System Builder Marathon, Q2 2013: The $400 Spirit Of Mini-ITX

[basketcase87]

But by then, you'll have the lower end Haswell parts, plus both Nvidia and AMD will have faster discrete GPUs.

Kaveri's out in 2014 (heard it from the horse's mouth), btw, in case you were about to tell me that Nvidia's not releasing any other GPU this year.

Apparently you missed Computex. AMD said Kaveri will be out later this year.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-kaveri-temash-kabini-computex,22980.html

 

[RedJaron]

I'm going to sell the MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming mobo I got to review (with CPU to avoid bent-pin drama) then get the rest of the parts I need to build something like this as a daily driver.

Or, you know, you could just give it to me . . .

 

[loops]

As much as I would love to build one like this, I cant say I would when a Play station 4 yields more performance for about the same price. The PS4 is in reality as HTPC after all.

I hate to say it myself so feel free to down vote.

 

[jalagl]

I built a HTPC based on this case but with an A10-5700 Trinity Processor, 8GB of RAM, bluray drive and a 750GB 7200rpm hard drive. I also changed the fans for noctuas, and the heatsink for a Silverstone. It works great for gaming at 720p (yey steam big picture!) and it is very silent for HTPC duties.
All in all the cost came in at ~$500. I originally considered almost this exact build, but when adding the cost of the CPU (I was going to use a 35W i3), video card (this same 7750) it came in at around $650 at the time. I already have a gaming PC, so I went with the low cost option, and it has been great! I play more on this small PC than on my main one.

 

[Onus]

I'm going to sell the MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming mobo I got to review (with CPU to avoid bent-pin drama) then get the rest of the parts I need to build something like this as a daily driver.

Or, you know, you could just give it to me . . .

The money from selling it will be needed for the other parts

 

[slomo4sho]

The money from selling it will be needed for the other parts

I have one on the way in the mail as well What did you think of the board?

 

[tsnor]

"...I couldn't help but feel that the whole team had missed its mark...." Very very glad you built this system. I was a little disappointed that all of the other builds looked like mid-tower wanna-bes. This build shows why.

 

[jessterman21]

Love this one! I couldn't believe how small this thing is - and still has a discrete card. Perfect for 900p gaming on a living room TV. A great in-between generation console - lol

 

[JonnyDough]

You surely could have used a cheaper case. That would have allowed you to boost your graphics a bit more. Size is not everything.

 

[Onus]

The money from selling it will be needed for the other parts

I have one on the way in the mail as well What did you think of the board?

Loved it. My Newegg review of it is on 5/21.

 

[Oscarcharliezulu]

This was not a bad little build at all and more than ok for htpc duties or a PC for a young kid.

 

[Onus]

The more I think about this one, the more I almost like it. One of the draws of DiY building is how easy it is to repair a system you've built yourself. This one though, has a proprietary PSU you're not going to find quickly should it fail. I think you really need to move up to something that uses either a TFX or SFX PSU, something more readily available. If you're a business deploying these in a large office, or an Internet cafe with a dozen or more of them, it might be reasonable to have a few spares on hand, but for an individual builder, going to a more standard size probably makes more sense.

 

[ojas]

But by then, you'll have the lower end Haswell parts, plus both Nvidia and AMD will have faster discrete GPUs.

Kaveri's out in 2014 (heard it from the horse's mouth), btw, in case you were about to tell me that Nvidia's not releasing any other GPU this year.

Apparently you missed Computex. AMD said Kaveri will be out later this year.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-kaveri-temash-kabini-computex,22980.html

Apparently you missed the AMD press event in Bangalore on the 13th of June. Consumer Division head let it slip that it's coming next year.

 

[de5_Roy]

Apparently you missed the AMD press event in Bangalore on the 13th of June. Consumer Division head let it slip that it's coming next year.

wut?! is there a link to the revelation? the rumors and leaks i've been coming accross so far pointed towards a q4 2013 launch (oct, likely). q4 used to be fx cpu launch like bd and pd. since this year there won't(likely) be any cpu launch, kaveri would take it's place. could it be that kaveri will launch in india in 2014?
2014 is good too, it's not like intel will (ever) throw in an hd5000 or iris pro sku under $180.

 

[nvidiamd]

let me try

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1b931
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1b931/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1b931/benchmarks/

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 750K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($79.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A55M-DGS Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($32.98 @ Outlet PC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.98 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: Galaxy GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 1GB Video Card ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cougar Spike MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $402.91
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-06-28 08:09 EDT-0400

i cheated

 

[pauldh]

Nice build, makes me wonder how it would stack up to my old 4.0 GHz overclocked Core 2 Duo office PC. Which gets gamed on occasionally using its HD 6850 graphics card.

It games pretty well, but you'd have the edge. The G860 is about equivalent to Wolfdale at 3.8 GHz, so basically on par there. But even overclocked, the 7750 won't match 6850. In a few games, maybe, but not overall. Then if your 6850 is overclocked....

 

[pauldh]

When I read how it's smaller than the Tiki in every way, I got kinda excited. It is pretty neat how small (and thin) this thing is. How one could wish that more low-profile decent-performing cards were made. That HD 7850 by Afox is interesting.

Once the Kaveri APU's start rolling out, I wonder if you guys would end up choosing them over Intel CPU's + discrete GPU's for SFF builds like this or for any other budget configuration for that matter.

