Spec help (replacing mac-mini)

Pickman · 17 Mar 2012 at 11:08

A friend of mine wants a small, budget PC to replace his mac mini, to use as a media hub and to play SC2 and Diablo 3.

He does not need a monitor, keyboard, mouse or hard drive. Can you guys suggest something within £500.

The goals are:

Playing SC2 and D3 at fairly good settings.
Being as small and discreet as possible.
Being as quiet as we can get it.

I would be grateful for any help.

Thanks,
Pickman

Pickman · 17 Mar 2012 at 11:43

Thanks guys,

I really like the micro ATX + mini fractal case. Think it is viable to go with that and an i5?

Pickman · 17 Mar 2012 at 16:19

jamesfreddie said:
Will you overclock it?

It won't be overclocked. It only needs to play D3 and Starcraft 2 and be a media centre, plus the graphics won't be anything that astonishing, I don't think there will be much value in over clocking.

Pickman · 17 Mar 2012 at 17:01

jamesfreddie said:
The only real reason to go from the i3 to i5 2500K would be overclocking.

You should notice a lot of diffrence between a i5 2500K @ 3.3 and one @ 4.8.

There is a lot of value in overclocking.

At stock the i5 Benches higher than the i3 and has more 4 cores rather than two so it is much better for the increasing number of things that can multi thread.

My own i5 2500k is OCed to 4.8 but the friend I am looking to help out wants something that is less about raw power and more about firing into his life quietly and not making too much of a fuss whilst still being able to play the odd game.