Mini itx bundle

delpy8

delpy8

delpy8

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Hi all
wanting to build a mini pc for my upstairs room and was wondering what a good spec would be,. I'm liking the evga hadron with the included psu and was wondering what the best mobo cpu combo would be best?
Not fussed between amd or intel as it would be more of a media player so no high end gfx needed My budget is around £600.
Any help appreciated
 
Asus makes nice mini-itx boards.
I own a z87i-pro but for your use h87i-pro would be enough, maybe even h81i-pro.
You won't need anything stronger than i3.
Are you going to need the speakers as well?
There is a very nice Edifier 2.0 set at OCuk, very cheap for the quality imho.
I'm at work atm but can make a proper spec in the morning.
 
Bart_Hunt said:
Asus makes nice mini-itx boards.
I own a z87i-pro but for your use h87i-pro would be enough, maybe even h81i-pro.
You won't need anything stronger than i3.
Are you going to need the speakers as well?
There is a very nice Edifier 2.0 set at OCuk, very cheap for the quality imho.
I'm at work atm but can make a proper spec in the morning.
Click to expand...
Cheers Bart that would be good never thought about speakers Doh would also need on board wifi
 
Last edited:
I forgot to ask if you have peripherals like mouse and keyboard, also if you have monitor and OS.
I didn't add keyboard/mouse below but you can get some cheap ones for 20£.
I did not add OS because that is a matter of personal preference, some like Windows 7, some like Windows 8.
If you need OS I think you can get free Windows 8.1 90 days trial.
I did add the screen, if you don't need it you can swap it for full OS version or just remove from build to reduce cost.
You can go for a little cheaper motherboard as well, however I would recommend this one, few reasons:
- I can personally recommend it, I own this motherboard, had it for over 6 months working perfectly since day one.
- It have Wi-Fi + antenna, very good one.
- It have good sound card.
- It's solid built, have very friendly layout, also have a lot of USB 3.0 ports and 6 Sata III ports, which is a lot for mini itx motherboard (you usually get 4).

I added DvD drive as well, if you don't need it you can remove it.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus Z87I PROFESSIONAL Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini-ITX £145.99
1 x Asus VS228DE 22" Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black £89.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EZRX) HDD £65.99
1 x Edifier R1600T Studio Plus 2.0 Monitors £59.99
1 x Avexir MPower Yellow Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2CM) £49.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 130 RC-130-KKN1 Mini ITX Case - Black £45.95
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £35.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £615.86 (includes shipping : £12.50).



Something like this.

What I didn't add is dedicated gpu and aftermarket heatsink.
You don't need those for small multimedia PC.
Haswell iGPU is good enough, it is even strong enough to play some games at low/medium settings.

EDIT: The reasons why I didn't add EVGA Hadron is:
- It's way to expensive for Mini-ITX case, even if you include the PSU. You can buy a midi tower with gold rated 650W psu for that much.
- It is targeted more for small LAN party mini-itx builds which require strong PSU for a high end GPU/CPU.

Also, some of this stuff is on offer this week, so this spec may be more expensive next week (offers last till next Wednesday).
 
Last edited:
Bart_Hunt said:
I forgot to ask if you have peripherals like mouse and keyboard, also if you have monitor and OS.
I didn't add keyboard/mouse below but you can get some cheap ones for 20£.
I did not add OS because that is a matter of personal preference, some like Windows 7, some like Windows 8.
If you need OS I think you can get free Windows 8.1 90 days trial.
I did add the screen, if you don't need it you can swap it for full OS version or just remove from build to reduce cost.
You can go for a little cheaper motherboard as well, however I would recommend this one, few reasons:
- I can personally recommend it, I own this motherboard, had it for over 6 months working perfectly since day one.
- It have Wi-Fi + antenna, very good one.
- It have good sound card.
- It's solid built, have very friendly layout, also have a lot of USB 3.0 ports and 6 Sata III ports, which is a lot for mini itx motherboard (you usually get 4).

I added DvD drive as well, if you don't need it you can remove it.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus Z87I PROFESSIONAL Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini-ITX £145.99
1 x Asus VS228DE 22" Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black £89.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EZRX) HDD £65.99
1 x Edifier R1600T Studio Plus 2.0 Monitors £59.99
1 x Avexir MPower Yellow Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2CM) £49.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 130 RC-130-KKN1 Mini ITX Case - Black £45.95
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £35.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £615.86 (includes shipping : £12.50).



Something like this.

What I didn't add is dedicated gpu and aftermarket heatsink.
You don't need those for small multimedia PC.
Haswell iGPU is good enough, it is even strong enough to play some games at low/medium settings.

EDIT: The reasons why I didn't add EVGA Hadron is:
- It's way to expensive for Mini-ITX case, even if you include the PSU. You can buy a midi tower with gold rated 650W psu for that much.
- It is targeted more for small LAN party mini-itx builds which require strong PSU for a high end GPU/CPU.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for that,Wont need monitor or dvdrw and would probably up the psu slightly and go for one of those bitfenix cases in orange or white
 
That is totally up to you :)
I chose the smallest PSU because a few others were out of stock, but maybe one of these?

YOUR BASKET
1 x BitFenix Prodigy 'Tiger' Mini-ITX Cube Case - Orange/Black £69.95
1 x Seasonic G series 450w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £65.99
1 x Seasonic G series 360w '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £49.99
Total : £195.53 (includes shipping : £8.00).



To be honest, you wouldn't need the stronger PSU even if you added a GPU like R9 270X or new GTX 750/750ti, but if you really want it then one of those gold rated Seasonic PSUs would be a good choice.
 
To me that motherboard looks completely overkill for your intended use as a media player. The Asus H81I-Plus at £69 would do everything you need it to at less than half the price of the Z87 board.

Also, in terms of PSU, you say you want to up it from 350W. I'm using an i5 3570k overclocked a bit with two SSD's and a DVD drive and this is all powered from a 150W Pico PSU for the past 2 years. I often use CAD/Lightroom and have never had a single issue with power. These are very efficient CPU's and the Haswell will be better still.
 
Borden said:
To me that motherboard looks completely overkill for your intended use as a media player. The Asus H81I-Plus at £69 would do everything you need it to at less than half the price of the Z87 board.

Also, in terms of PSU, you say you want to up it from 350W. I'm using an i5 3570k overclocked a bit with two SSD's and a DVD drive and this is all powered from a 150W Pico PSU for the past 2 years. I often use CAD/Lightroom and have never had a single issue with power. These are very efficient CPU's and the Haswell will be better still.
Click to expand...

cheers for info but that one does not have wifi so im limited to choice and Im a fan of Asus
 
You can get some very good USB wifi dongles now which aren't expensive at all. £77 price difference between the two motherboards. It's your money so your choice but I sure as hell wouldn't pay £77 just for wifi.

It would be far better to spend that money on a faster processor like the i5-4570/i5-4670.
 
Yeah, could be that.
I stated in my first post that Z87i is a bit of an overkill, but found out the same thing with H81i, no wi-fi, forgot about the other options, with usb wi-fi.
Trading Z87i for H87i + wifi dongle could get you an i5 with a bit better iGPU.
It's your choice really.
 
Borden said:
You can get some very good USB wifi dongles now which aren't expensive at all. £77 price difference between the two motherboards. It's your money so your choice but I sure as hell wouldn't pay £77 just for wifi.

It would be far better to spend that money on a faster processor like the i5-4570/i5-4670.
Click to expand...

I forgot about the USB and your right a better option would be an I5

cheers
 
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