I need to upgrade by PC and have been thinking that going mini ITX is the way to go. It's been about 4-5 years since I last built a PC so have been reading up on the forums for the last couple of weeks to try and figure out what I should be looking at. So thanks to everyone who posts have found loads of really useful stuff out. Thanx. 
I like the Bitfenix Prodigy case but it's really a little big for where I want to put it. So have been looking at the smaller cases.
Main use of the case will be for gaming plus some use for audio/video play back and general work stuff (MS Office and Project)
I wanted to aim at a budget of around £500-600 but keep re-specing for the next best so have slowly crept up to around £750. I can just about afford this but will likely get a bit of grief from the other half!! So if I can bring the budget down without compromising things that would be great!!!
I bascially need to spec complete system as nothing I have will be of any use:
I would like to use the PC for at least a couple of years before needing to upgrade.
This is what I've come up with so far:
Here's possible Basket:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £179.99
1 x HIS HD 7850 IceQ X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H785QN2G2M) £155.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £89.99
1 x Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SATA 2.5" 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (CSSD-F120GB3A-B) £78.98
1 x Corsair Hydro H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / LGA2011/ AM2 / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £76.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £72.98
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9) £49.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Mini-ITX Case - Black £39.98
1 x Samsung SH-224BB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £20.99
Total : £777.88 (includes shipping : £10.00).
Would like to see how much I can reduce this by without compromising game play etc. I've looked at bench marks etc but a few fps here and there or even a couple seconds encoding don't really make much real world difference... or do they!
So really need advice on how to trim down the above or even go with some different I've happy to change pretty much everything!! Just want a good gaming system that's quiet and small!
So not asking for too much then!!!
thanks in advance.
A.
I like the Bitfenix Prodigy case but it's really a little big for where I want to put it. So have been looking at the smaller cases.
Main use of the case will be for gaming plus some use for audio/video play back and general work stuff (MS Office and Project)
I wanted to aim at a budget of around £500-600 but keep re-specing for the next best so have slowly crept up to around £750. I can just about afford this but will likely get a bit of grief from the other half!! So if I can bring the budget down without compromising things that would be great!!!
I bascially need to spec complete system as nothing I have will be of any use:
- Case
- CPU
- Motherboard
- Memory
- PSU
- Cooling
- GPU
- SSD
- HDD
I would like to use the PC for at least a couple of years before needing to upgrade.
This is what I've come up with so far:
- Case: Coolermaster Elite 120 Advanced
- CPU: can't decide on i3-3220 or i5-3450 or i5-3570K - I know i5K is better and I can overclock which gives better performance and future proofing
- Motherboard: Not sure really was thinking Gigabyte Z77 as seems best value but I know if doesn't support voltage changes for OC'ing. How much of a problem is this?
- Memory: Corsair Vengeance Blue Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB)
- PSU: Not sure again on this one
- Cooling: Have been looking at H60v2, H80i, H2O 620, etc - mainly because of space and I've never used watercooling before so just fancy it!!
- GPU: Have been jumping between 7850 2GB and GTX660 but can't decide which is better
- SSD: 120GB for OS and key games/applications
- HDD: 2TB
Here's possible Basket:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £179.99
1 x HIS HD 7850 IceQ X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H785QN2G2M) £155.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £89.99
1 x Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SATA 2.5" 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (CSSD-F120GB3A-B) £78.98
1 x Corsair Hydro H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / LGA2011/ AM2 / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £76.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £72.98
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9) £49.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Mini-ITX Case - Black £39.98
1 x Samsung SH-224BB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £20.99
Total : £777.88 (includes shipping : £10.00).
Would like to see how much I can reduce this by without compromising game play etc. I've looked at bench marks etc but a few fps here and there or even a couple seconds encoding don't really make much real world difference... or do they!
So really need advice on how to trim down the above or even go with some different I've happy to change pretty much everything!! Just want a good gaming system that's quiet and small!
So not asking for too much then!!!
thanks in advance.
A.
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