsize my rig for a while, its in a coolermaster cosmos, which if anyone has seen in the flesh and tried lifting, its a goliath. looked at loads of SSF cases and in the end decided to just go for a midi size atx case, as unfortunately my budget it like 15% of yours and i didn't want to go scrounging round for a Z77 itx board, then change my gfx cards at the same time as i'm in X-fire at the mo.

Anyway back on point having seen loads of cases the new one from silverstone shone out the most, the raven Z01 i think its coming out soon so not listed yet, however its on silverstones homepage so go check it out. its a bit different as the gfx card sits sideways in it a bit like some of the steambox prototypes knocking about, i'm sure with you budget and enthusiasm you can build something quite extraordinary in one. it wont fit a double rad tho i don't think, maybe a single. do you need a 4770k if its just going to be a gaming rig the i5 will punch out just as many frames.

http://www.silverstonetek.com/raven/products/index.php?model=RVZ01&area=en&top=C
there's the link see if its to your taste.
 
Do you really need Dominator Platinum? And/or that speed? Could get much cheaper RAM and see little to no performance difference for most applications.
 
Take a look at this vid;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re0SRpkmCt4

It inspired me to build the rig in my sig, and I am *over* the Moon about it!! CPU temps don't go over 65c ([email protected] with silver applied under the lid), and the second fan on the H75 cools the motherboard nicely (which is absolute quality by the way). In fact, I'd go as far to say that the Asus RoG Maximus VI Impact motherboard is the best I've ever come across (and I must have done nigh-on 100 builds). How the HELL they got so much on a 6in square motherboard still blows me away!!

Needless to say, I'm chuffed with it :D :cool:
 
JediFragger said:
Take a look at this vid;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re0SRpkmCt4

It inspired me to build the rig in my sig, and I am *over* the Moon about it!! CPU temps don't go over 65c ([email protected] with silver applied under the lid), and the second fan on the H75 cools the motherboard nicely (which is absolute quality by the way). In fact, I'd go as far to say that the Asus RoG Maximus VI Impact motherboard is the best I've ever come across (and I must have done nigh-on 100 builds). How the HELL they got so much on a 6in square motherboard still blows me away!!

Needless to say, I'm chuffed with it :D :cool:
Click to expand...

I love the Impact, but I just feel that for most it really doesn't justify the £40-50 over the Z87I-Pro. Most won't utilise the better sound to its potential, fewer still will make use of the m-PCIe slot combo.
 
@tbyeah I like the look of the Dominator Ram, though I have tweaked the spec a little and now looking at the Corsair Dominator PLATINUM 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit instead which is a tad cheaper.

I've swapped the cooler out to a H100i as the H105 won't fit in the case and have swapped the mechanical drive out for a 2TB drive.

I have however added a Pioneer BDR-209EBK 16x BDRW Multilayer 128GB retail to the build too, as much as I would like to download all my games over Steam, etc my net connection at present is too slow. Still waiting on BT putting in Fibre cabinets on the side of the estate where I live. I'd also like to be able to have the option of watching Blu-ray movies on the PC.

@JediFragger When I first started looking at mini-itx builds before Xmas I was looking at building around the Asus RoG Maximus VI Impact board, I have had a number of ROG boards in the past and have found them to be excellent boards.

Just before xmas I replaced the ASUS Maximus V Extreme in my system with an MSI gaming board, purely as I wanted to downsize the case from the Cosmos II - new room layout meant the old case would simply not fit.

We're now debating a further change to the room into a gaming room rather than home office so looking to down size the PC further.
 
tbyeah said:
I love the Impact, but I just feel that for most it really doesn't justify the £40-50 over the Z87I-Pro. Most won't utilise the better sound to its potential, fewer still will make use of the m-PCIe slot combo.
Click to expand...

Well that's fairy muff m8, I must admit that I saw the RoG and fell in love with it!! Such an excellent piece of engineering, and I bought for £158 so not *too* bad :D :cool:
 
That top end Asus board has some real nice features, and some odd choices, i was reading a little about the NGFF socket, and i don't fully understand it, but it seems Asus's implementation of it is somewhat restrictive, and wont let it run at full speed, also, i feel they could have taken a leaf out of ASrocks palybook and put a mSATA/mPCIe socket on the rear of the board.

The next step down as far as Asus boards go does represent a good deal, but again, no additional mSATA socket is a bti disapointing, along with a setp down in wifi card too i think from ac to n.... but, it dows look good with the low profile crucial ballistx tactical ram that is also yellow :D
 
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