Build It Yourself: A Mini-ITX Gaming System For Just Over $500

[dwhapham]

I just finished my own build using this article as a starting guide. I wanted to also replace my cable company DVR so I opted to use my single PCI slot for a Ceton infiniTV 4. Here is my parts list:


• Black Winsis Mini-ITX Computer Case, Slim Optical Drive Bay, W / 200w Power Supply
• ASRock H77M-ITX Mini ITX Motherboard
• Intel Core i3-3225 w/Intel HD Graphics 4000
• Panasonic UJ240 6x Blu-ray Burner BD-RE/8x DVD±RW DL SATA Drive
• 8GB DDR3 1333 DDR3RAM
• Ceton InfinitTV 4 Quad-tuner PCI-Express card
• EDIMAX USB Wi-Fi adapter
• WD 1TB 3.5” SATA drive (for media storage)
• Crucial 128GB SSD drive (for OS/boot)
• Windows 7 Center MCE PC Remote Control and Infrared Receiver
• Wireless Keyboard/Mouse
• Slim-Line SATA drive to SATA adaptor

Total cost was around $700.00 so unfortunately it wasn't exactly a budget build. Besides the many other obvious benefits of being able to use it as a PC, game platform, and multi-media player, the cable TV experience is also much improved over the junk DVRs that TMC offers. The box boots in 30 seconds (as opposed to 10 min with the TMC DVR), and channels change and load more than twice as fast. I am also able to record 4 programs at a time.
.

 

[nukemaster]

I just finished my own build using this article as a starting guide. I wanted to also replace my cable company DVR so I opted to use my single PCI slot for a Ceton infiniTV 4. Here is my parts list:


• Black Winsis Mini-ITX Computer Case, Slim Optical Drive Bay, W / 200w Power Supply
• ASRock H77M-ITX Mini ITX Motherboard
• Intel Core i3-3225 w/Intel HD Graphics 4000
• Panasonic UJ240 6x Blu-ray Burner BD-RE/8x DVD±RW DL SATA Drive
• 8GB DDR3 1333 DDR3RAM
• Ceton InfinitTV 4 Quad-tuner PCI-Express card
• EDIMAX USB Wi-Fi adapter
• WD 1TB 3.5” SATA drive (for media storage)
• Crucial 128GB SSD drive (for OS/boot)
• Windows 7 Center MCE PC Remote Control and Infrared Receiver
• Wireless Keyboard/Mouse
• Slim-Line SATA drive to SATA adaptor

Total cost was around $700.00 so unfortunately it wasn't exactly a budget build. Besides the many other obvious benefits of being able to use it as a PC, game platform, and multi-media player, the cable TV experience is also much improved over the junk DVRs that TMC offers. The box boots in 30 seconds (as opposed to 10 min with the TMC DVR), and channels change and load more than twice as fast. I am also able to record 4 programs at a time.
.

Damn I wish my provider supported cable card.

Nice build btw.

 

[Andrew Maxwell]

Hmm, interesting. What would your thoughts be on an AMD A8/A10 regarding power needs. Would the 200w PSU in this case be able to handle the AMD A8/A10 (not-overclocked) with only the on GPU graphics?
As a newbie system builder I would be grateful for your thoughts.

 

[blazorthon]

Hmm, interesting. What would your thoughts be on an AMD A8/A10 regarding power needs. Would the 200w PSU in this case be able to handle the AMD A8/A10 (not-overclocked) with only the on GPU graphics?
As a newbie system builder I would be grateful for your thoughts.

It'd be weaker in graphics performance, but there's no reason that I can see for needing a more powerful PSU. The APUs that aren't meant for heavy overclocking are all fairly low power CPUs and the Trinity models can beat many of Intel's dual core CPUs in idle or near idle power consumption right now desptie much larger dies with more cores and much larger GPUs all built on a much larger and less efficient process technology.

It'd be less power efficient for gaming and have less performance, but power consumption wouldn't be higher AFAIK.

 

[jbheller]

While the unit is a good cheap little build, I would never bother making something like this. There are commercially made computers almost as small, with much better cases.

