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Help with a Smaller Form Gaming RIG

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  • Gaming
  • Power Supplies
  • Corsair
  • Computers
  • Build
  • Components
  • Cases
Last response: in Components
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September 26, 2014 5:05:20 PM

I been thinking of building an ITX computer. I was thinking the Corsair 250D or the Bitfenix Prodigy. Unless someone knows of a decent looking (non-tower, trying to get away from towers) Micro-ATX case.

The main reason is I want a decent rig that is smaller, since I have had a mid tower and a full tower. Also I do plan to overclock. Normally I would get a CM Hyper 212+, but it won't fit in the 250D case. So any recommendation on a Cooler.

Honestly I would like to keep the budget under $650 for now. I already have the HDDs, SSDs, and GPU.

Here are my specs. I just waiting on the GTX970 and it will be in my old build until I can get this one up and running.
Part's List

Any negative things about the motherboard I should know about?

Also how does RAM look? Do you think I will need to overclock it to prevent a bottleneck.

Last Question (hopefully:
Will my XFX 650W Gold PSU (I checked the list and it is a tier 2a) be sufficient for overclocking both the CPU and GPU? If not I could go to the XFX 750W Pro Series (this is a tier 1)

More about : smaller form gaming rig

a b 4 Gaming
a c 102 ) Power supply
September 26, 2014 5:17:02 PM

The XFX 650W is plenty for your system.
You will probably find you can get better value in a micro-ATX motherboard and mini-ITX.
Have a look at the Silverstone TJ08-E for a case. I have built systems in these with full size graphics cards and the Cooler master hyper 212 evo cpu cooler.
There isn't a lot of clearance between the back of the hard drive cage and the CPU cooler. If installing a lot of hard drives, consider moving the CPU cooler fan to the back of the heatsink in a pull configuration rather than push from the front.

On your question about RAM:
The CPU is designed to run with DDR3-1600 memory.
Anything faster than this is overclocking the memory controller in the CPU.
You will have no trouble with DDR3-1866. You just need to enable an XMP profile in the bios to run at DDR3-1866 speed.
I think this is plenty, but you could go to DDR3-2133 if you like and the CPU should cope with this.
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September 26, 2014 5:20:23 PM

I am personally in love with the Carbide Series from Corsair. Really looking to build my own mini build in the next year and I will definitely be using this case.

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Carbide-Airflow-MicroATX-...

Edit: H100i would be perfect in this.
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September 26, 2014 5:45:27 PM

I thought about the H100i. It would be a tight fit and would knock out the Optical drive (which I honestly don't plan on having. I haven't used mine in quite a long time beyond intial install. I think that case you showed me is also not bad at all. I will have to research more into though. Still probably going with 250D at the moment, but that case is nice lol. I may need to rethink the mini-ITX idea. That would allow for pci-e SSD expansion later lol.

Thanks VincentP. That answers the RAM question. I looked into getting higher RAM, but after a certain point (I think somewhere between 1600 and 1866) it isn't worth it as much to me. I may even drop it back to 1600
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