Best Mini-ITX based PC kit?

[tepo]

Forget the laptops, are there any gaming standard kits out there you good folk could recommend , or should I wait for cosairs Bulldog?

[cam1986]

Forget the laptops, are there any gaming standard kits out there you good folk could recommend , or should I wait for cosairs Bulldog?

I was looking at buying a gaming spec laptop. What puts you off one?

[EndlessWaves]

Not much in the way of kits around, most people go for a standard motherboard size like Mini-ITX because they want to pick their own case/motherboard/cooling.

I don't find Corsair's bulldog very interesting personally. Custom watercooling setup and case specific graphics cards are likely to mean silly money and it doesn't even look particularly small (and why accept the compromises of Mini-ITX if you're not going as small as possible?).

Personally I'd pick up a small case, maybe Silverstone's ML08/RVZ02 when it launches soon or the A4-SFX if it doesn't take too long, and your motherboard and graphics card of choice.

[peterb]

Not much in the way of kits around, most people go for a standard motherboard size like Mini-ITX because they want to pick their own case/motherboard/cooling.

I think the OP meant 'kit' in the sense of equipment, not as a set of pre-packaged parts!

But as you said, a small ITX case with a good ITX board will cut it. You may find that they are limited in terms of SATA ports, and make sure you have a slot for an graphics card (many of the mini-its boards have onboard graphics that can be disabled during set up, although they are reasonably capable)

Gigabyte make some fairly good Intel based Mini-ITX birds, I'm using a Z77 based one as a server.

[cam1986]

I would love to build a small gaming itx system but wouldnt have a clue regarding CPU, MOBO or GPU! Plus, would a Pico PSU cut it or not?

[peterb]

I would love to build a small gaming itx system but wouldnt have a clue regarding CPU, MOBO or GPU! Plus, would a Pico PSU cut it or not?

You need to do the sums, but yes, a pico |PSU will power a mini-ITX system, just don't add power hungry graphics cards!

[cam1986]

You need to do the sums, but yes, a pico |PSU will power a mini-ITX system, just don't add power hungry graphics cards!

Thing is, a gaming pc would need a decent GPU which would then need a decent PSU! But, some gaming laptops have awesome graphics and they run off off a tiny PSU!

[Marcvs]

X99 + GTX970 At a guess

[EndlessWaves]

I would love to build a small gaming itx system but wouldnt have a clue regarding CPU, MOBO or GPU! Plus, would a Pico PSU cut it or not?

I don't think they do pico PSUs with PCI-E connectors but anything small that's going to take a gaming card (the second slot technically makes them Mini-DTX cases) is going to feature a FlexATX, TFX or SFX PSU. I've seen a couple of pre-built non-gaming systems with two slots and DC power supplies but never a case for sale on it's own.

We're really talking medium sized systems here, even the 'smallest' options are 12 litres, about mid-way between a normal MiniPC (1-2L) and a standard tower (25-30L). As such there's not a significant restriction on parts compatibility. A standard power desktop i5 and a R9 390 is absolutely fine.

[Bonebreaker777]

Would say first pick the case which enables further choice of PSU (a fairly small ITX CM Elite 110 case allows you to use even a full sized ATX PSU or save further space and use an SFX).

Wonder if 2 x picoPSUs would be suitable (one for the system, one for the GPU)?