Mini ITX for photo editing and very occasional gaming

mattie

mattie

mattie

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9 Nov 2005
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Location
Bath, UK
Hi all

I'm currently looking to update my notably dated Athlon XII based system, and would like to go for a Mini ITX to keep the desk footprint down.

I was considering building it around an i5 and within a Bitfenix Prodigy case, but not sure what components I'd need - any recommendations for sensible builds would be much appreciated. I'm afraid I'm well out of touch with current so I'd be grateful for pointers to the right bits.

Rough thinking would be for an 128Gb SSD with a secondary HDD if needed that I'd recycle from my current machine, although I will have a server for files. I was hoping to fit 8Gb RAM to give headroom when I've a load of large files open. The PSU is a 300W job from an old Asus Vintage barebones which I think I should replace.

In terms of reuse from old box, I would be fitting an old HD5570, optical drive, wi-fi card (Although this may be on a PCI slot, and not sure if Mini ITXs have more than one?) and all speakers and other peripherals. I'll be getting OS through site licence.

So, aiming at new case, PSU, motherboard, Processor, SSD and RAM.

Main use will be photo editing and some light gaming, and budget would be around the £400 -£450 mark but suspect I'll struggle to keep it down to that given the list of requirements.

All and any recommendations appreciated.

Eta: Curent list of pssilbities include the following:
Case- Bitenix prodigy gamma - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-136-BX&tool=3
SSD - Kingston HyperX - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-026-KS&groupid=1657&catid=2101&subcat=2103
PRocessor - Intel i5 4430 Haswell - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-479-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=567

No real insight into RAM or motherboard as yet. To keep within budget, worth going for an i3?
 
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Mini itx boards only have room for one pci slot, so you won't be able to use that wi fi card unless you go for a board that features onboard wifi or use wired Ethernet.
 
Ta mate - would a USB dongle work, or should I go for in-built wi-fi? It seems to bring the price of the motherboard up a fair bit.

Would something like this work? The machine would be only about 10 feet from the wi-fi router (BT Home Hub 4) so hopefully no real need for large antennae.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-007-TN&groupid=46&catid=1600

eta: As an aside, is it worth going with including the HD5570, or just rely on on-board graphics so I cna reuse the wi-fi card? Conscious the 5570 was only a low-end card when I bought it, and it's now a good 3 to 4 years on.
 
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current thinking looking like this (apols for mess- is there an easy way to paste shopping baskets as lists into the forum?)

(gone with modular PSU as only a few quid dearer but suspect managing cables might get tricky in small form factor. Also only gone for 1600 RAM as the motherboard doesn't support any higher.)

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-4440 3.10GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail Intel Core i5-4440 3.10GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £143.99
(£119.99) £143.99
(£119.99)
Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £74.99
(£62.49) £74.99
(£62.49)
Asus H81I-Plus Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard Asus H81I-Plus Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £68.99
(£57.49) £68.99
(£57.49)
BitFenix Prodigy 'Gamma' Mini-ITX Cube Case - Orange/Blue BitFenix Prodigy 'Gamma' Mini-ITX Cube Case - Orange/Blue £61.55
(£51.29) £61.55
(£51.29)
TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G1600HC9DC01) TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G1600HC9DC01) £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £43.99
(£36.66) £43.99
(£36.66)
Submit Sub Total : £377.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel (Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £77.58
Total : £465.49
 
You can post a neatly formatted shopping basket using this.

USB WiFi dongle would work fine. Something like this and possibly a USB extension cable if you want to position it for better signal? Assuming it doesn't come with one, they sometimes do.

YOUR BASKET
1 x TP-Link N600 Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter (TL-WDN3200) £19.99




I'd consider a couple of upgrades, if the budget can stretch:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £86.99
1 x Seasonic S12II 430W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99

 
Ta, much appreciated.

Are the SSD and PSU notable improvements? I've heard good things about the Samsung, so will to try to budget it in. I was tempted by the Corsair PSU as it was modular, is the Seasonic more efficient than the Corsair?

Eta: Bearing in mind the budget, would a drop to an i3 hit performance that much? Would prefer to keep with i5 but can save £50ish with an i3, to spend elsewhere.
 
Lol totally forgot about the existence of usb wifi :/ you could go with that.

I have no idea how well integrated HD 4600 graphics is compared to a 5570. Cant help ya there but I would have guessed the 5570 has an edge over the igpu in gaming, may be wrong so dont quote me on that.

I would go for the 840 evo too if you can but the Kingston 3K is still a good SSD if your budget cant stretch that far.
 
The SSD is a fair bit better, the benchmarks for some SSD's often show you throughput for compressible data, which in the real world is not all that common. The Samsung's throughput ratings will apply for all data.

The PSU is a much better quality unit and is the one place that you should never skimp on. It's the one part of a PC that can damage other parts if it goes catastrophically wrong. Efficiency would be about the same, it's just built using better quality components, which means it'll be less likely to damage anything should it fail.

I'm not sure about the drop to an i3, I think personally I'd try and stick with the i5 but I guess it depends on how intense your workload is. You could always upgrade to an i5 or even an i7 later down the line.

Incidentally if your existing WiFi card is PCI it wont work anyway, as ITX boards only usually come with a PCIe slot, and I believe they often can't be used for anything except graphics cards.
 
Hi
add my 2p
I make my living as a photographer and also play the odd game and recently have been having a torrid time getting my PC to boot
anyway I have been using the onboard graphics on the cpu up until it all went belly up a few weeks ago with issues still to be resolved

but am going to basically upgrade the whole lot with a small case
I have just bought the new coolermaster elite 130 case which I really like and also bought the be quiet 530wt bronze PSU
still not decided which mITX MOBO I will be getting but pretty sure it will be one of the asus mitx boards

but in regards with onboard graphics the HD4000 and upwards are vastly better than what they used to be and have sufficed my photography and meagre gaming needs very well

and by the sound of things you are pretty much going to have similar usage to me so dont waste your cash on a fancy dan video card when the latest onboard do a pretty good job
 
Cheers all - just checking budget to see what we can go up to, as the plan is to get a new IPS monitor to go with it so some possibility of trading stuff around.
 
OK, just about to buy. Apols but I can;t get the shopping basket script to work, so I've uploaded a screendump:

20zvcdf.jpg
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The monitor came in a little cheaper than anticipated - made a bit more room for the samsung!

Any other comments greatly appreciated before I buy tonight.

Cheers for help guys, much appreciated.
 
As an aside, I can get a b-grade version of that monitor for £109 and a b-grade HD 6850 graphics card for £50, which would only be £20 more than current basket.

I realise the card is a bit dated, would it represent much improvement over current 5570, and are b-grades worth the hassle/risk?

eta: The card appears to be double-width, assume this might not fit anyway?
 
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I have absolutely no idea how much of an improvement a 6850 is compared to a 5570 so I can't help you there.

B-grade stuff is pretty much the same deal, but it might be missing accessories/manuals.

When you say double-width I assume you mean double slot? If so its fine, the prodigy supports dual slot GFX cards.
 
Not that fussed by manuals, just hope nothing of substance missing!

Ordered the b-grade monitor and 6850, looks to be a significant upgrade without breaking bank.

Cheers all, looking forward to a weekend putting the thing together now!
 
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