The HP 8300 Elite desktops are what my company buys. You can do a custom build called a CTO and customize the components that you buy. We build ours with 8 gig of RAM, a 120 gig ssd, Windows 7 professional 64 bit and a dual head graphics card. The price was quite reasonable, build quality is superb and it has a 3 year warranty.

You can even get the same unit in the USDT form factor which is like 1/2 the size of the standard desktop. I think there is still graphics upgrade options, these being laptop style graphics cards.

 

[Hronis]

I'm sorry in the begging of this page you said that you've tested a 80+ gold psu.....how in hell did you do that?cause the case only supports tfx psu and the maximum watt in tfx psu is 300w???????
Please i need some info cause i want to buy that case and put a 450-500watt psu inside...

 

[Rosario Ricci]

Finally is better to buy a Mac mini, absolutely more elegant, more efficient, more compact, more silent and the price is not so far from 500 $

 

[gopher1369]

Finally is better to buy a Mac mini, absolutely more elegant, more efficient, more compact, more silent and the price is not so far from 500 $

How does the gaming performance of a Mac mini compare to this build?

 

[klausfunk]

Chieftec claim this case can take max. 150mm VGA card. Sapphire website claims the 7750 is in fact 170mm. So what's the crack here? What can it support?

I have been looking at a similar build for casual gaming but with a XFX Radeon HD 6670. Will it fit?

 

[KWFL]

I just built this pretty much as shown. I omitted the ssd for a 250g ssd. I found that I had to physically modify the cooler by taking a dremel tool to one side of the fins. Otherwise, it's a perfect machine for my needs as a streaming media computer on a big TV. The motherboard was hard to track down. All of the sources for it were overseas. It was a fun starter project with great results.

 

[Haravikk]

What about putting in an APU instead?

I was wondering the same thing; would a case like this take say an AMD A8-6500k? That would give pretty good CPU and GPU performance at a significant discount and is still only 65W, leaving you free to invest in a discrete GPU later on, along with a new PSU to support it if necessary. The APU should be enough to run fairly recent games playably on low settings, or older ones on good settings, and can be paired with a Radeon HD 6570 or 6670 in the PCI slot to run in Crossfire mode, or something more powerful instead leaving the APU to run GPGPU stuff like physics? I just think the APU route is better overall as an extra GPU means extra support for physics and other stuff modern games can offload from the CPU.

Oh, I wanted to add as well that Chieftec FI-02BC is essentially the same case but in (mostly) black and with a built in 36-in-1 card reader. Not that I'm fussy about the card reader, but it means there is at least a colour option over the white which IMO only look good from the front; if the glossy white continued all round it'd look a bit better, but probably die from heat.


Also, why the apparent "need" for an optical drive in a gaming machine? Steam is a great option, and you can always hook up a cheap external drive when you need it for those games you already have on disk and just can't live without. If you ditch the optical drive and don't bother with a 3.5" drive then that should free up a lot of space for extra cooling, which it sounds like these cases could use.

In fact what I'm planning is this:
- FI-02BC case, swapping the TFX PSU for a 160W Pico PSU.
- Mini ITX board with an AMD A8-6500K.
- Remove optical drive, 3.5" and 2.5" drive caddy from the front.
- Add a quiet 80mm fan where the power supply would have gone (should still be room at the top for the PSU's DC in.
- Add another two 80mm fans at the front where the optical drive caddy would have been, removing the optical drive slot and possibly cutting a second identical slot in as well, adding a dust filter since it'll be sucking air in.
- Use only a heat sink on the processor, which should leave space to fit a 120mm fan above the motherboard to push air out of the vent at the top. You can see an example here, except I'll make holes to screw the fan into place, plus maybe some extra holes for the vent.
- Find somewhere to fit a 2.5" Seagate hybrid 1tb drive (8gb flash). Should probably fit near where the PSU would have gone, though if I can fit it where the drive caddy would have been then I'd get the benefit of the front fans for cooling.

So yeah, there's actually a lot more space in the case than you think, especially if you're willing to use an external power brick and ditch the front drive caddy since it's a huge waste of space if you don't need an optical drive.

The issue really is getting connectors for the fans on the Pico PSU. Using the Pico PSU also has the great side effect of giving you room for a double-height PCI card (still low profile though), which lets you install one of the fanless options, or just a much more powerful one depending upon your preference.

