Mini-ITX (Gaming) Build - Please advise

[StroggCake]

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2yQZ9
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2yQZ9/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2yQZ9/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£139.98 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H77N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1155 Motherboard (£84.07 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£56.83 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£125.64 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 270 2GB Video Card (£129.94 @ Ebuyer)
Optical Drive: Samsung SN-208DB/BEBET DVD/CD Writer (£15.13 @ CCL Computers)
Other: Sugo SG05 (£31.80)
Other: Silverstone ST45SF 450W (£60.54)
Other: CPU Cooler - Cooler Master GeninII (£22.00)
Total: £665.93
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-10 10:04 GMT+0000)

I'd like to get peoples opinions on the above build. It'll be a PC for work/gaming/video and audio editing. I chose the Sugo case as I wanted it basically as small as possible for portability and non-intrusiveness. I'm tried to keep space in mind when choosing parts. I would go with the 125GB EVO ... but I'm honestly not sure it's enough space for games and other things. I have a 500gb HD from my old laptop I will use for extra storage. GPU wise £130 is definitely as far as I can go, so I thought the 270 was a good pick over say a 7850 which is preferable cost wise. Games I'll be playing won't be too intensive I don't think, Skyrim, Guild Wars 2 .. I'd like to think I can max them out, but I don't want to have to upgrade anytime soon if I want to play some things that are to come out in the next year. With regards to mobo and cpu, I don't plan to overclock, which is why I went for those.

Any comments/suggestions are welcome - thank you in advance!

 

[Rammy]

It's really nice, very sensible. There isn't much that necessarily should be changed.

What I would say is that it's relatively expensive for what you get at the end. The case for example, is great value, but it boxes you into using an SFX PSU which is pretty expensive for the wattage, and it's not the most reusable PSU either.
My suggestion for a similar setup would be the Coolermaster Elite 120/130 and XFX Core 550 PSU. This gives you a similar (slightly longer) case, full sized ODD, and a quality standard sized PSU which can be used and reused for a variety of builds (like if you wanted to upgraded the graphics card for example). Approximate saving ~£15

Couple of other notes -
It doesn't make much difference, but the general solution is 2*4Gb of ram to enable dual channel mode. Given that it's unlikely you'll ever need to upgrade to 16Gb, there isn't a huge amount of need for you to leave a slot free. Either way works though.
A 250Gb SSD on a smaller budget only really makes sense if you have a specific purpose for it. It's not outrageously expensive, but it is more expensive than a 128Gb+1TB HDD which is the generalised "value" solution right now, which arguably gives a much better allocation. Even then, if you want to keep costs down you can make a case for dropping the SSD altogether.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a 3470, but if you wanted to chop off some cash to try and get it below say £600, then you could drop this to a 3330 or 3350P for a £10-20 saving without really losing any significant performance.
The CPU cooler is effectively superfluous. For it's price, it's not bad at all, but the stock cooler is perfectly sufficient, low profile, and free. It's hard to make a case for adding a cooler unless you really want to alter the acoustics somehow, and then it's always something you can retrofit as needed.
At £130, the R9 270 is great value, especially relative to say the GTX660, though I'd say the HD7870XT is also worth consideration as it's significantly faster and not a huge amount more expensive. The 270 does use quite a bit less power though.

 

[StroggCake]

It's really nice, very sensible. There isn't much that necessarily should be changed.

What I would say is that it's relatively expensive for what you get at the end. The case for example, is great value, but it boxes you into using an SFX PSU which is pretty expensive for the wattage, and it's not the most reusable PSU either.
My suggestion for a similar setup would be the Coolermaster Elite 120/130 and XFX Core 550 PSU. This gives you a similar (slightly longer) case, full sized ODD, and a quality standard sized PSU which can be used and reused for a variety of builds (like if you wanted to upgraded the graphics card for example). Approximate saving ~£15

