System Builder Marathon, Q2 2013: $650 Gaming PC

[pauldh]

Oooh, no. And here is why: Heat. Sadly, this build won't last; I wouldn't give it six months. The non-modular Corsair "CX" units were built with some inferior Samxon capacitors that don't like heat and are known to fail early. Even without considering the radiant heat from the graphics card, you're running it at a high enough percentage of its capacity that it will cook. I also don't care for what all that [radiant] heat might do to the motherboard.
Will this HIS card fit in that case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161428 ? It exhausts its heat. You'd give up a chunk of performance, but 1) solve the heat problem and 2) allow for an optical drive and/or 8GB of RAM in the budget. The benchmarks show that frame rates are high enough that you're still going to get smooth 1920x1080 gaming out of it, plus you'll have something cooler and quieter that will still be running in a year or two, or three...
If the HIS won't fit, this EVGA FTW-version of the GTX660 will: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130829. It costs more, but performs better than the HD7850, and still exhausts most of its heat.

Edit: I'm really happy to see m-ITX in a SBM. Without necessarily repeating it any time soon, I think a little refinement still merits discussion and maybe more testing.

I strongly disagree, and do not share the same concern Onus. This PSU application is flipped to not be a case exhaust. Rather it is fed cool intake air through the enclosure's top PSU venting. And, under full system load it was outputting less than 50% of it's rating. Heat concerns were mainly just GPU related.

The Myst runs hot. A blower cooler or more miserly GPU would have been good, but really internal case tempers weren't much of a concern (factoring the components and mild overclocking). Notice the puny aluminum Intel cooler kept the Core i3 running cool. When you factor a couple more degrees ambient temps, plus a few more degrees internal case temps above ambient, yeah the Myst cooler takes off (in RPM). That's probably in part why some folks complain of its noise and others don't.

*** Late Edit here Onus, you may not see it. But I actually wanted to use a Rosewill Capstone 80 Plus Gold 450W modular in this build, and own two myself for similar builds. In fact I recommended that same PSU to Donny for his $1300 build but he prefers more reserve. My budget was tight, and the GPU forced me to select a PSU I've never used for an SBM. I don't think it is bad, especially as configured (as I explained above), but notice I didn't use it as an exhaust (which would have helped GPU temps and noise). I got into this in my rough draft but had to chop much text out to clean up my wordiness. Anyway, wanted to explain the PSU was a compromise, I just don't fear it's death like you mentioned.

 

[pauldh]

Actually, there is overlooked mini ITX AMD option: Athlon X4 750K and one of the mITX FM2 boards. And it has some overclocking potential, costs like $50 less than i3 and should perform close.

Our parts were ordered about one month prior to that hitting Newegg. I've eyed it up every week for probably 6 months now, and requested one from AMD again as soon as it appeared on this side of the pond. (BTW, there is one in the lab, soon to hit the bench.)

 

[ingtar33]

and yet again... Tom's mysteriously skips out on the fx6300.

you could have married a 6300 to a 7950 and kept inside your $650 budget. And that build would have murdered the prior quarter's i5 build.

 

[Traciatim]

I liked these better when the budget was actually a budget machine. 2500 is getting in to the realm of ridiculous extravagance and 650 isn't all that constraining for building a true low cost machine.

I much prefer the 500-1000-1500 range. The low end is actually challenging to get a good gaming rig out of, the 1000 is a pretty round number that still needs to make some machine balance type choices, and the 1500 range is pretty 'all in' for a top end gaming machine these days. Beyond that things get too far in to specialty equipment or just buying things for the sake of filling budget with little tangible performance gains. Sure, I like seeing 4 SSD's in a RAID0 tear up sequential reads as much as the next geek, but that's hardly a practical allocation of funds when it doesn't translate that well in to load times or performance.

 

[icraft]

I wish it had an optical drive. :I Not bad, but I have slow internet so if I win it I'll have to wait a day before any games work. h well.

 

[Onus]

I liked these better when the budget was actually a budget machine. 2500 is getting in to the realm of ridiculous extravagance and 650 isn't all that constraining for building a true low cost machine.
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I agree; I'd like to see budgets kept low.
Back to the heat issue, I had a stock i5-3570K on a Z77E-ITX in a Lian Li PC-Q08R, with a HD7870. CPU and GPU temps were marginally warm, but reasonable. I could feel a lot of heat flowing out of it (the case has decent airflow), but suddenly in the midst of gaming it died, apparently due to a VRM frying shorted. It was a case of trying to do a little too much with it.
I'd love to win this PC; with a few changes it would make a great daily driver. Most of my games aren't all that demanding, so I'd replace the graphics card with something that runs a lot cooler and/or exhausts its heat, then add an optical drive for more general purpose uses.