 

[gopher1369]

Also, why the apparent "need" for an optical drive in a gaming machine? Steam is a great option, and you can always hook up a cheap external drive when you need it for those games you already have on disk and just can't live without. If you ditch the optical drive and don't bother with a 3.5" drive then that should free up a lot of space for extra cooling, which it sounds like these cases could use.

I agree completely. My build is slightly different, I'm using a Silverstone Sugo SG05, but the principal is the same. Absolutely no need for an optical drive in a gaming PC because everything runs through Steam (or Origin). I haven't bought a game on disc in years.

I removed all of the drive bays, I bought a slimline 7mm SSD and stuck it to the bottom of the case using sticky pads and this left me enough room to fit in an Antec Kuhler 620 closed loop water cooler. I've slowed the fan down to 900RPM and that's now effectively silent, and tops out at about 50 Celcius (Core i5 3330S). The only thing that can be heard now is the fan on the PSU.

Because they have no moving parts SSDs can be basically stuck anywhere, ditching the moving parts in an HDD and optical drive frees up masses of space and means a much better build in these small cases.

 

[palladin9479]

I'm building a "mini-gameing" box for my living room. I used a A10-6800K with 8GB of DDR3-2133 (very important for APUs) in an IN WIN BP-655-300 case. Using a 120GB SSD for OS and a few games with a 750GB HDD for everything else.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811108428

Whole box runs very well and costs ~$500 or so.

I'm of the belief that you either go APU or go dGPU, don't buy an APU and put a dGPU with it as your wasting 50% of the APU's ability (and Dualview still kinda sucks). So if your going with the APU method the only two solid choices are the A10-6700 or 6800 due to them both having the beefier GPU vs the 6500/6600.

 

[Haravikk]

I'm of the belief that you either go APU or go dGPU, don't buy an APU and put a dGPU with it as your wasting 50% of the APU's ability (and Dualview still kinda sucks). So if your going with the APU method the only two solid choices are the A10-6700 or 6800 due to them both having the beefier GPU vs the 6500/6600.

That may depend on a game's support for PhysX, or OpenCL based physics, but surely the extra GPGPU power of the APU isn't completely wasted? I think all the A series processors, or at least the most recent ones, can do the whole unified memory thing for anything running on the GPU part, so hopefully we might see more adoption of PhysX in future, and thus more use out of the integrated GPU?

I do agree it's a waste if you're getting a discrete GPU straight away, but an APU still makes sense if you want to cut costs now, as you can still add a discrete GPU later anyway. But then the AMD APU's are so competitively priced that if there's any chance you'll do 3d work (e.g - for modding) then an APU could still make some sense if you run a program that can take advantage of having multiple OpenCL devices for example.

 

[palladin9479]

I'm of the belief that you either go APU or go dGPU, don't buy an APU and put a dGPU with it as your wasting 50% of the APU's ability (and Dualview still kinda sucks). So if your going with the APU method the only two solid choices are the A10-6700 or 6800 due to them both having the beefier GPU vs the 6500/6600.

That may depend on a game's support for PhysX, or OpenCL based physics, but surely the extra GPGPU power of the APU isn't completely wasted? I think all the A series processors, or at least the most recent ones, can do the whole unified memory thing for anything running on the GPU part, so hopefully we might see more adoption of PhysX in future, and thus more use out of the integrated GPU?

I do agree it's a waste if you're getting a discrete GPU straight away, but an APU still makes sense if you want to cut costs now, as you can still add a discrete GPU later anyway. But then the AMD APU's are so competitively priced that if there's any chance you'll do 3d work (e.g - for modding) then an APU could still make some sense if you run a program that can take advantage of having multiple OpenCL devices for example.

Richland doesn't have HSA support, Kavari will be the first one with the whole unified processing thing going on. For now the iGPU is nothing but another graphics processor though in theory something like GPGPU could use it along with a dGPU, I don't know any implementation that actually does that yet.

 

[ceh4702]

I wish there were motherboard with no PS2 jacks and no sound jacks on the back. Only need an optical sound jack, USB2/3, and HDMI/DVI/VGA. Only other jack is just Ethernet and maybe ESATA. Could make the profile shorter. Just design it for HTPC only.