Couple of other notes -
It doesn't make much difference, but the general solution is 2*4Gb of ram to enable dual channel mode. Given that it's unlikely you'll ever need to upgrade to 16Gb, there isn't a huge amount of need for you to leave a slot free. Either way works though.
A 250Gb SSD on a smaller budget only really makes sense if you have a specific purpose for it. It's not outrageously expensive, but it is more expensive than a 128Gb+1TB HDD which is the generalised "value" solution right now, which arguably gives a much better allocation. Even then, if you want to keep costs down you can make a case for dropping the SSD altogether.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a 3470, but if you wanted to chop off some cash to try and get it below say £600, then you could drop this to a 3330 or 3350P for a £10-20 saving without really losing any significant performance.
The CPU cooler is effectively superfluous. For it's price, it's not bad at all, but the stock cooler is perfectly sufficient, low profile, and free. It's hard to make a case for adding a cooler unless you really want to alter the acoustics somehow, and then it's always something you can retrofit as needed.
At £130, the R9 270 is great value, especially relative to say the GTX660, though I'd say the HD7870XT is also worth consideration as it's significantly faster and not a huge amount more expensive. The 270 does use quite a bit less power though.

That's incredibly helpful, thank you. Slightly updated, and happily cheaper -

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2ySu1
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2ySu1/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2ySu1/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£139.98 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H77N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1155 Motherboard (£84.07 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Avexir Core Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£59.90 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£70.59 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon HD 7870 XT 2GB Video Card (£143.46 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case (£36.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£47.12 @ CCL Computers)
Other: Old Laptop 500GB HD (Purchased)
Total: £582.11
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-10 11:48 GMT+0000)

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It's funny you mention the alterations you did. The builds I'd planned before included the Cooler Master Case amongst others, but I thought in the end to go for the smallest case I could compromise the price a little. But actually, you make a good point that it'll be much better in the long run to have a reliable PSU ... I would really like this build to last a long time!

CPU similarly, I had the 3350P down before, but I changed my mind after reading this article: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/build-your-own-gaming-pc-core-i5,review-32853-2.html - It made it sound like there would be a justfiable difference in the two, so I thought for £12 extra it'd be worth it. Do you think the performance is extremely marginal? I wouldn't say no to knocking it back if that was the case.

I agree with you on the GPU, it stings a little bit but after comparing the specs they are quite far apart in performance .. but at least with this case I don't need to worry about card length like I did before, which was a little part of the justification of that 270 card. I'm assuming I won't have any trouble with power issues with the 7870XT with the XFX PSU?

I think I was going overboard a bit on the 250GB SDD, so I halved it. I think I'll cope more than fine.

CPU Cooler wise - I didn't realise the stock was a low profile cooler. I assumed that all stock coolers are too big for Mini-ITX builds/cases. That's not the case then? Thank you for that!

So to solidify what remains ... is the CPU performance between the 3350P and 3470 justified for £12 in your opinion? Or is it purely the case that I'm just paying for the same ratio of performance. And another question - should I buy any extra fans or configure the ones that come with the case differently? I'm not very experienced in this area, but I read on a bit-tech review of the case that having a pull in/push out system worked a lot better?

Thanks again for your swift reply.

 

[Rammy]

Glad it's been helpful. Like I said, there was nothing "wrong" with your original build, but if you can trim some money (especially £100) without really compromising much then it's definitely worth a look.

The PSU is plenty for the XFX, the biggest difference is that the R9 270 needs a single 6pin PCIe power connector, and the HD7870XT requires two, though the difference in power consumption isn't as dramatic as that would suggest. It does mean that you have an extra cable in a confined space, and extra power consumption can have negative effects in both heat and noise generation, but as a bang-for-buck prospect, the HD7870XT is very hard to beat. The R9 270 is a great card as it's displaced the GTX660 as the best performing single PCIe power cable card. Given that most 400-450W PSUs only have a single cable, and a lot of SFX are limited to around that capacity, it could definitely be a front runner in a lot of smaller builds.

The Intel stock cooler has varied a little over the years, but they are all around 40-50mm or so in height, usually shorter than most low profile aftermarket coolers, in fact you can find ram that has taller heatsinks. It's not the greatest cooler in the world and personally, I found mine a little whiney at times, but it's perfectly sufficient for the job.

