Getting a Mini-ITX build.

[Tapwave]

So, I'm kind of a huge sucker on mobility and have been using laptops for over 7 years. However I'm growing tired of the shitty stats they have (and my MSI, which is supposedly amazing, struggles with some games because of it's whopping 2GB of VRAM.)
Thus, I wanted to get myself an easily-carried Mini-ITX tower that I could haul around on vacation if I wished. I wanted to put in as much money as I paid for my laptop (so 1.2K€) and get something somewhat decent.

Here's the build. It doesn't have a monitor, keyboard, speakers or mouse; mostly because I can use my old mouse and headset, KB and screen can be found or I could use my laptop as a combination of both.

Code: Select all

NZXT Manta case (5 fans + CPU fan)
Corsair RM850X Gold 80+ PSU
Asus Z170I Pro Gaming motherboard
Intel Core I5-6400 w/ Be Quiet Shadow Rock LP fan
2*4 GB Kingston HyperX Fury 2133mhz DDR4 RAM
Gigabyte Nvidia Geforce 1060 6GB
Seagate Sata3-600 1tb SSHD
LG 24* DVD Disk drive

OS is going to be Win 8 (as I own a non-OEM disk). RAM is likely going to be changed first out of all the pieces, then GPU, then CPU. Hard drives might be changed later, or have a SSD implemented.
The cost of this thing including taxes and labor is 1215€ which is pretty decent, a similar configuration with PC Part picket got me slightly higher, actually.
Feel free to comment if I should change anything, if you have tips you want to share, and so on. But keep in mind that this is a semi-preassembled tower and my choice of parts is limited.

[Dancso]

No red flags in my mind but I guess it's worth exploring a few thoughts.

That case is expensive as hell. The counter argument is that a good quality case will last you for life and often has extra features that make your life easy, though I'd say it's more applicable to full or mid towers where the space can be filled with extra hardware. I didnt really examine the case's features but for an ITX case it seems a lot to pay, even with luxorious aspects and sound proofing.

The PSU is notably overpowered for the components, but this is once again a futureproofing aspect that's technically fine but your mileage may vary based on your future upgrade ideas. 850W could run an overclocked i7 6700k, 2x GTX Titan Pascals with all the extras you could ever want from a full tower (highend sound card, several drives and all the usb devices you have the ports for).

Now, whether that's efficient is another matter. PSUs have a curve of power efficiency at different loads - the 80+ rating is part of this thing, it's worth checking out some charts to see what are the peaks you could be operating your computer on with your dream setup in the future.
Use a calculator to get a good idea of your planned usage
You would probably want to leave some wiggle room above what your config will be using because there is an aspect of wear and tear with PSUs that could affect its limits. Nothing too crazy though.

I'm running an OC 4790k with a single GTX 970 (factory overclocked), and I've got a 750W PSU to go along with it. It's a strong overkill unless I decide to double up on graphics cards one day, which I'm actually unlikely to do, so it was a bit of an oversight. I'd like to extend this by saying I don't think SLI is a good idea at all, unless you're doing it with cards you got for relatively cheap and you've done research that proves you'll be better off than buying a single better card, considering games are still touchy about SLI/Crossfire support.

For a single card setup and high end CPU, you're probably fine with 650W-ish, but again this is merely a suggestion and I have no idea about your future upgrades.

Finally, a small note about the mobo + cpu combo, the Z170 chipset allows for overclocking while the non-k CPU you listed doesn't. In case you never want to bother with overclocking you could also look into the (slightly cheaper) H170 chipset which is more or less the same (but do your own research to be sure there's nothing dealbreaking)

[Hellser]

Try looking at probably Fractal Design's NODE 304 for a case if you want to go a bit cheaper. I myself used an NZXT Phantom 410 (btw, they have good customer service ) before switching to this hulking in weight (nearly 30 lbs!) Fractal Design R4.

Everything else seems to be good. The system is bit pricey in my eyes, but if you have money to spend on a good system, then go for it.

