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Mini-ITX Gaming Build?

E

EtherealConstruct

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 4, 2009
Messages
216
The parts:

APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX w/250 Watt PSU- 45.99
SAPPHIRE 100245L Radeon HD 4850 512MB- 159.99
ePower EP-450CD 450W 5.25 Drive Bay Micro GPU/CPU Power Supply- 95.99
MSI IM-Q35 Motherboard – 235
Thermaltake CL-P0187 1U, 2U Copper CPU Cooler- 39.99
Intel E8400- 159.99
Mushkin 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 – 29.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 3.5" 250GB- 54.99

Some questions:
Recommend a cheap external DVD/CD drive? Is it worth it to upgrade instead to an external Blu-ray drive since the DVD/CD external drives are still expensive? Recommend a cheaper mobo with PCIe x16? Will the HD4850 be bottlenecked in a PCIex16 slot? Will it all fit?

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.
 
a 450w drive psu is a prolly a bit overkill for your needs. i think 250 should cover everything except the gpu. if you dig through the hp slimline thread, they've managed to power a q9300 with only 180w.

also, any reason you want to do mini itx?
 
Yea, I think I could go with the 350W version if only for the GPU. I wanted to do Mini-ITX because I thought it would be fun to try to fit the most power into a very small form- factor, also being ideal for LANning and things like that.
 
You're not the first to try it. :p

Suggestion, wait for Silverstone's Sugo SG05 case; it's supposed to launch this month with a standard 300W SFX PSU, for around $150 if the conversions hold.

That TT heatsink will be loud as hell, and not particularly effective. Again, Sugo. You'll have more options then.

Oh, and last but not least: Sugo has a slim-type DVD bay already, so any notebook drive will work.
 
The sugo case looks interesting, but it is expensive. I save money (though I may sacrifice performance) by sticking to this build. Also, I don't know if the Sugo's 300W PSU will support a 4850. It has a recommended power supply of 450W I believe?

I actually only chose the TT cooler because it looked slim lol, because I think it has to fit on the processor but not be high enough that it touches the power supply, which goes in the CD slot. Should I go with passive cooling? What other cooling options are there?
 
Yes, the 300W will be fine with a 4850- especially if you are fine with an e8xxx instead of a Q9xxx.

As such, the SG05's $150 tag will be the same as your Apex case and auxiliary PSU, and you won't have to mod the case for better airflow or give up your optical drive.
 
In addition to mavalpha's comments, the 300W PSU in the SUGO case would probably be of significantly better quality than the ePower PSU you listed considering the quality of Silverstone ATX PSUs.

Oh and $30 is a horrible price for 2GB of RAM considering that you can get 4GB of RAM for $10 more:
G.Skill F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ 2 x 2GB DDR2 800 RAM - $40

If you only want 2GB of RAM, try to find 2GB RAM sets for around ~$20
 
Anyone see the Antec Skeleton Mini for mITX boards? Looks interesting.
 
Might have problems fitting it in. The HD4850 is about twice as long as the tiny mini-ITX form factor.
 
the mx-100 will fit cards ~12" long, you'll just need to put a mesh panel on the side, or you'll get no airflow...
 
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