Portable build

[holy god of nil]

I posted a thread asking about a gaming system for £1000 a while ago but have since changed my mind about the build. I have decided a need a relatively light/portable system for somewhere around the £500ish mark cabable of mid-level gaming (the whole retiring of low-end i7 put me off a bit too).

I've been thinking about something like an amd x3 in a silverstone sg04 with a decent gpu/small factor mobo.

I don't know much about mATX, what do people recommend?

[staffsMike]

Sounds good. Could get a 760G Asus or 780G For £50 -£60.

You could go even smaller though, the sg05 mini itx is a nice case and psu

[holy god of nil]

Thougts? (I realise some parts are out of stock)
Any alternatives/better parts?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thougts? (I realise some parts are out of stock)
Any alternatives/better parts?

I would change the motherboard to a 760G based one as this will have the improved SB710 southbridge:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...Board-VGA-HDCP

If you want to try unlocking the X2 550BE then this 790GX based motherboard will be better as it has the SB750 southbridge:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Biost...SATA-RAID-uATX

Technically the SB710 southbridge on the 760G based motherboards can be used for unlocking but not all manufacturers it seems enable this ability in the BIOS. The Biostar 790GX based motherboards on the other hand seem fine in this regard.

The Samsung F1 1tb hard drive is cheaper:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1TB-S...ache-89-ms-NCQ

Also look on Scan Today Only for cheaper deals.

This modular unit also looks decent:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/450W-...lar-PSU-87-Eff

Also Ebay have the Sugo SG03 case for a relatively low cost:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SILVERSTONE-TO...3%3A1|294%3A50

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SILVERSTONE-TO...3%3A1|294%3A50

[holy god of nil]

Cheers that's very helpful, I reckon I'll go for the biostar and try my hand at unlocking the x2, good shout on the cheap sg03's too.

Any thoughts on gpu's? I could stretch to something more expensive, I guess not all cards will fit in the small factor board/case?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Cheers that's very helpful, I reckon I'll go for the biostar and try my hand at unlocking the x2, good shout on the cheap sg03's too.

Any thoughts on gpu's? I could stretch to something more expensive, I guess not all cards will fit in the small factor board/case?

Novatech has an HD4870 512mb for just over £100 with free postage and you can get cashback from Quidco.

However the HD4870 runs hotter,consumes more power and is a longer card than the HD4850.

[holy god of nil]

This is quite a bump but as I'm probably going to be buying these bits today I thought I'd put up one last spec:



Plan is to put it in a cheap antec p180 mini from ebuyer.
Any thoughts? Also any particularly good coolers for am2+ (that will fit on my uATX board)? Will be oc'ing.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Looks good to me. However the mini-P180 weighs around 9.5kg whereas the Sugo SG03 weighs about 3.5kg! Also you are eligible for free postage from Scan as you have 20+ posts.

[holy god of nil]

I'm still weighing up the antec's cooling and price (and possibly ease of build) vs the sg03's size and weight.

Also I have messed up my scanhexus registration and it doesn't recognize me

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Contact Scan via e-mail or on their forum and they should be able to help you.

[Pob255]

just saw the mini p180 on ebuyer it's £55 or slightly less for an ex-display one
better cooling and nearly half the price vs small, tough call

[DanceswithUnix]

I built my wife a Shuttle for that sort of money.

Based on this

Restrictive on single slot video cards, but way smaller and lighter than any uATX build.

[holy god of nil]

Built this last night in an sg03 in the end. The sg03 is a nice case, it really is light, downsides are that cable management is pretty poor (read almost impossible) and temps are relatively high although as I only have the stock cooler on I won't be oc'ing too high I don't think. Also I unlocked the 4th core on the 720

[chrestomanci]

My main system is housed in an Sugo SG03. (see specs on the left)

It is a very compact and well laid out system, and not to heavy. Everything fits together neatly, and there is room for two hard drives, a full size optical drive, a 3.5 inch external bay, and a full size standard ATX PSU.

The problem is that it gets fairly hot. I don't overclock, I use demand based CPU scaling, and I have a low end graphics card, but despite that the internal case temperature is arround 45-50 Celcus, and the CPU 75-80. That is with twin 120mm intake fans. If you built a similar system to mine, and added a high end graphics card things could get relay toasty inside.

[holy god of nil]

Yeah it is a bit toasty, especially as it's running prime95 at the moment!
Can anyone recommend a decent cooler which will fit in the case? I found a maximum size for the sg03 once but now I can't find it again.
Also, can anyone recommed the best, nearest to silent 120mm fans for me to put in the front? The current one is a tad loud.

[staffsMike]

Noctua 120mm fans or perhaps the new akasa.. apache or whatever it is.

The scythe shruiken will fit and probably be best.