Looking for ways to improve this ITX build?

fraser2799 · Apr 4, 2014

Is there any way to improve this build? I am planning to overclock in the future and i dont need to worry about cooling as i have a few 120mm fans from my previous build. I also dont need to worry about an OS system. my budget is £650.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£166.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI Z87I Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (£91.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (£55.83 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.24 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 270X 2GB Video Card (£148.69 @ CCL Computers)
Case: BitFenix Prodigy (Black) Mini ITX Tower Case (£69.95 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£52.96 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £628.65
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-04 10:07 BST+0100)

Help would be appreciated, thanks

Rammy · Apr 4, 2014

At your budget level - ditch the 4670K and Z87, you'll get a better overall machine this way, assuming your usage is gaming/general purpose. You can easily save £50+ here, and you can push these funds into ideally graphics, but also the PSU. Remember that going down the OC route also means you need to factor in the cost of a suitable CPU cooler, which is likely to push you considerably over budget.

Memory needs to be changed, it's a pcpartpicker error (fairly easy to spot, it's "too" cheap). I'd suggest sticking with 1600/1866, 1.5V CAS8/9 kits, depending on which motherboard chipset you go for.
PSU is pretty low quality, and given you can pick up a quality XFX 550 (non modular) unit for £45, it's not really necessary. In a Prodigy, there isn't a huge benefit to having a modular/semi modular PSU.

With a bit of fiddling, you can have an i5+GTX770 build for your money, and if gaming is the goal, that'd be a far better balanced system at your budget level.

fraser2799 · Apr 4, 2014

What processor would I get instead of the i5-4670k and the motherboard?
And what RAM would you suggest?

Rammy · Apr 4, 2014

What I was alluding to was something like this -
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£127.19 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H87N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (£88.74 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£58.63 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.00 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card (£239.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: BitFenix Prodigy (Black) Mini ITX Tower Case (£69.95 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£44.98 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £668.48
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-04 15:59 BST+0100)

It's a bit over budget, but that's mainly due to the fact that I included Wifi (when you can save quite a bit if you don't need it - up to £42 to be saved here depending on your preferences) and currently there aren't any well priced memory kits on pcpartpicker (all the good prices are incorrect - on a good day you can comfortably get a similar kit for £50). Still, it's in the rough area of your budget, and its about as good as you will get for a gaming build.

fraser2799 · Apr 4, 2014

But the processor you recommended isn't capable of over clocking?

Rammy · Apr 4, 2014

Nope, if you want to overclock, then it's Z87+4670K, but the question is whether or not that will actually give you better performance, relatively speaking.

An Intel overclocking build is at least £70-100 more expensive than the equivalent non-overclocking equivalent due to three additional expenses, and in most gaming scenarios, this isn't going to give you a significant performance boost.

At your budget level, I don't think an overclocking build makes a huge amount of sense. Going with the MSI board means you are pretty limited on CPU coolers, and you'd probably want to go for some sort of closed loop cooler in the H60/H80i/H100i vein, which is a significant bump to your cost (+£50-80). You are probably looking at nearer to £900-1000 budget before an OC build starts to become more viable.

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