mitx spec and psu question

Desty

Desty

Desty

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12 Feb 2007
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Looking at building a new desktop computer, my laptop is slowly dying and my old desktop, a chieftec dragon blue that weighs a ton, takes up too much room. That and it's woefully out of date, AMD Athlon 2400+, 1GB RAM and an ATI Radeon X1950 Pro.

Decided I want something nice and small that doesn't cost the earth that I can use for uni work, editing photos and gaming in the future. Put together this list so far...

Samsung 500GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E500B/EU) £199.99
Western Digital Caviar Green 4TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD40EZRX) HDD £119.99
Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX318C10FBK2/16) £106.99
MSI Z97I AC Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £94.99
Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £59.99
Antec ISK 600 Small Form Factor ITX Chassis £49.99
Samsung SN-208DB/BEBE Slimline 8x DVD±RW SATA Drive - OEM £14.99

Total : £646.93

Thinking of going with the G3258 processor for now with the intention of upgrading to an i5 or i7 in the future and will also add in a graphics card at some point too.

Any recommendation on a psu that will future proof it for the cpu and graphics card updates in future? Also the specs in general?

Thanks!
 
Spending that amount I would be tempted to wait for Intel Broadwell core processors, that may be released around June. Depends on if you can limp along on existing kit until then.
 
I put together this build so you get an i5 in there, which is a substantial upgrade on the G3258 when it comes to CPU intensive tasks & Games...

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £194.99
1 x MSI Z97I Gaming ACK Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £109.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD30EZRX) HDD £84.98
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £72.98
1 x Antec ISK 600 Small Form Factor ITX Chassis £49.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £44.99
1 x Samsung SN-208DB/BEBE Slimline 8x DVD±RW SATA Drive - OEM £14.99
Total : £572.92 (includes shipping : ).



Any thoughts on what GPU you would be looking to get? Also I would advise to look for an AIO cpu cooler which will add £50-£100 depending on which one you go for. If you want a cheaper option you can get some good Air coolers just have to be careful on the size for fitting in both the case for height and motherboard for clearance of Ram and Heatsinks.

For PSU I would go with a SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 650W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black for £75, but depending on GPU selection you may not need that amount of power and can go for something cheaper in price.

If you can wait, as mentioned you be better waiting for the Intel Broadwell release in the summer.
 
Another way of approaching it.

This could be a tricky one given the spread of requirements: What I mean is, if you eventually want a machine that is "games capable" then that is what you must aim to buy from the start. Not easy to build a budget device for uni work and photo editing that has the potential to convert into a capable games playing machine easily and cost efectively.

Build a games machine from the start and it will cope easily with uni work obviously.
But I doubt that you want to budget that way, I assume you want to spend what you have to for uni work and photo editing for now, and deal with gaming upgrade costs later. Obviously I am working on assumptions here, correct me if I am wrong.
If the situation is as I outline above, then I would go with an AM1 setup, low cost and APU /Intel HD graphics would be adequate for immediate needs.
For the outlay involved by the time you want to set up for gaming the minimal AM1 costs will be absorbed and you can keep it as a spare and build a dedicated games machine.
The Intel G3258 graphics are Intel HD.........no numbers in the title, just HD. In other words the entry level.
Saying that,it is fine for 1080p movies and I cannot see any problems in non games applications.
For ultra budget you may get away with the low end AMD Sempron........Perfectly good for Word and Office, mail and browsing etc. and most likely OK for anything but the most demanding photo editing.
Staying with the AMD option, the next level up is Sempron again but for about the same price you can get the Athlon 5150 which has better graphics capabilities than the sempron but not quite up to the level of the G3258.
Last in the APU line is the 5350 which is capable of decent gaming rates at l0w resolution should you wish. Not benchmarked this against the G3258 yet.
The AM1 platform is TDP restriced to 25watts, so a PSU is not a big demand, a 90 watt Pico 24 pin board with a 65 watt laptop brick is more than adequate.
I have 2 x MSI AM1 MBs one with the low end sempron, one with a Athlon 5150, both with Pico psu, 4GB ram on Sempron and 8GB on the 5150. Both SSD boot.
Also ASRock H97M-ITX-ac MB with Pentium G3258 120GB ssd Boot and 2.5"HDD 1TB storage, 8GB ram, pico psu again, that does everything I need..........I dont do games so......................
Another ASRock too, the AM1H-ITX with 8GB, 250GB SSD boot is waiting fr an Athlon 5350 which will be here any day. this takes a laptop brick direct to it so saving cost of Pico PSU board.
I am benchmarking the lot, starting with 3DMark, but will probably end up with both ASRock MBs and the G3258 and Athlon 5350.
None of these machines are expensive, all are quick to build and test, run very cooln quiet.
I am running Win 10 Tech preview Beta build on the Sempron which helps make up for its shortcomings. and Win7 64 bit pro on the others.
A decent case for MITX can be had for not much more than £30. And I mean ITX , no micro ATX, thats an issue I don`t get involved in.
Doing it this way you spend minimal money to begin with, so have a better budget for a gaming build and more importantly, you begin the game build fresh and without any legacy hardware you buy for the starter machine, all current stock at time of build.
Or dive in at the deep end and commit to gaming build from the start.
 
Thanks for all the info guys, quite a bit to think about, the AMD route is something I hadn't really considered. But it is something that may make a good replacement for my HTPC in the future, which at the moment is an Intel Atom and ION board.

Thanks again!
 
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