 

[pauldh]

and yet again... Tom's mysteriously skips out on the fx6300.

you could have married a 6300 to a 7950 and kept inside your $650 budget. And that build would have murdered the prior quarter's i5 build.

And what mini-ITX motherboard would you recommend for that "killer" rig?

Even if they did exist, Vishera + Tahiti would have been a blast to cool while overclocking.

BTW, (if you read the article you'd know) minus the ITX theme, an FX-6300 would have been in this quarter's gaming PC.

 

[dkcomputer]

Although I would never buy an ATI/AMD product due to driver issues, I find this build to be perfect. I'm excited about the mini itx builds, I think this is the future of pc gaming, whether you like it or not.

 

[pauldh]

Great news on the 750k paul, what m/b will you be testing with ? I have one on my bench also, gpu options for me 2x7790 or gtx650ti.

tourist

LOL, yeah about time, right! It will be a GA-F2A85X-UP4.

You OC yet?

 

[pauldh]

I liked these better when the budget was actually a budget machine. 2500 is getting in to the realm of ridiculous extravagance and 650 isn't all that constraining for building a true low cost machine.
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I agree; I'd like to see budgets kept low.

@ Onus & Traciatim - Yes, I hear you there, for sure! Hence the $400 bonus build this quarter.

 

[loops]

At this point in time, I'd have a hard time considering a small form factor build that is in this price range and cost. I know it sucks to say so, and I don't like to say it myself, but the PS4 is more bang for the buck here.

At $300 you get the same level of gaming output, HTPC like features, and smaller form factor. I have been in the marker for a build like the one offered here but I can't say yes when the PS4 is coming out. Can I add that I can also sell games when I am done with them?

As for the gpu, it is hot, it is loud. I have one and have under clocked it and it still maxes out any game I play at 1080p. (BF3, Skyrim, Ect.)

 

[littleleo]

I get very few to NO one looking to build gaming rigs out of Mini ITX, I don't feel this has any value for me or most resellers.

 

[bgunner]

before I even finish reading the article, loosing the optical drive is a bad idea if you want to game. In my instance what would happen to the games that require the disk in the drive for DRM? you would not be able to play them unless you use an external optical drive. how about installing the OS and any other program that requires a disk? the OS you would need to put on a flash drive but what about programs? not every thing is downloadable you know. By leaving out the Optical drive you may have added money to other parts but the average person will need one whether it is internal or external. You will still need to buy one eventually.

 

[Killroyjenkins]

before I even finish reading the article, loosing the optical drive is a bad idea if you want to game. In my instance what would happen to the games that require the disk in the drive for DRM? you would not be able to play them unless you use an external optical drive. how about installing the OS and any other program that requires a disk? the OS you would need to put on a flash drive but what about programs? not every thing is downloadable you know. By leaving out the Optical drive you may have added money to other parts but the average person will need one whether it is internal or external. You will still need to buy one eventually.

I'm a pretty avid gamer, and my current tower has no optical drive. I have yet to find an application I cannot run due to this limitation. Sometimes a workaround is required, but pretty much everything besides legacy games run on steam, origin, etc or have a nocd patch implemented.

If you absolutely cannot find a nocd patch and need the disc for a disc check, there's always Virtual CD drive.

 

[bgunner]

before I even finish reading the article, loosing the optical drive is a bad idea if you want to game. In my instance what would happen to the games that require the disk in the drive for DRM? you would not be able to play them unless you use an external optical drive. how about installing the OS and any other program that requires a disk? the OS you would need to put on a flash drive but what about programs? not every thing is downloadable you know. By leaving out the Optical drive you may have added money to other parts but the average person will need one whether it is internal or external. You will still need to buy one eventually.

I'm a pretty avid gamer, and my current tower has no optical drive. I have yet to find an application I cannot run due to this limitation. Sometimes a workaround is required, but pretty much everything besides legacy games run on steam, origin, etc or have a nocd patch implemented.

If you absolutely cannot find a nocd patch and need the disc for a disc check, there's always Virtual CD drive.

