New CPU, Mobo (Mitx) and RAM bundle

[scaryjim]

I think he said he was building the case ...

Yeah, read fail (again) on my part

So, if you're building the case, OP, why mitx particularly? You'll need plenty of depth for the GTX460, so making room for an mATX board shouldn't be hard - opens lots more options. Or if you're building a new machine for yourself and you're giving your mum the Lian Li, you could build your mum's new computer into the Lian Li and still use an mATX board, and then just transfer your entire machine, as is, into your new case.

It definitely sounds like your mum would be fine with a Pentium G840, and along with a cheap H61 motherboard (from £35 for mATX) and 8GB of RAM there's room for an SSD in the budget. Or you could spend a little extra on an H67 motherboard to get SATA 3 support and still just about fit an SSD into budget (ebuyer have H67 boards from £45). For her uses, is your mum really going to be able to tell the difference between an i5 and a Pentium? Once it's all packed into the Lian Li and reinstalled I don't see that she's ever going to notice the difference, and since you're already taking the GTX460, and considering swapping the i5 for a lower powered processor, the obvious step to me is to simply do a new lower powered build into the case...

[Stylis10]

I'm a bit confused now after reading this post. If the PC is your mothers and she only web browses, checks emails and watches videos on Youtube, you definitely don't need such a high specced PC. An SSD would make more of a difference in terms of speed than a CPU upgrade would. I don't understand why you would need a GTX460 for that either. If this is indeed the case, I would sell the GTX460 on eBay or something and then buy a Llano ITX build as previously recommended by scaryjim.

This, tbh. I also don't get why, if what you need to do is make your mum a new PC, you're not just building a sensible spec for her and having done? Are you planning on giving her your case as well? On £200 you could replace her system with the MSI mitx board, 4GB of RAM (no way she'll need 8GB), a SandyBridge Pentium, and have plenty left over for a 120GB SSD. For your mum's uses that system would fly ... it looks to me like you're massively overcomplicating things!

Also I don't get why mitx particularly? If it's for your case my quick google suggests it takes mATX, which will get your more features for the same price. If it's for a different case, which case and why?

Yeah, read fail (again) on my part

So, if you're building the case, OP, why mitx particularly? You'll need plenty of depth for the GTX460, so making room for an mATX board shouldn't be hard - opens lots more options. Or if you're building a new machine for yourself and you're giving your mum the Lian Li, you could build your mum's new computer into the Lian Li and still use an mATX board, and then just transfer your entire machine, as is, into your new case.

It definitely sounds like your mum would be fine with a Pentium G840, and along with a cheap H61 motherboard (from £35 for mATX) and 8GB of RAM there's room for an SSD in the budget. Or you could spend a little extra on an H67 motherboard to get SATA 3 support and still just about fit an SSD into budget (ebuyer have H67 boards from £45). For her uses, is your mum really going to be able to tell the difference between an i5 and a Pentium? Once it's all packed into the Lian Li and reinstalled I don't see that she's ever going to notice the difference, and since you're already taking the GTX460, and considering swapping the i5 for a lower powered processor, the obvious step to me is to simply do a new lower powered build into the case...

Right, sorry for the mess i may have just created, i should have really explained more clearly, apologies on my part. I think i should first state that my Lian Li with the matx board will be goign o my mum with the i3 processor inside of it. Why? when i could get a cheaper chip and an ssd? well my brother has manged to convince my mother that she is in need of an i3 processor. ( i have tired explaining to her for almost a week now whilst i have been pondering this upgrade that she doesnt need it) so im just going to go with it.

The Lian Li was my pc and that is no goign to my mother minus the GPU and i5 processor. Her current PC which has the blown motherboard, is now going to be my donor pc. and i have the £200 budget to get it up and running to my set up. So im goign to buy a mitx board, ram and the i3(which i have explained about the swap), and then create my own case using the current case as a donor. both pc's have a 1TB HDD so no need to buy another one of those and i have win 7 for both aswell.

why mitx? I do alot of changes to the inside of my pc on a weekly basis, and hence i like to keep it on my desk next to my monitor, the Lian Li v351 is short, but has a huge footprint for my liking. hence with a mitx i can build a case with a much smaller foot print and ive always just wanted to biuld my own mitx rig with case.

i do apologize for all the confusion but hopefully this clears things up.

I know its on another forum, however i have posted a few pictures of my layout for my new pc on bit-tech. i dont know if im allowed to link it here or not so for safety i wont for now.

[scaryjim]

why mitx? I do alot of changes to the inside of my pc on a weekly basis, and hence i like to keep it on my desk next to my monitor, the Lian Li v351 is short, but has a huge footprint for my liking. hence with a mitx i can build a case with a much smaller foot print ...

I can see where you're coming from, but I think you can probably build with the same footprint using an mATX mobo, as the longest component will (presumably) be the GTX460. However, if you *want* to build mITX, that's a decent reason by itself. Just wanted to explore all possibilities

I know its on another forum, however i have posted a few pictures of my layout for my new pc on bit-tech. i dont know if im allowed to link it here or not so for safety i wont for now.