BTW, was the Athlon X4 750K/760K not chosen due to its power req. and heat or was it just not available at the time?

The AFOX 7850 has a dual-slot cooler I doubt would fit this case anyway. Real close, but I'd say it's probably a no go. Slot and a half thickness would be fine.

The 750K was not available until weeks after this was ordered, built, and fully tested. (The 760K still isn't available here.)

BUT, I still wouldn't have used one anyway. An FM2 motherboard cost quite a bit more than the cheapest H61's, which would dig right into the Graphics budget. There was nowhere else to give. So we'd end up with APU performance anyway sticking to < $400. With stock cooling and the 150W PSU, I wouldn't expect to get far overclocking either.

 

[pauldh]

This build definitely deserved an APU...

Nah, not for gaming. It would have been a step back in most games. Any CPU-limited settings we faced were fully playable with G860.

Keep in mind, the A10-6800K wasn't out yet, and the boards cost way more anyway. FM2 mobo + A10-5800K was doable, but I'd be limited to the stock cooler or this same DDR3-1600 RAM kit. I can almost guarantee folks would have jumped on me for a gimped APU build. Straight-up in cart price (no rebates, etc.) , the funds just were not there to do (an overclocked)5800K right, AND the final result would give up quite a bit of graphics performance compared to this rig's OC'ed HD 7750. Only thing better (within budget) in my mind for this build was G2020 + 7750.

I'd be interested to see an APU gaming machine in the far smaller ISK-110 VESA, but the 110W PSU is an issue (for now). Maybe someday I'll piece mine apart and go that route. Currently it's not for gaming though and Intel graphics are fine. I could even excuse a small drop in 3D performance (vs. 7750) if the build gets that much smaller, and yet still remains quiet and worthy of a home near the big screen.

 

[pauldh]

Great build for HTPC. But what person on a budget chooses to build a mini itx gaming machine?

Just a small minority, but the number is growing. People who already have a main gaming machine, or those where space or appearance trump all-out performance.

 

[pauldh]

The more I think about this one, the more I almost like it. One of the draws of DiY building is how easy it is to repair a system you've built yourself. This one though, has a proprietary PSU you're not going to find quickly should it fail. I think you really need to move up to something that uses either a TFX or SFX PSU, something more readily available. If you're a business deploying these in a large office, or an Internet cafe with a dozen or more of them, it might be reasonable to have a few spares on hand, but for an individual builder, going to a more standard size probably makes more sense.

Immediately impressed with airflow and the whole package, I quickly bought the same case and HD 7750 (had all the other supporting components already including i3, Z77, 8GB, SSD).

PSU replacement is the biggest concern for me also. But there are folks who have gutted it's shell and beefed it up with another unit. Agreed! SFX replacement ease would be very welcome!


**** I did want to mention something that disappeared from this story in edits for a better read.... some slight modification (bending or notching out) of the slot hinged mount is likely needed to use the Micro HDMI out. It's not a hard fix, but out of the box the cable and adapter I tried were both just a little too bulky to attach. (see rear build picture on assembly page)

 

[pauldh]

FINALLY! I agree this whole system builder was almost a fail.
Also, I can't believe you had a SG05 and didn't build with it,it has an awesome power supply. Again,if you weren't getting a disk drive the V3+ was the smaller, higher quality case than CM 120 ( though they're finished on newegg)
The obsession with ginormous cards in tiny places made your cases not tiny.Clearly,a more sensible build,like with a 670,would fit in a much smaller footprint.
The lack of the FT03 Mini is a fail. It's a Mac killing case,and should've been the go to case for the $2500 build, because at that price,my case better look it.
Otherwise I like that you were at least up to the challenge, and I applaud this last build.

Well, each builder was given one shot at this, and each had their own goals. So that is 3 enclosures out of quite a large number of options. (This $400 build wasn't planned, just IMO it needed to be done and Chris agreed).

Crash already stated why he didn't use the FT03. And really, although rather large, most folks loved his Prodigy build.

On the low end, the pictured SG05 (and V3+) are ones I bought myself, nothing to do with the SBM. Yes, personally that is exactly what I wanted to use for the $650 PC, along with a GTX 660 and 8GB if possible. Going in, that was my expectation for the Gaming PC. However, it was $115, robbing $25 more of this budget. I had to admit the $40 120 Elite with Tahiti LE grabbed far more sheer bang for the buck. More than ever this SBM I faced a conflict of interest between what would perform the best and what could best find a place in my own home.

 

[de5_Roy]

i liked the cm elite 120 in the $650 gaming build. i was a bit disappointed that powercolor/sapphire's 7870xt didn't have a kepler counterpart in that price segment. until gtx760 came out. asus has a plan for a gtx760 mini (like the gtx670 mini).
should you guys build mini itx pcs again, imo a cheap gtx 760 may be a contender for discreet gfx in the budget gaming pc.

 

[Adrianime]

So is the drawing for this giveaway today?

 

[g-unit1111]

I really want to do a small ITX build like this but I'm having a hard time finding a case I like. I really like that Chieftec FI-01 but I'm having a hard time finding it here in the US.

 

[Onus]

I think I'd use this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811108428 because it uses a standard TFX PSU, has a cooling fan, takes a full-sized optical drive, and has USB3.0 ports. It is around 495 cubic inches.