What combo for multimedia MiniITX?

R

reb00tin

Gawd
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I had decided on ASUS Z87I-DELUXE + i5-5675C for the Iris Pro. But then I realized that the Z87I might not boot with a Broadwell, so I changed to ASUS Z97I-PLUS + i5-5675C

But it looks like Broadwell will not launch. So next gen Skylake, I don't see any mini-ITX and Skylake has no Iris Pro. Any ideas?
 
What do you plan to do with it? Are you strictly planning to use it for video viewing? Or do you want to game with it, do video transcoding, etc?
 
If you want to play some light games you can get a low power discrete GPU like the GTX 750.
 
Thank you. We want a small box, so no discrete GPU. No gaming here whatsoever. Broadwell was vaporware, there are no ITX mobos for Skylake, and I don't want to go back 2 generartions to Z77. I've seen the BRIX, don't like, bad reviews too.

Will Skylake get better? Usually the mobos are out by the time CPU launches. I bet though that Skylake ITX will idle at 5-10 watts with picoPSU.
 
i've built small form factor systems with gtx 750s. just by looking at the iris pro 6200 benches, i'm betting the performance is pretty close.

btw tigerdirect seems to have broadwell in stock.
 
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I'm still waiting on the 5775c to hit at msrp before I get it, if I can't I will wait till I can get a cpu with crystalwell.
 
rennyf77 said:
i've built small form factor systems with gtx 750s. just by looking at the iris pro 6200 benches, i'm betting the performance is pretty close.

btw tigerdirect seems to have broadwell in stock.
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I can't give you a conclusive review to point to because the idiots who reviewed Iris Pro 6200 have no fucking clue how to review an integrated graphics card.

But I can give you an indirect comparison:


The Anandtech review with the R7 240 finds in 5 total benches: 1 they are equal, 2 Broadwell is only 20% faster In two games the Iris Pro 6200 is 50% faster. So average of about 30% faster?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9320/intel-broadwell-review-i7-5775c-i5-5675c/7

In this Tom's hardware review the GT 640 is much faster than the R7 240, about 20% faster.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r7-240-and-250,3717-8.html

So call it the GT 640 is slightly slower than Broadwell.

Then see this review:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_750_OC/25.html

The GTX 750 is 2.4 times faster than the GT 640! So accounting for Broadwell IGP being slightly faster, that ratio is closer to 2.0x!

This means that AT REASONABLY HIGH QUALITY SETTINGS when your IGP gets 25fps, the GTX 750 will be getting 50 fps. That's no joke a HUGE difference!

Also, in terms of ULTIMATE VALUE GAMING, the Core i3 can't be beat. You can get a Core i3 plus GTX 750 for almost half the price of Iris Pro 6200, and there GTX 750 cards are TINY.
 
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ehh...all i can say is i've played with 7850k builds, ivy bridge with hd 7750/r7 250/gtx 750, and haswell with hd 7750/r7 250/ gtx 750. outside of being hamstrung by amd's lower ipc, the 512 sp amd gpu(r7 in the 7850k is the same as the hd 7750) when paired with a faster intel cpu is not necessarily massively faster than the intel paired with a gtx 750.

i reckon the gaming performance when we're talking about these small systems is to get 30fps with as much eye candy as possible while being as close to 1080p as possible. depending on the game, the 7750 can trail the gtx 750 by a few frames to an entire graphic preset.

if one wanted to be able to game with a pc the size of a mac mini, the 7850k (now the 7870k) was the only option. with broadwell a user will get as close to intel+gtx 750 performance while achieving the mac mini form factor.
 
rennyf77 said:
ehh...all i can say is i've played with 7850k builds, ivy bridge with hd 7750/r7 250/gtx 750, and haswell with hd 7750/r7 250/ gtx 750. outside of being hamstrung by amd's lower ipc, the 512 sp amd gpu(r7 in the 7850k is the same as the hd 7750) when paired with a faster intel cpu is not necessarily massively faster than the intel paired with a gtx 750.

i reckon the gaming performance when we're talking about these small systems is to get 30fps with as much eye candy as possible while being as close to 1080p as possible. depending on the game, the 7750 can trail the gtx 750 by a few frames to an entire graphic preset.

if one wanted to be able to game with a pc the size of a mac mini, the 7850k (now the 7870k) was the only option. with broadwell a user will get as close to intel+gtx 750 performance while achieving the mac mini form factor.
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That was my thinking too. The only new IGP that beats AMD's APUs is Broadwell with Iris Pro, that's why I picked it. AMD is another good choice, but the selection of mini-ITX AMD mobos is dismal. Why is that BTW? It's almost as if ASUS is boycotting AMD. The 7870k will do 4k video but available mobos don't even have DisplayPort.
 
