Small form factor gaming pc

[kye1987]

Hi guys

So a friend of mine is after a small form factor pc for gaming. Wants to play the new warhammer and future games at 1080p.

I actually have a sff unit, 4670k cpu, 8gb hyper x ram, generic mobo (MSI I think), 120gb Samsung evo 840 ssd, and 1tb seagate hdd, and a ocz 650w PSU.

I'm thinking of selling my unit anyway as I hardly use it since I went to console gaming. I was looking at him buying a 970 itx version, a few decent fans and selling him my unit. That way he could have a capable machine for £500.

He has been looking at the alienware steam machine for £700. The only plus of that is its smaller, and I can't see anything that phenominal at his price range.

Basically I want to know if he would be best buying my unit for a couple hundred quid, putting a 970 in, and using that. Or am I being blinded by the fact I'll get some money from that deal? My only other concern is my ram is high speed but the mobo only supports standard speeds, with the 970, would there be bottlenecks?

Thanks for your help

 

[Dustybin]

The 4670k wouldn't bottleneck a 970. In retrospect buying a K series CPU and presumably not a Z series motherboard is a small waste of money. If you're offering him your system for £200 I think he's getting a good deal. He might however want to wait on buying a 970 until we hear what Nvidia has in store with Pascal.

 

[Enrax]

I think it would be better if he bought your pc its probably better then the alienware their products are overpriced.Is you mobo with a z87 if it is he can get a decent cooler and OC the chip for even more performance.

 

[kye1987]

No sadly I downgraded my pc recently as I wasn't going to use it for gaming. Including selling my Asus ranger board and replacing with a standard board. I already have a high end cooler on the cpu.

Problem is he has now seen what else is available and asked me to price up an £800 build. I've tried to keep it as reasonable as possible..

Avp hyperion MATX case
I7 6700k
MSI mobo
16gb corsair vengeance ddr4
R9 390 xfx dd version
Aerocool gold 750w psu
1tb seagate hybrid sshdd
Raijintek fans all round

Comes to £800 exactly. I still say using my pc and chucking a decent gpu in would be better, but he wants higher end stuff. That seem OK?

 

[Dustybin]

Only two questions.
1. What motherboard model? If it isn't Z then there is no point in the K series CPU.
2. If this is mainly a gaming system then on that budget I would use an i5 and put the money saved into the GPU or possibly a standard HDD and a smallish SSD.

 

[kye1987]

I don't actually belive it is, so might be better with the standard non k version.

And yes he wants it for gaming but he is working off the warhammer total war game specs. Which obviously have higher cpu usage. He is a total war fan so I think it best to have high end cpu in.

 

[Enrax]

You can look at this build and if you want add some parts with the one you had.My first critque of your build is that he realy doesnt need the 16gb or ram its pointless right now and the PSU is from an unkown brand which is never good you know what might happen with theese types of PSU,they might damage your system if anything goes wrong.Thats why i went with a Antec one which is a Seasonic OEM one as Seasonic are probably the best PSU manufactuers,saved some money with the ram going 8GB and went with the NZXT S340 which is probably the best budget case right now and i used a non-k chip since he wont notice that much of a diffrence since the Skylake most common OC on the i7 is 4.5Ghz if he is lucky 4.8Ghz which will not improve gaming perfomance all that much.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/LgRNXL

CPU:Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard:ASRock H170A-X1/3.1 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory:Corsair 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory
Storage:Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card:Sapphire Radeon R9 390 8GB Nitro Video Card
Case:NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply:Antec High Current Gamer 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Total:£798.12

 

[kye1987]

You can look at this build and if you want add some parts with the one you had.My first critque of your build is that he realy doesnt need the 16gb or ram its pointless right now and the PSU is from an unkown brand which is never good you know what might happen with theese types of PSU,they might damage your system if anything goes wrong.Thats why i went with a Antec one which is a Seasonic OEM one as Seasonic are probably the best PSU manufactuers,saved some money with the ram going 8GB and went with the NZXT S340 which is probably the best budget case right now and i used a non-k chip since he wont notice that much of a diffrence since the Skylake most common OC on the i7 is 4.5Ghz if he is lucky 4.8Ghz which will not improve gaming perfomance all that much.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/LgRNXL

CPU:Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard:ASRock H170A-X1/3.1 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory:Corsair 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory
Storage:Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card:Sapphire Radeon R9 390 8GB Nitro Video Card
Case:NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply:Antec High Current Gamer 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Total:£798.12

How big is that case? He was after it being as compact as possible which is why I went Matx. The gpu I selected JUST fits the case I chose. Also, is that hdd a good swap? I selected a hybrid drive so he got at least a small performance boost compared to standard hdd. Apart from that it looks good to me. I just went with more ram because I could really ☺️ with ram prices being much better than when I last built a pc and him asking for the best for his money, I thought it would safeguard him a bit.

 

[Enrax]

Sorry my bad that i didnt get a small case and mATX.This build is pretty much the same with the only diffrence being the case and the motherboard they are both good i even managed to get a gaming board and a pretty solid mini ATX case in while keeping the GPU and the good PSU
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/hNqqYJ

 

[Dustybin]

I'm kinda curious where he got the idea that the i7 is going to make a huge difference to frame rates. I've checked out a few benchmarks from the previous Total War game and an i5 is within 1 fps of the i7 with a 980GTX.

 

[James Mason]

MicroAtx? pff.
MiniItx.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£166.48 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI H110I Pro Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard (£62.28 @ More Computers)
Memory: Corsair 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£26.49 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.95 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 980 4GB Armor 2X Video Card (£399.98 @ Novatech)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ITX Mini ITX Tower Case (£59.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: Super Flower Golden Green HX 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£63.48 @ Aria PC)
Total: £818.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-31 17:55 BST+0100