Today’s $400 PC wasn’t built to be a workhorse, and we’re even glad that it performed respectably through our application testing. But now it’s time to see if the compact enclosure and low-profile graphics card possess the fortitude for gaming. I ran both of our current configurations through five matching resolutions.
Battlefield 3
Frame rates in our Battlefield 3 single-player campaign sequence are almost entirely limited by graphics hardware, and not by processing resources. The multiplayer game is entirely different. But I’ve played through the entire single-player campaign on a dual-core Pentium and already know these CPUs are all capable of doing it.

The Medium quality preset appears perfectly tuned for our Radeon HD 7750 graphics card. The cheap build survives through 1920x1080, yielding the 45 FPS average I set as a minimum requirement.
Sporting beefier graphics, the other two machines beg for higher-quality settings.

The Ultra quality preset enables maximum details and 4x MSAA, limiting the overclocked $400 PC to our lowest tested 1280x720 resolution. In stock form, however, it necessitates a drop to 2x MSAA where, interestingly, it delivers the same exact average and minimum frame rates as the overclocked configuration does with 4x MSAA.
Meanwhile, the two more potent rigs survive this game all the way through 1920x1080, although we’d prefer the $500 machine’s Radeon HD 7850 be overclocked.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, only the cheapest configuration appears graphics-bound at High quality settings. However, even in stock form, it delivers a minimum of 45 frames per second through the highest tested resolution.


Our two pricier PCs remain playable at all resolutions, yielding mostly processor-limited frame rates though Ultra quality details with 8x MSAA. Even the stock $500 PC never drops below 45 FPS at 1920x1080.
The slim $400 build comes up a bit short, requiring lowered anti-aliasing settings to maintain smooth framerates. But, on my couch in front of our 40” 1080p TV, I’d certainly be happier with this overclocked $400 PC at Ultra details, 4x MSAA, and 16x AF than a current-gen console.