I have some older games i play plus 60+ games on steam and 8 on origin. I didn't spend $50+ dollars at the time for these games to not use them once in a while. Searching all over the net for No CD patches is not worth the time, at $15 per hour for my time, plus you still need to install them from the disk which needs a optical drive to do.

 

[Killroyjenkins]

before I even finish reading the article, loosing the optical drive is a bad idea if you want to game. In my instance what would happen to the games that require the disk in the drive for DRM? you would not be able to play them unless you use an external optical drive. how about installing the OS and any other program that requires a disk? the OS you would need to put on a flash drive but what about programs? not every thing is downloadable you know. By leaving out the Optical drive you may have added money to other parts but the average person will need one whether it is internal or external. You will still need to buy one eventually.

I'm a pretty avid gamer, and my current tower has no optical drive. I have yet to find an application I cannot run due to this limitation. Sometimes a workaround is required, but pretty much everything besides legacy games run on steam, origin, etc or have a nocd patch implemented.

If you absolutely cannot find a nocd patch and need the disc for a disc check, there's always Virtual CD drive.

I have some older games i play plus 60+ games on steam and 8 on origin. I didn't spend $50+ dollars at the time for these games to not use them once in a while. Searching all over the net for No CD patches is not worth the time, at $15 per hour for my time, plus you still need to install them from the disk which needs a optical drive to do.

If you're going to value your time, surely you must take into account the time spent swapping cds out. Then the 5 minutes to get a no cd patch would be beneficial (assuming you do frequently play these old games). The only truly old game I play now is starcraft, and blizzard has downloadable installers if you register your serials.

Maybe it's not for you, but it's certainly feasible to have a modern gaming computer without an optical drive.

 

[ojas]

I had wanted to ask, why weren't the triple monitor results shown in the charts? Was it because the older rigs didn't have those results?

a budget PC with i3 instead of AMD? o find that odd. anytime you get a CPU under 200 its obvious to go AMD.. Isnt it? or is society blinded by shiny s?

For a budget mini-ITX gaming PC... Yes, i3 is spot on.

You'd have preferred Trinity, or Vishera?

That 220w Vishera chip, surely.

I liked these better when the budget was actually a budget machine. 2500 is getting in to the realm of ridiculous extravagance and 650 isn't all that constraining for building a true low cost machine.
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I agree; I'd like to see budgets kept low.

@ Onus & Traciatim - Yes, I hear you there, for sure! Hence the $400 bonus build this quarter.

I don't know, i sort of like the themed SBMs, so i'm not really in the same camp as these guys. :|
Sort of becomes boring to have the same budgets every time. Maybe keep the strict budgets as a annual thing? like, once in a particular quarter every year.

At this point in time, I'd have a hard time considering a small form factor build that is in this price range and cost. I know it sucks to say so, and I don't like to say it myself, but the PS4 is more bang for the buck here.

At $300 you get the same level of gaming output, HTPC like features, and smaller form factor. I have been in the marker for a build like the one offered here but I can't say yes when the PS4 is coming out. Can I add that I can also sell games when I am done with them?

As for the gpu, it is hot, it is loud. I have one and have under clocked it and it still maxes out any game I play at 1080p. (BF3, Skyrim, Ect.)

PS4: $400, 30 fps @ 1080p.

before I even finish reading the article, loosing the optical drive is a bad idea if you want to game. In my instance what would happen to the games that require the disk in the drive for DRM? you would not be able to play them unless you use an external optical drive. how about installing the OS and any other program that requires a disk? the OS you would need to put on a flash drive but what about programs? not every thing is downloadable you know. By leaving out the Optical drive you may have added money to other parts but the average person will need one whether it is internal or external. You will still need to buy one eventually.

i agree with this, i have quite a few old games too, and booting from a CD usually works without a hassle. But then you can't have everything. A friend of mine built an ATX rig back in december, he didn't need an optical drive. I find one handy. To each their own, really. I'd probably only complain about not having an optical drive if this were an HTPC.

But then every builder has their own way of going about their build, and unless some choices are really bad, i'd respect them.

I don't know about you folks, but i usually read SBMs in a very academic way, so i don't really mind non-standard choices. If i'm building my own system then i know what i want in it.

 

[Onus]

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But then every builder has their own way of going about their build, and unless some choices are really bad, i'd respect them.

I don't know about you folks, but i usually read SBMs in a very academic way, so i don't really mind non-standard choices. If i'm building my own system then i know what i want in it.

