MiniITX Core Components

B

bastage

Pics of your wife?
Joined
Mar 4, 2010
Messages
12,874
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Mostly web, but light gaming & video work

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
2-3 hundread for this stage perferably, but not set in stone

3) Where do you live?
Idaho - No access to any B&M with decent prices. & I Will pay more at newegg then deal with anyone else.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
CPU, Mainboard, Ram??

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
RocketFish Full Tower, Corsair hx520, GeForce 8800GT (xfx with zalman), Seagate 320gb 7200.10, 8 Gb OCZ PC 1066 DDR2 (4x times 2 Gb), Lite-On Optical

6) Will you be overclocking?
Negative

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Haans G 281D 28" LCD @ 1920x1200

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
This week or next (maybe tonight)

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
PciE 16x & atleast 2 SATA & GbE ethernet

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
Yes, Vista Home Premium 64 Bit (used when gaming, but primarily use linux for day to day.


Basically I am torn between going with a 775 or a 1156 setup (unfortunately AMD inst an option due to no avail motherboards with a real PCIE).

I Know better performance of the 1156, But what I have now is overkill as it is so its not the end of the world. The rest of my curent parts will be used for now, But moved over to replacements to work with MicroITX Form Factor as needed. Video will probably end up as a 5770 in the next few months because I dig eyefinity (assuming it supports it)..



Edit: That or I just buy a SSD instead since it will all get replaced anyhow..
 
Last edited:
Go with 1156 and for now toss in an I3 and overclock it to 4Ghz. When you feel the need and have the extra cash later you can sell the chip and toss in an I7 860.
 
bastage said:
Basically I am torn between going with a 775 or a 1156 setup (unfortunately AMD inst an option due to no avail motherboards with a real PCIE).
Click to expand...

I'd go for the 775 setup if you're willing to buy a E8400 used. You can reuse the RAM you have now and this mobo:
$100 - ZOTAC G43ITX-A-E LGA 775 Intel G43 HDMI Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

Should cost about $220 for the mobo and CPU. You should be able to find the E8400 for $120 or so used.

That's better than paying $320 to $330 or so for a Core i3 + DFI P55 mobo + 2GB of DDR3 RAM.
 
In any of the above I will be running 4gb of ram in the end.. & I Will be selling my Phenom 9850 BE & asus M3nHD-HDMI board with 4gb or 8gb or ram once I figure out which I Get..

I am leaning towards Ram Board CPU if I go 1156.. Then sell my current setup to replace my next components..
 
Last edited:
ok so on a whim after already having everything added to my cart as above & about to place the order I trolled the Hot deals section & came across this. Well I ordered one of those SSD's instead & checked my local CL.. the one & only decent CPU on there is a C2D e6600 2.4 Ghz 65w for 60 bucks.. So I emailed about that & assumeing he still has it I will order ZOTAC G43ITX-A-E. & go for a lower powered slower system (I have my 2.5 Ghz quad right now Under Clocked to 1.2 Ghz anyhow so I should still be more then fine with a DC 2.4).. Plus then if I go for a single slot video I Can get the pc-q07 since its a bit smaller & I like it better then either of the newer ones..
 
With the G1 Intel drives, you'll need to run the manual wiper tool since they don't support TRIM. How often you need to run it will depend on your usage. Personally, I've been using mine for about 5 months now and have not noticed any slowdown, but it isn't in my main system.
 
90% of my usage will be web surfing (mostly 1 page even due to a damn annoying addictive webgame) So I dont imagine it will be too awfully bad on it.. I Plan though in another month or 2 ordering a 2nd one & stripe em as I Dont think that the 80gb capacity will last me forever.. & With em being the 1.8" drives I think that finding a place to mount them in pretty much any case wont be a problem (thinking 2 sided foam tape & mount to the bottom of the CD rom tray in a PC-q07)
 
so I Wasn't planning to buy the case yet, but in the end yesterday I spent a little over 300 & got the CPU, Main board & Lian Li PC-q07 case. In addition to the Intel x18m 80gb drive. I know I wont get the same overall performance as I would have with the above parts, but for the price difference I was able to include that SSD so the feel & overall effect should be much better with this build & also allowed me to speed up the process of actually changing to the MiniITX case..

So now I am just waiting for parts & then get to see how well my current 8800gt & hx520 go in. I am sure the video card will be easy, but the power supply is going to most likely eventually get changed to a lesser quality OCZ due to them having shorter cables & the corsairs being WAY more then I am going to want.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top