- An Inexpensive Console-Sized Gaming PC
- CPU And Cooler
- Motherboard And Memory
- Graphics Card And Hard Drive
- Case, Power Supply, And Optical Drive
- Assembling Our Little Budget Box
- How Small Is It, Really?
- Limited Overclocking
- Test System And Benchmarks
- Results: Synthetics
- Results: Audio And Video
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: Compression
- Results: Battlefield 3 And The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Benchmark Results: F1 2012 And Far Cry 3
- Consumption And Temperatures
- Performance Summary
- Can Less Equal More?
I do like how most of those games were "playable" on high settings at 1080p with that tiny rig... very cool.
Great job
Also, I can't believe you had a SG05 and didn't build with it,it has an awesome power supply. Again,if you weren't getting a disk drive the V3+ was the smaller, higher quality case than CM 120 ( though they're finished on newegg)
The obsession with ginormous cards in tiny places made your cases not tiny.Clearly,a more sensible build,like with a 670,would fit in a much smaller footprint.
The lack of the FT03 Mini is a fail. It's a Mac killing case,and should've been the go to case for the $2500 build, because at that price,my case better look it.
Otherwise I like that you were at least up to the challenge, and I applaud this last build.
Also, I can't believe you had a SG05 and didn't build with it,it has an awesome power supply. Again,if you weren't getting a disk drive the V3+ was the smaller, higher quality case than CM 120 ( though they're finished on newegg)
The obsession with ginormous cards in tiny places made your cases not tiny.Clearly,a more sensible build,like with a 670,would fit in a much smaller footprint.
The lack of the FT03 Mini is a fail. It's a Mac killing case,and should've been the go to case for the $2500 build, because at that price,my case better look it.
Otherwise I like that you were at least up to the challenge, and I applaud this last build.
You could say that nobody should even bother spending $2500 on an ITX-based system, or that a system with ITX limitations should never be expected to provide top performance. At least those opinions would make more sense than the stuff you said above.
CPU: Intel Pentium G860 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Foxconn H61S Mini ITX LGA1155 Motherboard ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Samsung Spinpoint M8 500GB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7750 1GB Video Card ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Wireless Network Adapter: Rosewill RNX-N180UB 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter ($9.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill RS-MI-01 BK Mini ITX Tower Case w/250W Power Supply ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $371.92
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-06-27 03:06 EDT-0400)
Some improvements I would like to suggest , Maybe I am crazy , but felt I should do this.
Once the Kaveri APU's start rolling out, I wonder if you guys would end up choosing them over Intel CPU's + discrete GPU's for SFF builds like this or for any other budget configuration for that matter.
BTW, was the Athlon X4 750K/760K not chosen due to its power req. and heat or was it just not available at the time?
You could say that nobody should even bother spending $2500 on an ITX-based system, or that a system with ITX limitations should never be expected to provide top performance. At least those opinions would make more sense than the stuff you said above.
I will say,since my point was lost in the rant
Nobody should be building an ITX rig for $2500 that's bigger than the Silverstone SG10.
A system with mini ITX should crunch top numbers and remain small.The two cheapest rigs prove that.
I hope I make sense now.
AMD A10-5800K APU: http://goo.gl/XaFFP
MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 Motherboard: http://goo.gl/DXM3W
8GB Samsung DDR3 1600Mhz RAM: http://goo.gl/gVqCL - Another great option: http://goo.gl/Jbtye
500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue Hard Drive: http://goo.gl/bM1Ww
NZXT Source 210 Case: http://goo.gl/2wlae
430W Corsair CX430 Power Supply: http://goo.gl/QzWZo
These parts make up the $350 build however since this is a custom PC feel free to customize it with some of these options!
OS - Windows 8 System Builder: http://goo.gl/OTZAL
OS - Windows 7 System Builder: http://goo.gl/7hc9M
Optical Drive - Lite-On DVD Burner: http://goo.gl/DCVBn
Wi-Fi Adapter - Asus PCE-N15: http://goo.gl/JQ7Mt
RAM Upgrade - 8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 2133Mhz: http://goo.gl/bTOiK
Graphics Card - Sapphire Radeon 7770: http://goo.gl/FrSHW
SSD - 120GB Samsung 840: http://goo.gl/ykuCA
HDD Upgrade - 1TB WD Caviar Blue: http://goo.gl/MZTnq
You could say that nobody should even bother spending $2500 on an ITX-based system, or that a system with ITX limitations should never be expected to provide top performance. At least those opinions would make more sense than the stuff you said above.
I will say,since my point was lost in the rant
Nobody should be building an ITX rig for $2500 that's bigger than the Silverstone SG10.
A system with mini ITX should crunch top numbers and remain small.The two cheapest rigs prove that.
I hope I make sense now.
What you're really saying is that all the people who loved the $2500 PC were wrong. It's OK to believe that, but the reality is that your opinion on their market doesn't count any more than my opinion on feminine hygiene products. Both of us are ill-equipped to speak with authority on those respective issues.
AMD A10-5800K APU: http://goo.gl/XaFFP
MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 Motherboard: http://goo.gl/DXM3W
8GB Samsung DDR3 1600Mhz RAM: http://goo.gl/gVqCL - Another great option: http://goo.gl/Jbtye
500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue Hard Drive: http://goo.gl/bM1Ww
NZXT Source 210 Case: http://goo.gl/2wlae
430W Corsair CX430 Power Supply: http://goo.gl/QzWZo
These parts make up the $350 build however since this is a custom PC feel free to customize it with some of these options!
OS - Windows 8 System Builder: http://goo.gl/OTZAL
OS - Windows 7 System Builder: http://goo.gl/7hc9M
Optical Drive - Lite-On DVD Burner: http://goo.gl/DCVBn
Wi-Fi Adapter - Asus PCE-N15: http://goo.gl/JQ7Mt
RAM Upgrade - 8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 2133Mhz: http://goo.gl/bTOiK
Graphics Card - Sapphire Radeon 7770: http://goo.gl/FrSHW
SSD - 120GB Samsung 840: http://goo.gl/ykuCA
HDD Upgrade - 1TB WD Caviar Blue: http://goo.gl/MZTnq
Your case is much much bigger.
No. They chose intel for the cpu, not for it's integrated gpu. They used the fastest half height, single slot gpu available to them along with it. Swapping out the intel cpu for the A10-5800K would have been a step down in gaming performance. Don't make stupid accusations.
-a core i5 3350P or whatever haswell version is available by then
-the AFOX 7850 is available in my country :-P
-a 120 or 240Gb SSD
-more ram
-a slim optical drive
Well i have a Core 2 Quad and a GTX560, manages fine at 1024x768, but a lot of times i'm intensely CPU bottlenecked. Arma 3's killing my CPU like no other game. Ok, maybe the FreeSpace 2 Open engine, but then that's single threaded.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6670/dragging-core2duo-into-2013-time-for-an-upgrade