Looking for a motherboard for Mini ITX gaming

[Savas]

My motherboard stopped working after I replaced the thermal paste, maybe I messed up somewhere, I'm still trying to fix it, but I think it's time to also move on now. I am a some-what moderate gamer, wanting to down-size my gaming rig, but not really affect my gaming (that might sound off, but my setup is ancient now so I think I might even see improvements).

Here's the case I am looking at (so mobo needs to fit in this):

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/frac...?owpid=2810948

I have a EVGA GeForce GTX 960, which is 256.5mm in length so it should fit.

What mobo, cpu, ram combo could anyone suggest? Mobo is obviously my main question. Thank you.

[Terbinator]

Depends on your budget and games that you play. You can get away with a cheap i3 build if you stick to RTS and MOBAs - racers, FPS and fighters are probably going to need a bit more oomph.

I suppose a Skylake build will be the way to go and up to you whether or not you want to spend the £100 difference in going for an i7 over an i5. Naturally this affects the motherboard choice as you need a Z170 if you wish to O/C down the line with a 'K' chip.

The cheapest H170 ITX board on Scan is lowly reviewed by those who have bought it so I'd probably swerve the Asrock and go for the MSI one at £112. There's a £30 difference between the MSI and the Z170 Asus - and given the small case size - it's unlikely you'd be doing any major overclocking. I have the Asus Z170I board, so if you do have any questions about this one give me a shout

[Savas]

BF1, rainbow six siege - that's what I usually play, so I think I am looking for i7, high end, but not insane, so my budget is £200 ish for a mobo max, I guess.

I think I have bad luck with Asus, as every motherboard I've had with them have given me grief.

[Savas]

I haven't purchased yet, but I've ended up going with: Gigabyte Z170N Gaming 5 Skylake Mini ITX Motherboard

Anything more seems a bit over kill, anything less and I'm not sure if I can continue to use it if I upgrade.

[ToastQ]

So I just built a Mini-ITX gaming PC myself a few months ago and I went with the Gigabyte B150N PHOENIX-Wi-Fi:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I built mine in a Fractal Design Define Nano S, but I don't see why it wouldn't fit in your case.

Honestly there's no point going for a Z or X Gaming motherboard unless you want to overclock and use all the features they come with, and even then the Gaming branding is dubious at best.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would not bother with a Z series motherboard TBH,unless you intend to overclock,and for the price of that motherboard and a Core i3 you could probably get that B150 and a Core i5 6500.

[ToastQ]

So here's the part breakdown of the Mini-ITX PC I built:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£187.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150N Phoenix-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard (£83.22 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£87.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra II 480GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£113.14 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£45.78 @ Misco UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Video Card (£419.94 @ More Computers)
Case: Fractal Design Define Nano S Mini ITX Desktop Case (£50.40 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£75.00)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit
Total: £1063.46
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-01 23:49 GMT+0000


I'd honestly suggest the B150, it's a pretty good mobo, especially for the price. The i5-6500 is really all you need for gaming; imo an i7 is overkill unless you're editing videos or something else CPU-intensive.

RAM prices have also shot up since I bought my parts. I'd still suggest the ones I bought, but it's much more pricey now. The prices in the list above are up-to-date as of when I posted this btw

[Savas]

That case looks really good. The window and cable management makes it worth the extra £6, however I think I am going to stick with the Core 500 and benefit from the small size and see what happens, as I really want to cut down on space.

I originally started off with the Gigabyte B150N PHOENIX-Wi-Fi, actually, but then thought why not just spend a bit more and have a better chipset and other components if it's actually my main build.. I always say I might overclock, but I don't really end up doing it so you guys are right, I've toned it down to a Gigabyte GA-H170N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard - I was never going to overclock anyway I reckon.

Went with the same ram and CPU as ToastQ - That parts list website is quite handy, thanks, you can even see you're right about price of RAM going up.

Reasons why I'm going with the H170 chipset (haven't actually ordered yet) is I see more of a push, reading these:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/ar...ifference-635/
http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/20...z170-h170-h110

Although I'm not sure if I am properly understanding what I see there.