Smallest / quietest possible gaming build

[captainl]

I want to build a small PC to go in the front room for gaming. The prodigy seems quite a popular choice, but ideally I would like something which looks like an HTPC to go on my amp and under my Sky box. But I am getting a bit lost figuring out which cases would be big enough to fit the following:

- Fast graphics card (e.g. GTX 670)
- Motherboard (mini ITX?)
- modern CPU (i5 or i7)
- 8GB ram
- SSD (around 200GB)
- Networking (ethernet only is okay - wireless not necessary)
- Sound card
- Cooling for all of the above which is as quiet as possible

Note that no optical media is required. Also note I only built and PC before and that was 5 years ago in a big case.

Are there examples of similar builds around? Can anyone give me some guidance to get me going?

 

[captainl]

Thanks for taking the time to do that Raikiri and Incrauze, much appreciated.

Both good suggestions, I did a bit of reviewing and I prefer the Sugo case so I would go with that. And the WF 7950 seems marginally preferable to the TFIII (as discussed here http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=23290216).

Is there anything I should be aware of when choosing beween the motherboards? One is £40 cheaper but they seem to have similar features.

 

[captainl]

Cool. So I am going with your build except with the Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X.

Anything else I should consider before buying?

Novice questions: do you still need thermal paste these days? How is best to keep all the wires tidy internally?

 

[captainl]

Yup you need thermal paste when fitting the CPU cooler/new gpu coolers etc..
Arctic Cooling MX-4 is generally a good choice for the best cooling performance.

For the prodigy there isn't as much room for cable management as other larger cases, although you could take a look at the parvum cases as they are pretty small and have lots of room for cable management, and they use M-Atx rather than itx boards. Although it is still a good case, you could use a modular PSU to cut down on cables and give better airflow (i see there is no PSU specified in any of the previous posts )

I was going with the Silverstone Sugo SG08 Case with 600w Power Supply which comes with a PSU. Not sure how much room there is for cable management, but I guess not very much.

Will get some of that paste though, cheers.

 

[captainl]

People have run 670's and 680's in the SG05 (7850 is the fastest card that fits for team red i think) another option for the cooler is the NT-06e that i have fits nicely under the PSU. get thumb screws for the case as the front dust filter needs cleaning at least once a month but fortnightly is better.

Tempting for sure, but seems a bit of a risk. I googled around for people who got the 7850 in a SG05 so I could just use Raikiri's spec from above, but couldn't find much evidence of that. The Sugo site says 10 inches is the max so I figured not possible. But from your sig it looks like you did it? So this means the current 3GB versions such as those in the specs above would fit? Did you chop bits off?

 

[captainl]

So it's looking like

1 x EVGA GeF GTX 670 2GB (from another shop)
1 x Silverstone Sugo SG05 HTPC Case with 450W Power Supply - All Black ( SST-SG05BB USB 3.0) - £114.95
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £173.99
1 x Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe (Socket 1155/Intel Z77.DDR3/S-ATA 600/Mini ITX) £159.95
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TD250BW) ** Cash Back Promo ** £131.99
1 x Avexir Core Blue Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2CW) - Blue Light £40.00

Just a bit stuck on the cooler. NT-06e as Gav suggests is an option, but I'm not sure if it needs a fan or not. Someone else on the internet has a Noctua NH-L12 in there with the same motherboard. And others have the Corsair H60 in there. No idea which is the best option. More research tomorrow I guess.

 

[captainl]

I have a 7850 in my SG05, plenty of room.

I have the ASRock Z77E-ITX board with a Thermalright AXP-100, I'd recommend this combination. Cable management is easy, it's not TOO cramped and if you don't have an optical drive you can use that tray to hide some of the cables.

I tried to get a H60 in my SG05, it's possible if you do away with the 3.5" drive but it's a tight fit.

Thanks for the pics Janesy B, really helpful. When I said 7850 I actually thought I was talking about the 7950, sorry about that.

I'm really glad you mention the Asrock and the Thermalright AXP-100. After reading stuff on the internet until my eyes could take no more, I decided to go for the SG05 and also the Asrock and the AXP-100 and I ordered it today. So hearing it works for you in that case is great.

This is how it ended up:

EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW Signature 2 2048MB PCI-Express Graphics Card (02G-P4-3677-KR) with FREE Assassin's Creed III & FTP Currency £274.99
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £144.99
Samsung 250GB SSD 840 SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TD250BW) ** Cash Back Promo ** £109.99
ASRock Z77E-ITX Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £103.29
Silverstone Sugo SG05 HTPC Case with 450W Power Supply - All Black ( SST-SG05BB USB 3.0) £95.79
Avexir Core Blue Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2CW) - Blue Light £33.33
Thermalright AXP-100 ITX & HTPC CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £33.29

Total: £968.30

Works out about the same cost as the the initial builds and is small and hopefully pretty quiet.

 

[captainl]

I finished this build a few weeks ago and despite windows automatic updates doing their best to ruin everything, it seems to be working well. Like Hero9989 getting the 670 in the case was difficult, I had to take everything out the case then hold it in with one hand while putting the motherboard in with the other. If it was 2mm longer it wouldn't have fit.

I didn't overclock anything and turned the chassis fan and CPU fan right down in the bios so it runs quite quiet. CPU runs at around 55 degrees when busy. I find the glowing RAM (Avexir Core Blue) a bit unnecessary - if I was going to change anything I would probably get lower profile RAM which doesn't have lights on.

Thanks everyone, especially Raikiri for all the help.