The smallest SFF prebuild that will take a 2.5 SSD

Relentless81 · 6 Mar 2021 at 11:50

Hi,

I've sold off my gaming pc and bought an Xbox for gaming but I still have my SSD drive and wouldn't mind having a really small windows PC that will take a 2.5 SSD and maybe even have enough grunt to play RTS games when required from my Steam library

Absolutely not interested in discreet GPUs just the smallest possible windows pc that'll take a 2.5 SSD and a bonus if it runs RTS games such as sudden strike 4

Is there such a thing?

Cheers

Infiniteey · 6 Mar 2021 at 12:26

What's the budget? Something like an Intel NUC 11 Pro Kit? Just need to get some RAM.

Relentless81 · 6 Mar 2021 at 12:33

Infiniteey said:
What's the budget? Something like an Intel NUC 11 Pro Kit? Just need to get some RAM.

Not sure on budget to be fair because I'm not sure what I want exists but in the back of my mind I seem to remember that you could buy bare bones small PCs without a HDD

Just sold some ram so that's a bit annoying was hoping to just be able to something that needs a HDD but I appreciate it's a long shot

I'll have a look at the Intel NUC, I should have said but something with an AMD APU would be nice

Infiniteey · 6 Mar 2021 at 12:51

Relentless81 said:
Not sure on budget to be fair because I'm not sure what I want exists but in the back of my mind I seem to remember that you could buy bare bones small PCs without a HDD

Just sold some ram so that's a bit annoying was hoping to just be able to something that needs a HDD but I appreciate it's a long shot

I'll have a look at the Intel NUC, I should have said but something with an AMD APU would be nice

These mini PCs are basically barebones, iirc most barebones didn't come with RAM.

I assume you sold desktop ram, these mini pcs as basically laptop internals so take SO-Dimms

If you want an AMD then something like the Asus PN50 is the equivalent, but the AMD integrated graphics are worse then the Intel XE graphics.

Relentless81 · 6 Mar 2021 at 13:08

Infiniteey said:
These mini PCs are basically barebones, iirc most barebones didn't come with RAM.

I assume you sold desktop ram, these mini pcs as basically laptop internals so take SO-Dimms

If you want an AMD then something like the Asus PN50 is the equivalent, but the AMD integrated graphics are worse then the Intel XE graphics.

Ah ok so would have needed ram anyway

So I would be best off with Intel XE rather than AMD Vega Apu?

I'm looking at them now and it's a bit of a mind field I don't know the difference between all the Apus

What if said I wanted to play RTS games at 1440p, FPS not important as long as its around 30fps at least for the top end of the budget and then if that's too expensive disregard gaming all together for just one drive access and internet browsing. How much would I be looking at for the upper and lower end and can you recommend anything please?

adrichardson81 · 6 Mar 2021 at 17:00

I'd look for something with a 4500u or 4700u - I haven't seen amd g series chips in sff builds.

Infiniteey · 6 Mar 2021 at 19:50

Relentless81 said:
Ah ok so would have needed ram anyway

So I would be best off with Intel XE rather than AMD Vega Apu?

I'm looking at them now and it's a bit of a mind field I don't know the difference between all the Apus

What if said I wanted to play RTS games at 1440p, FPS not important as long as its around 30fps at least for the top end of the budget and then if that's too expensive disregard gaming all together for just one drive access and internet browsing. How much would I be looking at for the upper and lower end and can you recommend anything please?

I'm no expert but from just checking rough benchmarks; graphics-wise Intel XE seems to have the edge, where as CPU-wise AMD has a slight edge, so at the end of the day its your choice.

I'd roughly says as a minimum NUC11TNHi5 Intel NUC Pro i5-1135G7 ~£430 seems like a good bet. If you can stretch to a NUC11TNHi7 Intel NUC Pro i7-1165G7 ~£590 will give stronger performance.

Or AMD equivalent of Asus PN50 4500U ~£330, 4700U ~£370, or 4800U ~£510.

Relentless81 · 7 Mar 2021 at 10:27

Infiniteey said:
I'm no expert but from just checking rough benchmarks; graphics-wise Intel XE seems to have the edge, where as CPU-wise AMD has a slight edge, so at the end of the day its your choice.

I'd roughly says as a minimum NUC11TNHi5 Intel NUC Pro i5-1135G7 ~£430 seems like a good bet. If you can stretch to a NUC11TNHi7 Intel NUC Pro i7-1165G7 ~£590 will give stronger performance.