 

[ceh4702]

I wish there were motherboard with no PS2 jacks and no sound jacks on the back. Only need an optical sound jack, USB2/3, and HDMI/DVI/VGA. Only other jack is just Ethernet and maybe ESATA. Could make the profile shorter. Just design it for HTPC only.

 

[gopher1369]

I'd happily ditch the VGA as well.

Edit: also ditch the DVI. One HDMI and one DisplayPort would be plenty.

 

[internetlad]

I don't care for it. If you're going to go with a 7750 just go with a bleedin' apu and spend the extra cash on good RAM and a good cooler. I can't imagine a 7750 would gain you much performance.

When it comes to gaming I often say that you get to a certain point with PCs where there's a sweet spot. Too little cash and you are spending too much and getting too little, too much cash and you get diminishing returns. Crack your wallet, or save a couple paychecks and add on the 300-500 bucks that would make a world of difference in parts, otherwise you may as well just get a console.

EDIT: Had no idea a 7750 was so competitive, I take back the part about the APU. I still stand by spending a couple extra dollars to get something that will go gangbusters, though.

 

[Haravikk]

As you found yourself, the 7750 is definitely a big improvement over the APU's integrated graphics. Even so the point is still valid; if the APU is powerful enough initially, then it may be fine to just use it for now and wait for an even better GPU in future. After all, the low profile 7750's are getting old in their own right, so there are hopefully some more low-profile options on the horizon.

For example, I'm only looking to replace my XBox 360, so I don't need a huge leap forward in graphics, so an APU like the A8-6500 might be just fine for my needs right now, with a view to getting something much better in a year or two. Meaning I can be focused on being ready for that upgrade (better cooling) now, so that upgrade doesn't cost quite as much when it comes.

 

[palladin9479]

As you found yourself, the 7750 is definitely a big improvement over the APU's integrated graphics.

Depends on which 7750 your talking about. The GDDR5 version is definitely a large improvement over the current APU's. The regular DDR3 version not so much. The problem is *EVERYONE* thinks about the 7750 as a GDDR5 card due to that's what all the sites bench marked and reviewed. Problem is most of the 7750's in the wild are cheap DDR3 versions. What further complicates the matter is the GDDR5 versions are only 1GB of VRAM while the cheaper DDR3 versions are usually 2GB of VRAM. Richland APU's can utilize 2GB of DDR3-2133 while the DDR3 variant of the 7750 is DDR3-1600.

So how much GPU memory do you need and what exactly are you spending on. The 7660D with DDR3-2133 should be better or about equal to the 7750 with DDR3-1600. The 7750 with GDDR5 will be 20~40% faster then both. Remember GPU's tend to be limited by memory bandwidth more then anything else.

 

[Mupples]

An APU would be a better option. You could stick an a10-6800k and pair it with a 7750.

 

[Captain75]

Is it possible to add a Quad core? Then it could be a console replacement

 

[nukemaster]

Is it possible to add a Quad core? Then it could be a console replacement

Sure it is, you just have to ensure you get one that fits into the power envelope that you can.
A. Run with the power supply in the system
B. Cool within the small space.

Personally I have had a SFF(used for day do day and Media Center. It is the SG05, so not as small as these systems) with an undervolted(save all the power I can on SFF systems) i5 750(5770 at first and now 650 ti[lower power use for most things]) for years. All on an FSP 300 watt power supply.

I am sure you can get a better cpu in the same power envelope now AND better video for a bit more power

 

[Captain75]

Is it possible to add a Quad core? Then it could be a console replacement

Sure it is, you just have to ensure you get one that fits into the power envelope that you can.
A. Run with the power supply in the system
B. Cool within the small space.

Personally I have had a SFF(used for day do day and Media Center. It is the SG05, so not as small as these systems) with an undervolted(save all the power I can on SFF systems) i5 750(5770 at first and now 650 ti[lower power use for most things]) for years. All on an FSP 300 watt power supply.

I am sure you can get a better cpu in the same power envelope now AND better video for a bit more power

Ok, thanks for the answer, it has a 200W psu, and considering I have a PC with a HD 7750 Low Profile, and a i5-3470 on a 220W psu, it may work