Skylake has 4 itx mobos out so far. Asrock gaming, asrock z170m, gigabyte gaming 5, and the evga stinger. Go with the z170m if you want to save money or gigabyte if you want performance.
 
If you're strictly using this as an entertainment or media PC. I think your two primary concerns should be 1. Sound when operating, as there is no reason it shouldn't be silent. 2. Power consumption. With that said, my recommendation goes to whichever ASUS (as you seen to like ASUS) motherboard has the features you want. And pair it with a Haswell i3 or wait until you can get a Skylake i3. The i3 will use less power, and create less heat so your PC will run more quiet. They also pack a little punch for what they are. Even if you were to game, an i3 can really pull its weight. I just don't feel that an i5 is something you would need, it is one hell of a processor and is very capable of multitasking and gaming. The i3 would be more than enough for media. Good Luck!
 
P.S in addition to my post, if you spent $100 less on the CPU by getting an i3 vs the i5, you could get an Nvidia GTX 750 Ti which is your best bet in terms of GPU performance in a media PC
 
As computer enthusiasts we all try to spend as littles as possible to achieve our specific goal. What's the use of having all this hardware knowledge and not use to save ourselves or anybody else some money. We forget that there are users like the op who want to achieve something very specific and are willing to spend the money to do so. Broadwell seems to be the only desktop intel part that uses iris pro for graphics. If I wanted to build a nuc or mac mini sized pc that can game, my only options are amd apu's or broadwell. The only reason I chimed in was because I've been thinking of trying doing the same as op. I have plenty of experience building small systems with ivy or haswell chips with a single slot gtx 750, but none with a potentially smaller system with broadwell.
 
rennyf77 said:
As computer enthusiasts we all try to spend as littles as possible to achieve our specific goal. What's the use of having all this hardware knowledge and not use to save ourselves or anybody else some money. We forget that there are users like the op who want to achieve something very specific and are willing to spend the money to do so. Broadwell seems to be the only desktop intel part that uses iris pro for graphics. If I wanted to build a nuc or mac mini sized pc that can game, my only options are amd apu's or broadwell. The only reason I chimed in was because I've been thinking of trying doing the same as op. I have plenty of experience building small systems with ivy or haswell chips with a single slot gtx 750, but none with a potentially smaller system with broadwell.
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I'm glad somebody gets it. Also, I think it's dumb to spend a premium for the latest CPU with iGPU, then disable its iGPU and stick in a VGA card with a noisy fan. Might as well use an old dual-core Athlon.

Iris Pro is the only reason to prefer Intel over an AMD APU, and also the fact that AMD mini-ITX mobos for the A10 are dismal compared to Intel offerings.
 
different strokes for different folks. referring to pairing a powerful cpu with a powerful gpu as dumb is a bit extreme don't you think? i personally own several computers of varying size. my gaming towers are huge and loud as fuck but they're heavily overclocked. as to the limited selection of apu mitx boards, its a shame that the consumer support wasn't there as the release of the kaveri chips also included a huge variety of mitx boards.
 
You will see the benefit of having L4 on Broadwell even if you don't use the iGPU.
 
rennyf77 said:
different strokes for different folks. referring to pairing a powerful cpu with a powerful gpu as dumb is a bit extreme don't you think? i personally own several computers of varying size. my gaming towers are huge and loud as fuck but they're heavily overclocked. as to the limited selection of apu mitx boards, its a shame that the consumer support wasn't there as the release of the kaveri chips also included a huge variety of mitx boards.
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I agree with the strokes part.:)

Why pay a premium price $300+ for a Broadwell CPU with buil-in GPU and then disable the iGPU? Get an Athlon then. The whole point of Broadwell is high-end 4K multimedia PC in a tiny box.
 
looking to game at 4k is a big stretch. if a gtx 750 can't game at 4k you can be certain the iris pro 6200 won't either. video playback will be fine. i agree with you that broadwell, as long as its packed with iris pro, is unmatched for micro multimedia builds. with skylake available, someone looking to build a chiefly gaming pc would be very foolish to go with broadwell.
 
Intel Broadwell NUC

I built several of these for the office. Simply awesome. Literally fits in the palm of your hand.
 
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