Small system, heavy workload

[w00tles]

Hi, I'm looking to build a SFF PC (it must be small since I need to take it with me travelling).

It will mainly be used for performance-intensive but non-graphical tasks. For example, performing calculations, running VMs, compiling code, etc. It's very important that it does these well, I don't intend for much casual use.

I'm leaning towards Core 2 Quad, the tasks will be able to utilise 4 cores, and I've had difficulty finding much in the way of SFF i7 systems. But I'd be interested to hear thoughts on this.

I already have HDDs, but I'd consider a SSD for this computer, I dont know how benefiical they are , what do you think?

Budget around £700. Don't need monitor, HDD, keyboard, mouse, etc.

 

[w00tles]

For travelling? Any particular reason you haven't looked at a laptop?

I've just always found that laptops tend to do poorly for this purpose, it seems they often don't live up to their specs because of heat problems or battery issues.

I already have a laptop but my colleagues and I will be sharing this new PC for our work. It's likely to be running almost 24/7, eg left on in office/apartment while it crunches data. So portability isn't a massive problem, but it has to fit in a suitcase etc.

 

[w00tles]

AbsenceJam - thanks for the suggestion, the Zotac board looks great. I think getting the high-end board is a good idea for a small PC like this. I wonder about the 9300 integrated graphics on this one, I don't expect much of them, but would it be able to handle a cheeky TF2 session? Compared to say the 7600 I have in my desktop now.

So here's what I'm considering so far:

------

Zotac GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi Mini-ITX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£113.99 inc VAT

--------

Silverstone Sugo SG05B Mini-ITX Case - Black (300w PSU)
£89.99 inc VAT

--------

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.66GHz 4MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail

£136.99 inc VAT

--------

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (KHX8500D2K2/4G)
£37.98

I don't really know much about RAM these days, is this choice OK?

---------

I have an old SATA-II 7200.10 Seagate barracuda, planning on chucking that in for the HDD. Considering getting a SSD as an later upgrade.

This would be £380 total, seems kinda cheap but I'm not sure its worth spending more unless I make the jump to i7, which would mean larger form factor + much larger cost. Also, I wonder if the stock CPU cooler fits in this case, or if there's a good custom one to buy.