£1000 Bitfenix Prodigy Build

[Guest]

Hi guys, I am thinking of building my first PC in a mini-itx size chassis- I definitely want to use the bitfenix prodigy. I have chosen some parts and wondered if anyone had nay thoughts on what I should change or upgrade, or whether any of my parts are known to have issues- I have googled them.
Thanks in advance.

Intel Core i7 3770K £243
Asus P8Z77-I DELUXE £142
16GB Corsair Low Profile 1600Mhz CL9 RAM £69
eVGA GTX 660 Ti Superclocked+ 3GB £245
Bitfenix Prodigy £65
XFX 550W PSU £51
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO £28
Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD £70
Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD £56
Bitfenix Spectre Pro 200mm Fan £15

TOTAL: £984 + OS

 

[Sumukh_Bhagat]

I would surely change that SSD to OCZ Agility 4
That SSD doesn't reach the Marked speed.

Everything else is just awesome.
Are you a Gamer only? Or you do some Software work too?

 

[Guest]

Thnx for replying.
I do moderate gaming- minecraft, but intend for this to replace my console in the future.
I have chosen Nvidia over AMD for its CUDA cores, as I use photoshop and adobe illustrator (vector) quite a bit- i remember reading about OpenCl or something.

 

[manofchalk]

Make sure to get the black version of the Prodigy, the white version has a solid front panel instead of mesh and it completely chokes the front intake fan.

You'v made fairly good choices, not overly much to change.

I agree that there are better SSD's than the Kingston HyperX, though which one to get wll depend on how you use it. If its just going to be a standard OS drive, then get a Samsung 830. If its going to be a scratch disk, or a render output for video editing or something then the Vertex 4 is a better option.

Make sure that the RAM is dual channel (only two sticks) as the mobo only has two RAM slots.

Depending on how far you want to overclock, you may want to change the cooling. Heat is always going to be an issue in Small Form Factor builds and overclocking does generate more heat. If you can afford something like a H100i (which can fit if you sacrifice the optical drive) then I advise getting that if you are going to overclock somewhat hard.

Normally dont recommend EVGA because of its reference design cooling, but in this case its actually a good thing so its fine. However you dont need the 3GB model, the reference 2GB is more than enough for 1080p gaming.

Nvidia cards have CUDA on them, which can assist the CPU in certain applications (typically the Adobe Suite). However their OpenCL performance is quite weak compared to an AMD Radeon card, which far and away outstrip them in OpenCL performance. However Radeons dont have CUDA. So you will have to figure out which one is more important to the applications you use.
The equivalent Radeon card to the 660Ti is the 7950, both are pretty much the same for gaming performance with a slight edge to the 7950.

 

[Guest]

Thnx so much for this. I will go ahead and switch to the 2GB FTW edition of the eVGA card and this reduction in cost and loosing the 212 evo should mean i could a H100i, (maybe with a little extra cash). I think I'll stick with Nvidia, but thanks anyway.

 

[Guest]

Would I still need the 200mm intake front fan, or could I use the included 120mm?

 

[manofchalk]

You dont "need" the 200mm fan, but I would keep it in anyway. Larger fans dont have to spin as fast and as loud as smaller fans to achieve the same CFM (Cubic foot of air moved per minute) as smaller fans would have too.
Also means you have better airflow through the case, since the deadspot behind the fan motor is comparatively smaller with a 200mm fan.