No problem with you linking to other forums from Hexus, as long as you're not trying to advertise them! Links to your own threads for illustarative purposes are absolutely fine.

[Stylis10]

I can see where you're coming from, but I think you can probably build with the same footprint using an mATX mobo, as the longest component will (presumably) be the GTX460. However, if you *want* to build mITX, that's a decent reason by itself. Just wanted to explore all possibilities

No problem with you linking to other forums from Hexus, as long as you're not trying to advertise them! Links to your own threads for illustarative purposes are absolutely fine.

well in that case, here is my thread with my proposed layout. not all of the components are the same, but ive used ones that match size as there are limited components design for sketchup use. would love to know your guys opinions on it.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthrea...46#post3099046

should also mention that im going to swap PSUs aswell so i shall have the Antec 520w High current gamer PSU instead

[scaryjim]

Interesting layout! Only issue I can see is having the PSU that close above the graphics card means you'll have to remove the PSU if you ever want to do anything with the card. An mATX board would increase your footprint slightly if you added it to that layout, but not by much. Have you looked at having the board vertical? I think you could reduce the footprint even further, although you'd probably need to increase the height a little if you did...

EDIT: hmm, one other thing is airflow - obviously you've got front to back fans at the bottom of the case but heat rises, and you've got no obvious way of venting at the top. Might not be an issue, but I'd personally want to make sure my PSU, optical drive and HDD weren't getting too hot...

[Stylis10]

Interesting layout! Only issue I can see is having the PSU that close above the graphics card means you'll have to remove the PSU if you ever want to do anything with the card. An mATX board would increase your footprint slightly if you added it to that layout, but not by much. Have you looked at having the board vertical? I think you could reduce the footprint even further, although you'd probably need to increase the height a little if you did...

EDIT: hmm, one other thing is airflow - obviously you've got front to back fans at the bottom of the case but heat rises, and you've got no obvious way of venting at the top. Might not be an issue, but I'd personally want to make sure my PSU, optical drive and HDD weren't getting too hot...

Thanks for that, i dont think it will be too much of an issue to keep removing the PSU for GPU access, however it hardly ever do that anyway. as for the rising heat issue, would adding 2 40mm exhaust fans on either side of the tope of the HDD solve that issue?
i was also thinking i might put a second 120mm fan above the one already there or just make it 2x100mm fans?

EDIT: i should have also mentioned that with regards to access to the gpu, the motherboard will be on a removable tray that will slide out from the back, of-course will have to disconnect all the stuff first, but makes access so much easier

[Ulti]

Looking at the thread, it's clear that it won't work with a mATX board. Mini ITX is 17cm^2 whilst mATX board is at least 23cm^2. Although your build is still quite big for a mini ITX big, it's probably smaller than mATX could ever get. Looks really similar to the Silverstone FT03 Mini, and if you can do it for £20 then that's brilliant!

Personally I'd still rather get a Celeron G530 for £33 and a Samsung 830 128GB SSD for <£80 for your mum's PC. Then get the AsRock H67M-ITX for £67 along with the RAM for £37 for yourself. That does go roughly £15 over your budget though but I can assure you that it's worth it and in general day to day tasks, it will definitely be "faster" and more responsive for your mum. After you see how fast and responsive SSDs are, you may want to get one for yourself in the future, hence getting the H67 chipset.

EDIT: I think Airflow will be fine I've got a Lian Li PC-Q07 which has a similar setup and it's smaller with less airgaps. It's got no intakes or exhausts and I modded so that I could fit a HD4670 by moving the hard drive cage to the front of the case (stuck vertically). Temperatures are completely within acceptable ranges with normal usage (gaming/browsing - not prime95, furmark etc lol).

[Stylis10]

Looking at the thread, it's clear that it won't work with a mATX board. Mini ITX is 17cm^2 whilst mATX board is at least 23cm^2. Although your build is still quite big for a mini ITX big, it's probably smaller than mATX could ever get. Looks really similar to the Silverstone FT03 Mini, and if you can do it for £20 then that's brilliant!

Personally I'd still rather get a Celeron G530 for £33 and a Samsung 830 128GB SSD for <£80 for your mum's PC. Then get the AsRock H67M-ITX for £67 along with the RAM for £37 for yourself. That does go roughly £15 over your budget though but I can assure you that it's worth it and in general day to day tasks, it will definitely be "faster" and more responsive for your mum. After you see how fast and responsive SSDs are, you may want to get one for yourself in the future, hence getting the H67 chipset.

EDIT: I think Airflow will be fine I've got a Lian Li PC-Q07 which has a similar setup and it's smaller with less airgaps. It's got no intakes or exhausts and I modded so that I could fit a HD4670 by moving the hard drive cage to the front of the case (stuck vertically). Temperatures are completely within acceptable ranges with normal usage (gaming/browsing - not prime95, furmark etc lol).

