First you have to start with the case. The case will more or less determine how powerful you can make the system, especially if you're looking for one with a pre-included power supply. You'll need one with good airflow, and if you want an aftermarket CPU cooler, you'll need to pay attention to how much room you have for it. Often mini-ITX cases don't have space for a dual-slot graphics card, which puts a huge cap on your options for a decent GPU, since unfortunately even mainstream cards these days sport a double-decker cooler.
The case I chose, pictured above, is the SilverStone Sugo Series SG05BB-450-USB3.0. A mistake that a lot of builders make when going ITX is picking a large case that almost defeats the purpose of the form factor. This SilverStone case addresses almost every concern a PC builder might have with an ITX gaming rig. It's less than a foot across in any direction, at 8.74" x 6.93" x 10.87", making it no bigger than your average mini-ITX case, and perhaps even smaller. It supports full-width expansion cards, and in this case a dual-slot graphics card up to ten inches long, with an open grill on the left side so the cooler has plenty of airflow. This opens it up to nearly any typical graphics card that the 450W PSU can handle. The PSU included is a very high-efficiency model, and should tolerate being pushed near its maximum rated output. The cooling is supplied by a generous 120mm fan (included) mounted in-front, with ventilation all around the rear of the case. The vertical space afforded to CPU coolers is said to be 82mm, which is quite decent. It's a very impressive all-around package and you won't find many others that can outdo it at this size.
The second thing you're going to want to look at is the motherboard. Mini-ITX boards are impressive little components, cramming probably about 90% of what a full-sized motherboard would have, at a price that's very comparable. I have two examples here, depending on what your budget is and if you want built-in WiFi.
The first one that I have shown above is the Asus P8H77-I, which can be had for $100. It does not have WiFi or bluetooth, so you'll need USB adapters for those features. It does however have Lucid Virtu MVP, which is rather nifty for leveraging the integrated graphics on modern Intel CPUs in order to save power or have some extra features. I won't explain what those are so I encourage you to look up the technology for more info on that.
The other option I chose is the Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI, which is priced $30 more than the Asus board, but comes with many more connectivity options, such as WiFi, bluetooth, dual ethernet, and even WiDi for displays that support wireless video input.
With either option, it doesn't look as though the power circuitry is particularly robust, and given the limited space for cooling on a mini-ITX system, don't expect to be doing major overclocking. You won't be able to do much of that anyway if you go with my choice on the CPU...
I decided to go with an S-series Ivy Bridge processor at an even $200: the Core i5 3450. Why S series? Well it's a binned part rated for lower power consumption, which usually means less heat, and in a mini-ITX system it's a good idea to keep your heat output low so everything can coexist happily in close proximity to each other. Obviously the processor choice is pretty open-ended, and with the case I chose you can install an after-market cooler and put in a faster processor -- even a K series one if you like playing with multipliers.
My focus was to find a cheap quad-core processor, as these days being mini-ITX is no excuse not to have one, and any i5 processor at about 3GHz is enough to unleash the full potential of your graphics card, so there's not much reason to shoot for more. The 3450 runs at 2.8GHz, but has a very nice Turbo speed of 3.5GHz, so it's an inexpensive, low-power, flexible processor that seems a nice fit for this build.
RAM is also pretty open-ended, but I chose the G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB at 2133MHz because it's only $10 than most DDR3-1600 equivalents, and gets you a nice bump in bandwidth. 1600MHz is considered pretty moderate (or even low-end), and there are cases where you can see benefits with more bandwith, so why not spring for the extra ten bills? Alternatively you can go for 16GB depending on how long you want the system to last, but 8GB isn't close to being saturated by home user demands right now.
Lastly we have the graphics card. I went with the MSI GTX 660 because it's one of the cheaper 660s and seems to have a nice a cooler. The GTX 660 is one of the most power efficient cards on the market right now, and the amazing thing is that for a little over $200, it gets you very close to the performance of a GTX 580 from the last generation! At the moment, it's hard to justify spending much more than that, as this card will handily max out any current game at the usual 1920 resolution. Only pay for more if your screen has a higher resolution, or you want a card that will better withstand next-gen games like Crysis 3.
The last two items I'll leave to you. You may or may not want an optical drive, and with the SilverStone case your only option is a slim type internal model. A simple DVD-RW will be just as cheap as a full-size version, but if you want Blu-ray playback that will be a little harder to find, and obviously pretty costly.
The case accepts both 2.5" and 3.5" storage drives, but in all honesty you'd be a fool not to go with a SSD. Samsung's 840 Pro series is the current fastest available, and you'll be able to get one in a couple weeks when they release on November 6. You can get a slightly slower SSD right now for less than a dollar a gig, which means you can have ~500GB for the same price I paid for 240GB last year. That's pretty insane, and unless you're archiving media I doubt you'd ever need more than that.
-----------------
I have to be honest, if I was buying a new gaming computer right now, a mini-ITX rig would rank pretty high on my list of choices. The fact is that you can have full desktop performance in a case that could actually sit on your desk, even if yours isn't deluxe-sized. Gaming laptops can do the same thing, but with the added screen, battery, and necessary inputs, they'll also run you a pretty penny. A mini-ITX rig is a great way to have all that compact performance without paying a premium. The system I configured above can be had for less than $1,000, and has the option to handle faster components with a larger budget.
There's something very appealing about the efficiency of having such a small form factor doing what you would do with full tower system four times as large. If space economy matters to you, there's scarcely a reason not go with a mini-ITX gaming rig. With computers, size really doesn't matter, and your e-penis won't suffer should you choose a small case.
No comments:
Post a Comment