[Tapwave]

That case is expensive as hell. The counter argument is that a good quality case will last you for life and often has extra features that make your life easy, though I'd say it's more applicable to full or mid towers where the space can be filled with extra hardware. I didnt really examine the case's features but for an ITX case it seems a lot to pay, even with luxorious aspects and sound proofing.

Here's the thing that made me want it. The site I'm purchasing the tower from has a selection of cases. The one just under the NZXT is a Cooler Master one which is all fine and dandy... but it's a mere 24€ cheaper and the Manta comes with 4 fans for free. This allows me to take the cheapest CPU fan and still have plenty of ventilation.

The PSU is notably overpowered for the components, but this is once again a futureproofing aspect that's technically fine but your mileage may vary based on your future upgrade ideas. 850W could run an overclocked i7 6700k, 2x GTX Titan Pascals with all the extras you could ever want from a full tower (highend sound card, several drives and all the usb devices you have the ports for).

I absolutely agree with you, but I'm not afraid of going slightly overkill with the PSU. I could make a SLI configuration after all, but mostly, I want to spare no expense on what I believe is the critical part of my PC. The alternative is a 650W silver from a brand I don't know. (FSP Fortron if you're wondering.)

Now, whether that's efficient is another matter. PSUs have a curve of power efficiency at different loads - the 80+ rating is part of this thing, it's worth checking out some charts to see what are the peaks you could be operating your computer on with your dream setup in the future.

Okay put this way, maybe I should take the Silver after all... It'd save me 120€ and puts my build setting under 1K€. That way I could get better fans, or save for a screen.

Use a calculator to get a good idea of your planned usage
You would probably want to leave some wiggle room above what your config will be using because there is an aspect of wear and tear with PSUs that could affect its limits. Nothing too crazy though.

Whoa, okay, turns out my recommended wattage is MUCH lower. Pretty much confirmed the idea I was getting, thanks!

Finally, a small note about the mobo + cpu combo, the Z170 chipset allows for overclocking while the non-k CPU you listed doesn't. In case you never want to bother with overclocking you could also look into the (slightly cheaper) H170 chipset which is more or less the same (but do your own research to be sure there's nothing dealbreaking)

I'm not a huge fan of overclocking, but the CPU I've picked is actually a temporary solution until I get a 7K one in a few years. (Hell, maybe a 8K, who knows?) I decided to take a I3 6100, is that a reasonable pick?

With all those adjustments, the final build is at a mere 988€, 1056€ with an I5 6400.

[Ghastly]

The PSU is notably overpowered for the components, but this is once again a futureproofing aspect that's technically fine but your mileage may vary based on your future upgrade ideas.

I agree it's overkill, but PSU is something you can reasonably go overkill with. As you said, it's nice so you don't have to worry about power if you upgrade in the future, and the PSU loses a little wattage as it ages so you want to overshoot a little anyway.

You might end up hating the mini-ITX case. Cable management is pretty difficult, especially if you have large hands. I have a mini-ITX myself, and it was a nightmare putting in the new hard drive I got recently. Had to take out the PSU to get the new drive in, and took a half-hour to plug everything back in. That said, it's a lot more portable.

[Tapwave]

You might end up hating the mini-ITX case. Cable management is pretty difficult, especially if you have large hands. I have a mini-ITX myself, and it was a nightmare putting in the new hard drive I got recently. Had to take out the PSU to get the new drive in, and took a half-hour to plug everything back in. That said, it's a lot more portable.

The case that's just above it can't support the PSU I want and it's excessively cramped. This one has a good amount of room to go and I'm particularly fine-fingered, so it shouldn't be too bad.

