I won! ... Now what? (fractal r2 mini competition)

[naturbo2000]

I had a PM from David to say that I was one of the winners in the Fractal case compo from the end of last year: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=63005

Yay! The question is: what the heck am I going to do with it? I thought I'd ask here for inspiration.

Current systems:

Main rig: Thinkpad T420 laptop with DIY HD+ upgrade, i5, 8GB RAM, 500GB Vertex4 SSD, GTX560ti448 (watercooled) egpu in a CM elite 120 case with Corsair AX650 PSU. pictures incoming, cos I'm guessing people might be interested.

HTPC: Athlon x2 4000+, gigabyte AM2 matx MB, 3GB RAM, 500GB SSD, 3TB HD, Radeon 6450. CM RC260 case.

Spare parts: Silverstone TJ09, Q6600 B3, Asus nvidia ATX MB (sli plus of some sort), 4GB RAM, nvidia 8800GTX. Wide selection of HDs and other assorted older goodies.


Background: a bit over a year ago, I had a baby (well my wife did), hence the need to downsize my gaming rig. In came the laptop with egpu and I've been very happy with it (do you have any idea how little you need PCIE 3.0 x16?).
In our current situation, I'm not going to be sat at a regular PC to play games, and I'm also not going to get much time to use our only TV for gaming either (though that's more likely).

So what do I do with the case.
I'm tempted by the idea of a steam box, but realistically I may as we'll upgrade my HTPC for that function.
A crazy ass gaming rig is a nice idea, but I don't think I'll get enough use out of it to be worthwhile.
I'm pondering over a mid-high gaming rig for use as a Steam home streamer or limelight-PC (nvidia shield protocol to a PC). Is that likely to be better than my egpu?

If the home streamer is a worthwhile idea, I'd be interested what specs people would go for. The case is crying out for crazy overclock water cooling (AMD FX6300?), but it sounds like a haswell i3 has it beat at stock... I'd be looking at a GTX760 or maybe 770 to provide a useful bump over my current setup.

Any other ideas? Cost doesn't matter - if you can find me a use for a 4770k then go ahead, but value is paramount. Remember that it's a £60 matx case we're talking about and I have an unused TJ09 in the garage...

[naturbo2000]

FWIW I'm not averse to having a play with my q6600 again. It could only do 3ghz under a scythe infinity with heat spiraling out of control. Might it fair better under water? If so, what matx motherboard should I look out for to replace my Asus P5N32-E SLI PLUS? A maximus ii gene would be great. Any alternatives?

[Pob255]

Ok here's a few comments

limelight-PC (nvidia shield protocol to a PC), only works with nvidia 600 or 700 series AFAIK not the 500 series, not sure with laptops.
And you will need a shield of course.

On the Q6600, I've recently been looking at replacement mATX boards however I've quickly found there's not much about these days in the mATX range, G31 or G41's are around £50 and pretty much the best you can get so overclocking is pretty much out the window.
Overall it's easier to replace the core system, cpu+motherboard+ram than replace the motherboard for matx socket775

If you want to overclock then the FX6300 is one of the best value for money options, compared to the haswell i3 it is slightly better for multi-threading/multi-core but with turbo core stuff the i3 really out strips it in single core.
Overclocking the fx6300 will claw some of that back

On the other hand the arc mini might make a good HTPC & home server/nas case

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Congrats on winning and also taking the time to post on the forums!!

The only issue is the case is mATX. This is about the best mATX motherboard for an AMD system:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...vi-d-hdmi-matx

A chap over on OcUK got a reasonable overclock on an FX8320 using one. However,it uses quite an old chipset and lacks SATA3.0 sadly.

[Kovoet]

Congrats

[Pob255]

Wow I didn't realise how bad the am3+ matx boards where

[naturbo2000]

Regarding Limelight-PC. My intent would be to have a new rig with a GTX760 as the encoder and my laptop with internal Intel GPU as the receiver. No need for a shield. The unknown is whether that would be better/worse/same as putting a 760 in my egpu enclosure. The egpu limit is that it's a PCIE 2.0 x1 connection (!).

I think reusing the q6600 is out. Even over clocked it's going to be outclassed by anything modern.

So looks like a fx6300 wins

[Pob255]

Oh and please post some details and pic's of that Frankenstein rig you've described, it sounds great.

[naturbo2000]

I have a link to overclock.net (I don't think this breaks forum rules, but get me to rehost the piccies here if necessary): http://www.overclock.net/t/1203528/o...#post_19397596.

[Pob255]

wow that's a real frankenstein setup alright, I love it

[naturbo2000]

wow that's a real frankenstein setup alright, I love it

It's (now) a 2m cable between the laptop and the enclosure. What it means is that I can tuck that miniITX case under a corner table in the lounge and play on my T420 like it's a gaming laptop (nVidia optimus means I can output to the laptop screen). Granted I'm working through the humble bundle deals, so am not exactly cutting edge gaming, but everything I play is on max settings minus AA and PhysX (the latter of which puts massive strain on the x1 link).

[naturbo2000]

As mentioned elsewhere I think the plan is going to be this:

Order CPU/MB/RAM/GPU to spec out a gaming rig with the intent of running Steam home streaming to my laptop. Reasonable discussion of latency here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9-bdXUC0j0. I can scrape together HDDs etc from my parts bin for the purpose of testing.

Test home streaming against running the GPU directly in my eGPU rig (Civ 5 to stress CPU, Dirt Showdown and/or F1 2012 to check latency, Crysis 2 as a FPS test?).

If the streaming latency is bearable and the frame rate better than the egpu solution (especially minimum fps), then I'll find a home for the R2 Mini, throw a 240mm cooler is and OC the heck out of the CPU. And maybe watercool the GPU whilst at it.
If the egpu wins out, then I'll throw the CPU/MB/RAM into my existing HTPC case as an upgrade and the GPU into my egpu rig. And the R2 Mini goes on sale...

With that in mind, my focus is on building a gaming rig which I can overclock. The GPU has to be nVidia for the egpu testing and fallback. The CPU/MB will be overspec for a HTPC, but hopefully not an insane overspec.

This is what I've come up with:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£167.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI Z87M GAMING Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£99.44 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£45.95 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (£169.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £483.32
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-15 23:10 BST+0100)

The GPU is a twin-frozr, which should suffice as is, but also has a decent VRM config if I choose to watercool it.
Motherboard is MSI which wouldn't be my ideal choice given previous VRM issues they've had, especially for AMD, but it's way cheaper than the other obvious Asus/Gigabyte options. Reviews seem to be positive.
RAM is whatever I can find at a good price - what happened to RAM prices over the last couple of years? They've doubled, no?
The i5-k is overkill for a HTPC, but seems the best choice for a gaming rig. If it works out for Steam streaming, then I'll want to overclock under water it in the R2 mini.


Any thoughts? Bear in mind that AM3+, FM2+, i3 builds come in under £350 with the same GPU, but obviously they all make a heap of compromises (AM3+ has only SATA2 and limited overclock. FM2+ is limited in gaming. Both FM2+ and i3 builds are 2+2 CPUs, so do they hit a gaming wall soon). Is avoiding those compromises worth 50% more budget?
PS I know that it's me who has to figure out the answer to these questions