
Armed with the most potent graphics card our budget and chassis would allow, all of these builds were designed for PC gaming. It makes sense, then, to evaluate performance weighed most heavily toward the titles we tested and not on productivity.
Of course, based on average performance, the overall ranking is obvious. But the lingering question is which of these machines offers the most performance for what we spent on them?

The $650 machine captures this crown also, its big benchmark numbers outweighing the extra bit its parts ran us. Today’s $400 PC takes second place, but only because we massaged the weighting a bit and based the outcome on one-third application performance. Note also that the losing $500 PC is the only one that incurs the cost of an optical drive, but doesn't enjoy any speed-up from it. In that way, the comparison isn't perfectly fair.

Overall value isn't based just on benchmark results though, and any of these machines can subjectively be crowned a winner or loser once your own needs are taken into account. The mini-ITX form factor might not be a priority for you. After all, there are price premiums and hardware limitations associated with cramming components into such a compact space.
Combining a fairly tame processor with enthusiast-class graphics, this quarter’s $650 mini-ITX gaming box ripped through our highest game settings at 1920x1080, even driving three screens at 4800x900 at reduced settings. It is by far the most potent gaming machine we measured today. However, its size, shape, and noisy overclocked graphics card wouldn't fly in every environment. We anticipated this to some degree, and chalked it up to the price you pay to play with the big boys, while spending as little as possible.
I called today's build the True Spirit of Mini-ITX because I wanted it to be smaller, quieter, and more affordable. Achieving success in those three metrics wouldn't have mattered if this thing flopped in the tests. But as it turns out, we saw great gaming performance in F1 2012 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at 1920x1080 using Ultra details. Battlefield 3‘s single-player campaign was quite a bit more taxing, but lower quality settings got us through it.
Moving forward, processors able to schedule four threads are a safer recommendation, especially in systems with powerful GPUs. But the Pentium G860 continues proving it's a capable value-oriented chip, especially paired to mainstream graphics. Shifting any further to the CPU would have hurt our gaming benchmarks. When our little rig did fall short, its Radeon HD 7750 was to blame and not the Pentium processor.
We’re eager to hear which of these builds best serves your needs. Would you rather have a mini-ITX box that's as small as possible, or just small enough to cram in a GeForce GTX 780 or something like that? Given the number of PCs my family owns, I'm still partial to the little $400 box. Yes, there are several upgrades I'd like to perform with more money. But as it was built, this machine is still a respectable little gaming platform in a kid's room.
- 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