Thanks, however i have already ordered the i3 processor as scan had it on today only.

Still haven't ordered my motherboard and ram yet though

[Pob255]

Ooooo this is getting interesting, I'll have to go through this later when I get home from work, but I'll sling this at you now.
Have you looked at the new silverstone fortress FT03 that's the mATX one that only has a 235x258mm foot print

I'll go into more later

[Pob255]

Ok, I would seriously consider putting the motherboard on top for access and esp with a removable tray, with the psu and drives below.
For cleaner wiring you can run it up from below, put holes around the edges of the tray to feed it through.

edit:for an idea of what I mean, have a look at the Lian Li PC-Q06B then think about ether putting a box ontop or extending the sides up to enclose the motherboard

Another thing to consider is that an optical drive can be mounted sideways, if you look at the tray there is a small lip or tags on one side so the disc will not fall out.
Although swapping over to a laptop drive will save a lot of space and isn't that expensive.
drive http://www.scan.co.uk/products/sony-...notebook-drive + adaptor http://www.scan.co.uk/products/akasa...ower-and-data) = under £20

edit2: you might find £20 is a bit too little for the materials to build a case, does depend on what materials you are planning to use.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ooooo this is getting interesting, I'll have to go through this later when I get home from work, but I'll sling this at you now.
Have you looked at the new silverstone fortress FT03 that's the mATX one that only has a 235x258mm foot print

I'll go into more later

There is the Fortress Mini:

http://www.anandtech.com/Show/Index/...e-you-fun-size

It will support graphics cards upto 10" long.

[Stylis10]

Ok, I would seriously consider putting the motherboard on top for access and esp with a removable tray, with the psu and drives below.
For cleaner wiring you can run it up from below, put holes around the edges of the tray to feed it through.

edit:for an idea of what I mean, have a look at the Lian Li PC-Q06B then think about ether putting a box ontop or extending the sides up to enclose the motherboard

Another thing to consider is that an optical drive can be mounted sideways, if you look at the tray there is a small lip or tags on one side so the disc will not fall out.
Although swapping over to a laptop drive will save a lot of space and isn't that expensive.
drive http://www.scan.co.uk/products/sony-...notebook-drive + adaptor http://www.scan.co.uk/products/akasa...ower-and-data) = under £20

edit2: you might find £20 is a bit too little for the materials to build a case, does depend on what materials you are planning to use.

i was considering mounting the optical drive sideways next to the PSU, and having a fan at the top of the case. the onlt things that i want to buy are the mobo, ram and cpu(which has already been done). the reason being is that i already have an optical drive that is more than sufficient and a 1TB HDD. i dont want to spend anymore money. i know £20 seems quite little for the materials for the case, however, i already have aluminium sheeting and/or plexiglass depending on what i decide to make the outside out of. the £20 is really for the spare fans and any other little bits i may need, i also have a sufficient amount of tooling as my grandfather has a wood and metal workshop

There is the Fortress Mini:

http://www.anandtech.com/Show/Index/...e-you-fun-size

It will support graphics cards upto 10" long.

i have seen this already, and it would be ideal for m, however, i just cant afford it.

[Pob255]

Yes I under stand the cost issue, it's just that the cost for going to a slimline optical drive is fairly small and you will save a big chunk of space, it's only about a 3rd of the size of a 5.25" drive.
If you're trying to keep the size down and space is tight it's an easy to save space and not that expensive.
esp compared to smaller hard drives or psu.

I've tried to plan out a couple of mini-itx builds and it's a bit of a pig.

Please post a build log when you start on this I'm always interested to see scratch builds and how different people get round the different issues involved in it.

I'm not massively impressed with the mini-fortress, just seems to be a sg06 flipped on it's front.

[Stylis10]

I know its not that expensive to gt he slim drive, but as ive just graduated from uni and am not currently earning yet, i just cant justify, spending on a slimmer version of a component i already have.

As for the build log, ill do as much as i can, im hoping to turn this around pretty quick though, ive got another design layout. I wont be going into so much detail as to sleeving cables and all of that, due to time and money, build the case, components in the case and a little cable management and thats it really

here is my new intended layout just incase anyone else was interested.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'm not massively impressed with the mini-fortress, just seems to be a sg06 flipped on it's front.

Yeah,I know - I remember taking the piss out of it!!

But it still seems to have a lower deskspace requirement than the system the OP has designed in post 20.

[Ulti]

Yeah,I know - I remember taking the piss out of it!!

But it still seems to have a lower deskspace requirement than the system the OP has designed in post 20.

Edit!!

There was a Chinese ITX tower case on Ebay,which would have probably done what the OP wanted and was less than £60.

However,I cannot remember the company who made it and the model number!!

I'm going off-topic here but if you remember what it was, I'd be very interested in it.