Mini ITX case with i7 - is it enought for 4k video?

marka01

marka01

marka01

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hi,

I am looking to build mini ITX barebone, to replace my laptop connected to TV, which is struggling with 4k movies. The purpose of mini ITX - Multimedia, movies, 4k content.

I would need your advice on weather i7 7700k is enough to process 4k movies (since it has integrated HD 630 already?). Or shall I still get a discrete video card?
I would prefer a PC to be more silent, rather than powerful, hence the main purpose is to watch movies.

My starting parts were these:
1) mini itx https://www.********.co.uk/products...atx-case-black-windowed/ca-1d5-00s1wn-00.html or Fractal Design - Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case
2) Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 or maybe DDR4-2666 Memory is enough
3) Intel - 600p Series 128GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive. Do not need any SATA since I have a few 2TB drives
4) Corsair - CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (not fully sure which power supply to go for)
5) this is where I stopped... :)

Any build changes and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks !
 
Thanks for advice. just for 4k movies streaming. no editing. will also use for virtual machines windows 2012/2016 r2. As I understand i5 7500 does not have HT (Hyper-threading) ? Not sure how much does it mean in 4k or virtualization?
 
hi, thanks. I actually already went for z270 motherboard and i5 7500 as I got a good deal. The only thing I am still uncertain is which memory to go for. The price for ddr4 2400 and 3000 are similar but i5 7500 seems to support only memory up to 2400 while MB can support up to 3600 Mhz.. Will everything still work well if i go for ddr4 3000 ?
 
Avalon said:
Specification 'drift' happened after having it pointed out that the posted spec was ridiculously OTT for the stated purpose. If it were a genuine priority consideration, it'd have likely been in the OP as it's kind of a big and obvious one - you generally don't forget that you need to run several VM's on a box that you originally stated was primarily for 'Multimedia, movies, 4k content' as your primary requirement.
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Thanks. I do understand what you are saying. And yes it's main purpose is 4k. I had no issues with a few VM OS running on my old i5 3rd gen laptop. So I was assuming a new i5 7th gen would not have this problem either anyway (so that's why I did not mention VM originally. Anyway I have one more question in regards to storage configuration since I have now all parts ordered and ready to assemble:
For the storage I went for Samsung 960 NVMe SSD + 3 x 3.5" 7200rpm (Raid 5). Does it make sense at all to implement Intel Optaine SSD into this build in any way? Since I plan to install OS on 960 NVMe, and use Raid 5 for media storage. Not sure how would Optaine work in this scenario or if it could work at all with Raid 5 or NVMe SSD? I was reading that Optaine does not work with Raid builds unless sytem is installed on a RAID? Please share your thoughts.
 
well, I can explain it more in detail. I already happen to have 3x3.5" new disks which I don't need to purchase. So why not to use it for raid 5? For that reason I went with micro ATX rather than ITX. I could use those disks individually and have 6TB instead of 4TB but I don't need that much of space and thought it would be nice to have extra speed and 1 disk failover advantage over storage space? I will be storing not only media but VM OS's too, will be copying, downloading and accessing Raid 5 on this PC over network.
Also I am not completely rejecting the idea to try some PC game on this PC at some point. I might go for discrete graphics card in the near future. I want this PC to be all rounder rather than just strictly for 4k streaming. I came up with this idea throughout the process of assembling my first micro ATX box. So my apologies I was not clear from the beginning. There is a saying that 'Hunger grows while eating"... :)
 
thanks. well I was looking at optaine FAQ and found out that you cannot accelerate RAID with optaine unless Optaine is "inside" the raid volume where the OS resides:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...nd-storage/intel-optane-memory/000024018.html :
I want to set RAID up on my system. Can I accelerate these RAID volumes with Intel Optane memory?
Intel Optane memory cannot accelerate a RAID volume. An Intel Optane memory volume can reside in the same system as a RAID volume. The operating system must be on the SATA drive accelerated by Intel Optane memory.
Note In a system with this configuration, we recommend using the Intel RST application to manage your RAID volume and Intel Optane memory volume.

I can see from this article that NVMe SSD is probably even better than Optaine hybrid: https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/04/intel-3d-xpoint-optane-memory-review/

For the networking I don't use high end switch or router yet. Just default Virgin Media router at home (which I doubt even has 1 Gb/s ports). And then motherboard I went for also is limited to 1GbE LAN port: https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/PRIME-Z270M-PLUS/specifications/
 
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Yes I have gone up a bit and I did explain why. Have you read my explanations? If not then why swearing? I got all parts over ebay quite cheap under 600$ all inc. So cheaper than your ridiculous NUC.
 
I work in IT for 10 years. You do not need a skillset to connect a ups (plug in a cable to a socket?) or shut down and array (click 'shut down' in windows?). Or am I missing something here then correct me? I am running raid 5 at my work place on a server and have not seen it fail for 5 years except some hdd going bad - then you replace it. Do raid controllers tend to fail on a 100$ desktop MB - not quite sure and that is what I am here to ask you.
Unfortunatelly I have already purchased an micro atx and would like to utilise those 3x HDDs I have. So your advice would be not to connect them into R5 since it will fail if the power outage happens?
 