The CPU thing is really up to you. It's pretty safe to say you'd never be able to notice the difference between those three processors as a user, as we are talking about incremental kind of gains. If you are happy to spend the extra £12 then you might as well get the 3470. What that extra £12 buys you is 0.1Ghz on the base clock, and an improved turbo mode (up to 3.6Ghz vs 3.3Ghz). Perhaps more significantly, the 3470 has onboard graphics, which does give you a bit more flexibility if you re-purpose the system as a home theatre or something somewhere down the line.

The Elite 130 is never going to be great airflow really, it's too compromised by it's layout which is more to accommodate as many full sized components as it can in a small package, but it's plenty sufficient for someone who isn't trying to cool a monster graphics card or overclock. Altering the fan directions is possible, but I'm not sure it'll be necessary, and there isn't really much scope for extra fans. If you are on the fence about the Elite 130, then you should have a glance at the link below. It's a (semi finished) run through of ITX cases (and other stuff) to see if anything else catches your eye. I reckon the 130 is a pretty value good bet, but if you wanted improved aesthetics or cooling then there are a lot of nice cases on the market.

 

[StroggCake]

Glad it's been helpful. Like I said, there was nothing "wrong" with your original build, but if you can trim some money (especially £100) without really compromising much then it's definitely worth a look.

The PSU is plenty for the XFX, the biggest difference is that the R9 270 needs a single 6pin PCIe power connector, and the HD7870XT requires two, though the difference in power consumption isn't as dramatic as that would suggest. It does mean that you have an extra cable in a confined space, and extra power consumption can have negative effects in both heat and noise generation, but as a bang-for-buck prospect, the HD7870XT is very hard to beat. The R9 270 is a great card as it's displaced the GTX660 as the best performing single PCIe power cable card. Given that most 400-450W PSUs only have a single cable, and a lot of SFX are limited to around that capacity, it could definitely be a front runner in a lot of smaller builds.

The Intel stock cooler has varied a little over the years, but they are all around 40-50mm or so in height, usually shorter than most low profile aftermarket coolers, in fact you can find ram that has taller heatsinks. It's not the greatest cooler in the world and personally, I found mine a little whiney at times, but it's perfectly sufficient for the job.

The CPU thing is really up to you. It's pretty safe to say you'd never be able to notice the difference between those three processors as a user, as we are talking about incremental kind of gains. If you are happy to spend the extra £12 then you might as well get the 3470. What that extra £12 buys you is 0.1Ghz on the base clock, and an improved turbo mode (up to 3.6Ghz vs 3.3Ghz). Perhaps more significantly, the 3470 has onboard graphics, which does give you a bit more flexibility if you re-purpose the system as a home theatre or something somewhere down the line.

The Elite 130 is never going to be great airflow really, it's too compromised by it's layout which is more to accommodate as many full sized components as it can in a small package, but it's plenty sufficient for someone who isn't trying to cool a monster graphics card or overclock. Altering the fan directions is possible, but I'm not sure it'll be necessary, and there isn't really much scope for extra fans. If you are on the fence about the Elite 130, then you should have a glance at the link below. It's a (semi finished) run through of ITX cases (and other stuff) to see if anything else catches your eye. I reckon the 130 is a pretty value good bet, but if you wanted improved aesthetics or cooling then there are a lot of nice cases on the market.

That's fab. That website is great, wish I'd found it months ago! I'm happy to go with the 3350P then to be honest.

Sorry to natter on - but I want to make sure I get this right before buying. Do you think airflow issue with the CM 130, even be it a small one because I'm not overclocking or anything, will negatively affect the internal components over a long period of time? I'm happy to spend £20 more on a Fractal Design 304 if it means things will last years longer ...

Thanks again - nearly there!

 

[Rammy]

Its a thread I'm updating here and there and linking into threads like this. Should save me some typing and having all the pics in one place is handy.

The Node doesnt have provision for an ODD, so you'd need to buy an external one. Not a big drama but a little cumbersome if you use it often and want to move the system around.
You shouldn't have any issues with component life in the 130, but like any new system its worth check your load temps after you build to make sure its working ok. You can always fiddle with the fan directions then, but I'm not sure Id want an exhaust facing me.