This. I'd always include the optical drive for myself, but it isn't a quibble with this build. As long as it is viable, I'll find interest in it. Too bad we may not get to find out if my concern about heat shortening this one's lifespan is a valid concern. Perhaps its winner can post an update in six months or a year?

 

[bigshootr8]

Just 1 question: Why not a 4gb ram stick instead? That board only has 2 RAM slots, so wouldn't it be better to use just one and save another for upgrading later?

Guessing dual channel mode.

but why mini ITX rigs?

Um why not?

$650 called budget, clearly my definition and the going opinion is far from budget, with it possible to build a ATX Intel or AMD system for a little extra but a lot more performance. I did see the Day5 $400 Ultimate Purist M-ATX, this I gotta see, my guess is another Intel build.

Yes, lets not read the article at all and rush to the comments section. SBM defeats its purpose if we're going to stick to the same old stuff. What you're looking for has already been covered many, many times before in previous SBMs.

Yea I'm a bit confused why you wouldn't go down to a 7850 2 gigabyte model and then spend the extra money on 8 gigabytes of memory instead ><

Because there are more games that would benefit from a 7870 than 8GB of RAM? And anyway, 8 gigs is a relatively cheap upgrade, compared to the GPU.

It's very possible that 4 gigabytes could bottleneck you as well. System performance impacts gaming performance whether you see it in the frames per second or not. i.e, SSD's

 

[Chris Droste]

It's funny how they presume you have a legitimate free copy of windows sitting around when they do these "budget" builds. last i checked an OEM copy of Windows 7/8 x64 will tack another $100 onto these builds, so unless you're planning on installing Ubuntu and going through the work to get all these games and benchmarks running under linux, this is a "$750" build, and screws your budget...or you could be realistic and adjust your hardware selection appropriately.

 

[RedJaron]

a budget PC with i3 instead of AMD? o find that odd. anytime you get a CPU under 200 its obvious to go AMD.. Isnt it? or is society blinded by shiny s?

Unless you're looking at a Trinity chip, good luck cooling an OCd 6300 in this small a case.

Paul, I enjoy seeing your experiments, even if they don't turn out quite as well as hoped. I don't doubt the 7870 LE performance, but the heat, power draw, and noise in this small of a case would be unacceptable to me ( complete personal preference, I know. )

 

[brucek2]

I

it's funny how they presume you have a legitimate free copy of windows sitting around when they do these "budget" builds

It makes perfect sense to me, for the same reason it makes sense to exclude the monitor, keyboard, mouse and system cables. All of these are items you can likely carry over from the older build you are replacing. I think the optical drive, if desired, would now also make sense for this category until there is a meaningful advance in those drives.

Finally, the O/S makes sense for the additional reason that it is software, not hardware. If they have to include the O/S, why not then also the cost for all the games & applications they test with? The obvious answer being that it dilutes a hardware discussion, and that users have varying choices & preferences with respect to software.

 

[brucek2]

I don't think I get the target user/application for this form factor and build? When I think small form factors, I'm typically also thinking about low/no noise, low heat, and likely at least a partial focus on media/htpc/fitting into a living room.

Absent those requirements, and given just a generic gaming / productivity box profile, what is gained from the small size and is it worth the sacrifices? Is it mostly about portability for LAN parties and is that really a significant market segment?

 

[RedJaron]

It's funny how they presume you have a legitimate free copy of windows sitting around when they do these "budget" builds. last i checked an OEM copy of Windows 7/8 x64 will tack another $100 onto these builds, so unless you're planning on installing Ubuntu and going through the work to get all these games and benchmarks running under linux, this is a "$750" build, and screws your budget...or you could be realistic and adjust your hardware selection appropriately.

Most the time, custom new builds are done as upgrades, meaning you already have an OS from a previous build ( usually the machine you're currently using. ) Otherwise, you'd have to complain about the lack of monitor, keyboard, mouse, and other peripherals.

 

[Chris Droste]

sorry double post;

most software licenses for windows that i have seen are designed to be installed only to that machine, which is CPU/Mobo. if you're upgrading that area technically you should be purchasing a new copy of windows.. nontheless, even with a wireless kb for a build i did recently i came in under $700, however there wasn't any way i would be fitting a $200+ video card inside that envelope given that need to buy an OEM copy of windows. I can ignore the monitor/kb/mouse option (even though i also threw a mouse in for under that same $700) because you are in essence replacing an older system (in theory)