Or AMD equivalent of Asus PN50 4500U ~£330, 4700U ~£370, or 4800U ~£510.

Thanks for this I'll have a look at each model and decide

KompuKare · 7 Mar 2021 at 11:04

Infiniteey said:
I'm no expert but from just checking rough benchmarks; graphics-wise Intel XE seems to have the edge, where as CPU-wise AMD has a slight edge, so at the end of the day its your choice.

Personally I wouldn't trust Intel to every keep their drivers updated so Xe's theoretical advantage over Vega might be mostly academic.
If the OP is seeking to go for something larger than 0.7 litres, there are the AsRock DeskMini x300 which take socketed AM4 CPUs although finding desktop Renoir might be tricky.
1.9 litres or so. Unsure whether they include the 19V laptop style power supply. But they take two 2.5" drives plus two NVMe drives. In theory they might take the Zen3 follow up to Renoir too if it ever shows up in retail.

Relentless81 · 7 Mar 2021 at 11:31

KompuKare said:
Personally I wouldn't trust Intel to every keep their drivers updated so Xe's theoretical advantage over Vega might be mostly academic.
If the OP is seeking to go for something larger than 0.7 litres, there are the AsRock DeskMini x300 which take socketed AM4 CPUs although finding desktop Renoir might be tricky.
1.9 litres or so. Unsure whether they include the 19V laptop style power supply. But they take two 2.5" drives plus two NVMe drives. In theory they might take the Zen3 follow up to Renoir too if it ever shows up in retail.

This sounds pretty interesting actually just had a look at one and looks like it takes a normal cooler and normal ram, I'll see if there is any stuff on YouTube to watch but getting hold of one of those CPUs could be difficult

Infiniteey · 7 Mar 2021 at 11:59

Relentless81 said:
This sounds pretty interesting actually just had a look at one and looks like it takes a normal cooler and normal ram, I'll see if there is any stuff on YouTube to watch but getting hold of one of those CPUs could be difficult

These are quite nice. Its still laptop so-dimm ram and you if want WiFi you need to find your own module. But you will definitely get more power from it so might be worth the extra effort.

Relentless81 · 7 Mar 2021 at 12:32

Infiniteey said:
These are quite nice. Its still laptop so-dimm ram and you if want WiFi you need to find your own module. But you will definitely get more power from it so might be worth the extra effort.

3400g is a no go, no stock anywhere. Shame, I suppose it's a fair bit bigger than what I was after anyway and I could do with WiFi from the off. Can't seem to find out if it has a PSU either

I'll keep looking, I think an am4 CPU is the way to go if I want it to do light gaming

Infiniteey · 7 Mar 2021 at 13:16

Relentless81 said:
3400g is a no go, no stock anywhere. Shame, I suppose it's a fair bit bigger than what I was after anyway and I could do with WiFi from the off. Can't seem to find out if it has a PSU either

I'll keep looking, I think an am4 CPU is the way to go if I want it to do light gaming

It comes a basic air cooler and PSU. https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/9700/asrock-deskmini-x300-mini-pc/index.html

KompuKare · 7 Mar 2021 at 14:45

Relentless81 said:
This sounds pretty interesting actually just had a look at one and looks like it takes a normal cooler and normal ram, I'll see if there is any stuff on YouTube to watch but getting hold of one of those CPUs could be difficult

YouTube wise (and written reviews since I don't like YouTube reviews), there are probably more Deskmini A300 and the Intel version since the X300 is new, so I'd look just ASRock Deskmini.
ASRock also do the 4x4 barebones which are 0.7 litres or so but use soldered 4700U etc. processors, but don't think they take 2.5" drives never mind two of them.

Relentless81 · 7 Mar 2021 at 15:03

KompuKare said:
YouTube wise (and written reviews since I don't like YouTube reviews), there are probably more Deskmini A300 and the Intel version since the X300 is new, so I'd look just ASRock Deskmini.
ASRock also do the 4x4 barebones which are 0.7 litres or so but use soldered 4700U etc. processors, but don't think they take 2.5" drives never mind two of them.

I only have one 2.5 SSD to install

Keep going backwards and forwards trying to decide if I'm bothered about it playing games

I'm probably going to leave the X300 its quite ugly and will be on display where the others are easy to hide

Just need to decide on which to get because it sounds like even the 4800U isn't going to run RTS games at 1440P