[Dancso]

Never had an FSP PSU but I hear they're good. This site might be able to help determine build quality. Do invest in a PSU that will easily bear the wattage of your dream setup. (within expectations, again SLI is the main culprit in this dilemma)
I have actually been suggesting the i3 6100 to a friend who was looking to have a good bang for buck on the intel side. It covers pretty much all that current gen games can throw at you, but streaming/recording or obsessively multitasking WHILE GAMING may be a bit more difficult though. I don't have enough experience to tell you exactly where your boundaries will be, but I know someone who could stream (classic) doom with it in 720p 60fps no problem (which is probably all you need on twitch), at that rate probably 1080p will be possible too but not 100% sure about the FPS in more demanding games. I have little other information at this time, it might just work fine.

As far as the multitasking goes, you're probably fine to game, do moderate recording, sit in voice chat and flick between browser tabs all at once (provided the game doesnt eat all your ram, looking at you GTA 5..). The real obsession begins when you've got multitwitch showing you 4 streamers racing through the same game while you have left your resource hungry applications in the background (Adventure Capitalist, Cookie clicker lol) and you're also doing all of the previously mentioned stuff. It's the exact kind of insanity I overpaid for for an i7

The reason the i3 6100 will be actually better for gaming than the i5 6400 is the clock speed. I'd like to note that not all clock speeds are created equal, but such a big difference (2.7 vs 3.7) on the same generation processor can make quite an impact. It's better to have fewer but more powerful cores than many weaker ones for gaming. While yes, games nowadays are getting better at using multiple cores and many will outright require two cores as a minimum requirement now, there's still little gain from more than 2 in most games except for some of the most sophisticated AAA titles. The extra cores are mostly for the above mentioned multitasking or processing stuff like videos much faster.

EDIT:
I may have been off with the difference. I still stand by the above paragraph that sometimes less is more, if the less is technically stronger lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDquxBK-biU
Again, clock speeds are not created equal, do perform some more research to make an informed decision.

EDIT2:
Actually yeah. The video processing or mathematical benchmarks will have the i3 falling behind badly, as well as games that utilize multiple cores better (like GTA) but even in those you get pretty much all the frames you normally want.
Here's another comparison
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/In ... 3512vs3511

[DoomRater]

I dunno the only component I really want to swap in and out of a laptop is typically the graphics card and there are standards for that now, meaning if you're willing to invest in a laptop with removable graphics cards, you can swap it out with a more powerful one down the road. Though I'm not gonna hate on being able to take an entire PC in one go and assemble it quickly. I used to be able to do that and it was AWESOME, even if it wasn't a gaming PC per se.

[Blzut3]

but such a big difference (2.7 vs 3.7)

Just wanted to note that the actual difference is 3.1 vs 3.7. Most modern Intel processors with turbo boost have an "all core turbo" which is effectively the speed the CPU will run at provided proper cooling. Furthermore some motherboards have had features to use the max turbo on all cores so it's possible the difference is 3.3 vs 3.7. (This feature is a bit vaguely advertised for some reason, but I've heard a board that has "multicore enhancement" does this.) Of course based on the idea that games don't generally use all the cores the 3.3GHz speed should be obtained regardless.

This probably won't really influence the purchasing decision in the retail market, but thought I would mention it anyway since it's something I've been dealing with while comparing Xeon processors at work (where the deltas between advertised base clock and all core turbo varies wildly and the turbo bins are quite interesting).

As for the OP, if you really do intend to upgrade the processor to Kaby Lake or possibly 8th gen if supported, then I would indeed recommend the i3. The generational improvements are unlikely to be worth upgrading for, so spending less now on a smaller core will give you more incentive to make the jump. My brother did this recently by upgrading his Haswell Celeron G1850 ($50) to Broadwell Xeon E3-1285Lv4 ($500). The Celeron was a bit faster than the dual AMD Opteron 285s that he was using and the jump to the Xeon gave an approx 1.5x single core boost and 3.25-4.17x multicore boost in performance over that. (One way to look at this is by buying the Celeron he wasted 9% of his CPU money instead of up to 41% and still got to enjoy a faster computer in the mean time.) Given that you're coming from a laptop it might even be worth considering the Celeron or Pentium processors if you intend to upgrade the CPU in two years, but the i3 is a good bet especially since I've heard a few games are checking for at least four hardware threads.