I have not built a desktop PC for a long time, obviously technology advanced, CPUs advanced and that's why I was here asking questions. Whether they are stupid or not - that is what this forum is for as I understand. In 2 days I have figured out all build and I am happy with it. I just needed a simple answer if raid 5 makes sense in my build or not. Probably you were looking at the ceiling while trying to read my replies because I did say that I have 3 HD's already. Also I did not ask you to tell your story on how cool you are or for how long you were building PC's. Neither I asked you to teach me honesty lessons. PC builds - lowest paid jobs in IT. So obviously I am not doing it, not sure about you. But anyway it took me 2 days to figure out all build and that's it. I do not need 10 or 20 years for that.

"Know CPU hardware encoding/decoding has been a thing for at least half of the time you've worked in IT and depending on the application, it's very effective allowing even humble atom derived hardware to decode and encode 4K."
Not sure what question did it answer that I asked
"Have even a primitive grasp of RAID, its different options, strengths, weaknesses and suitability for an environment and/or use, so you'd understand why Optane isn't going to end up in an R5 array with a bunch of drives that are currently manufactured."
I have configured Raid-5 and did go through the failures too. I can en-light you about Raid 5. It's 1 disk failover, 2x speed that you gain, which I already told previously in my replies. Intel Optaine can end up in R5 array, if OS is installed on R5 array. Go and read on Intels website.
"Understand that a clean shut down doesn't just require you to plug in a cable to a socket and has nothing to do with clicking anything at the time the power goes off, that's the whole point."
If you were reading carefully again I was saying to connect a UPS to a socket does not require much of a knowledge. And I do have APC Back-UPS 700.

Thanks for info on Un-Raid, I will certainly have a look at this for the sake of interest. But I am not planning to use VM's much - only when I do some study stuff. This was only a side question.
 
The irony of you suggesting i've not read your posts is something i'll get to later. As to your 2 days, it should have taken less than 20 minutes once you had a clear idea of what you wanted it to do (which you still seemingly don't). I'm genuinely touched about your concern for those who aren't well paid within the industry, i'm not in the industry as of a few weeks ago - I suppose you could say i've retired, but at 36 that's an odd idea, uncomfortable idea for me, so i'm going with I don't need to work and have no plans to do so for the foreseeable future.
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I like your sarcasm I will not lie. But c'mon.. 20 minutes is not enough if you are behind new tech?? How do you expect someone to read and choose over the web all the parts,boxes and all set-up in 20 minutes (forgot to mention PC assemble over these 2 days too)? Unless you are a super human. But if you were a super human, again, would you go to this forum?:) well congrats to you that you no longer need to work. what are you doing here in the forum then? Maybe go ahead a fly to some tropical country to lay on the beach?

You asked if a CPU was suitable for a task, if you're going to play the 'I work in IT' card then you will be expected to have a basic grasp of hardware capabilities, unless you're a phone/code monkey, though in fairness most of them are expected to know the basics.
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As you probably understood I asked if CPU was enough for 4k/VM capabilities. So I am sorry but I still don't understand what you were trying to explain to me here. I obviously do understand what is the purpose of CPU.

I did like your reply about R5 which now looks relevant to me and what I was looking for to hear from the beginning. Before we started analyzing my IT abilities and discussing IT jobs:) I am not looking to utilize much of a LAN in R5 instance. Was just interested on how relevant this would be to use let's say locally in the PC along with SSD drive. Copying between, moving, deleting files, installing something on R5 in case if SSD is getting full. But I guess you convinced me not to go for R5 and stick to stand alone 3x HDD. Not sure about ZFS or Un-Raid, hence have never heard about it, so will have to read more. Cheers.
 
Avalon said:
OK 20 mins to spec it up, give it about the same to physically build, it's a single CPU system with a handful of drives, not a 48 drive monster with backplanes and HBA's to mark up. I take your point on the beach, but it's much more fun moving 40TB of data around so you can do a file system migration and re-build on a server that you've been putting off for about the last 5 years and plan a little renovation work, the forum provides a welcome distraction and no sand anywhere!

This was the whole problem with your 'spec' thread. You didn't outline what you wanted to do clearly in the OP. You then seemingly purchased items via ebay that were 'cheap' and when it was pointed out that what you stated you wanted to do didn't require anything near what you thought, you added and then removed other requirements to justify the purchases. Feel free to tell me i'm wrong (I can take it, you won't hurt my feelings).

Either way at least look at the options before you go R5, pooling for a home user is where i'd have thought you should look, but you're not exactly giving us much to work with in terms of IO loads etc.
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When I first asked a question about 4k streaming, this was my main reason and goal, since currently connected laptop with i5-4200U and intel HD was lagging on 4k hdr content and in general was a bit annoying and slow. I wanted something stationary and more powerful to be in place as a media PC. I was offered a NUC for that purpose which is fair enough. I was just started looking at parts and builds, reading about 7th gen intel, nvme, etc.. And then I thought why not to utilize it as a general PC as well for other things, that's when my additional questions came into play since I realized that NUC is very limited. About me buying all the parts I just made a decision on the go when I saw a cheap bid for i5 7500 + corsair h45 and I thought I have to go for it and not to miss out. All the parts followed then too. All built was cheap with a room to upgrade if I want to. That's the story.
Oh yeah, the HDD thing which seemed to have caught your attention a lot :) I did have those laying around for about 1 year new unpacked, which also sort of changed my mind not to go for NUC. I could also probably buy some NAS 4bay, but then again extra spending on 1 more HDD and NAS itself was not that tempting option, since I already have 1x LAN HDD. VMware for a few 2012 servers runs easily on my laptop too so this was not a necessary question I just wanted to see peoples opinions.
 
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