Spec me a MicroATX Build!

[jim]

Right, the wait is now over! My PC is a bit long in the tooth now, and I'll be putting it to other uses or getting rid, so I'm going for a brand new build.

I'll be using it primarily for gaming, although a couple of CPU-heavy ones in Total War and Football Manager.

I definitely want the Fortress FT03, and I would quite like one of the liquid coolers to avoid a really heavy cooler hanging off the motherboard (I'll be transporting it a lot and would like to overclock).

Budget is approximately £1k - although I don't *need* to spend that much, I definitely want something that I won't need to upgrade in the imminent future

[scaryjim]

mATX Z68 mobo, i7 2600K, Any gfx from a 560 Ti / 6950 upwards, 8GB of RAM...

sorry, what was the question?

I guess you can probably mount the fan for the closed loop water cooler in that top exhaust bay, although that means you'll be pushing slightly warm air from inside the case over it (unless it'll fit onto one of the angled intakes, but the space around those looks to be at a bit of a premium, tbh).

but frankly with your budget and that case, the mATX world is pretty much your oyster...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Pretty much what jim with cat said! I would get a Core i5 2500K though.

[jim]

Great... that was pretty much what I was thinking, but wanted to get some confirmation before I went headlong into a build

I'll get a rough spec built up and post back

[jim]

Okay, come up with this

http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/9d...807427dd7814d8

I've gone for the expensive mobo to get integrated sound and an Intel LAN chip, along with 2 PCIe x16 slots, although they're only x8 if both are populated.

SSD is obviously the main expense, might drop that down to 128GB and put a Scorpio Black in there as well but having a big SSD for everything is very tempting.

Any thoughts?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A few things:
1.)I would check the HD6970 too
2.)I would look at the Antec KUHLER H2O 620 and Antec KUHLER H2O 920 coolers.
3.)The Corsair Vegeance DDR3 has very tall heatsinks so I would check the case clearance
4.)I would get a Seasonic X series fully modular PSU
5.)Having two PCI-E 2.0 8X slots is of not much use if you intend to use two GTX570 graphics cards on a 480W PSU.

[jim]

The 6970 is just so expensive at the moment - more than the 570, and the 570 seems slightly faster looking at benchmarks.

I was considering the Antec Kuhler... do you know how it performs in comparison to the Corsair I selected? I remember seeing in reviews that it was roughly the same as the H60 but a little cheaper, or is it actually a better performer?

Is this the PSU?: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/520w-...-quiet-fan-atx

If so I'll definitely swap them over, I presume it's a quiet one?

[jim]

Does it make a difference between 1333MHz DDR3 and 1600MHz?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Wow!! The HD6970 has risen a lot in price recently!!! The GTX570 does look better ATM.

The Antec KUHLER H2O 620 is cheaper than the Corsair H60 and looks better:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/ant...h2o_620_review

The PSU I am talking about is this one:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...Story&reid=202

Its very efficient and runs passively at low load. It is around £100 to £120 but Scan does not stock them it seems!!

The X660 is in stock though:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/660w-...oogle+shopping

The Corsair AX650 is based on the same platfrom but is slightly cheaper:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-...-12vquient-fan

Another PSU is the fully modular X460 passive PSU:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/460w-...oogle+shopping

However,I would suspect an HD6950 2GB would be a better card for an X460.

Edit!!

I don't think the RAM speed makes a huge difference but at least faster RAM might be useful if you want to upgrade down the line.

BTW,hopefully Scan will get this CPU in stock:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...tio-80w-retail

It is basically a Core i7 2600 without the IGP(no Quick Sync is possible) and slightly lower clockspeeds but is much cheaper:

http://ark.intel.com/products/52271

It also has a lower 80W TDP.

[mitchgixer6]

Does it make a difference between 1333MHz DDR3 and 1600MHz?

I wouldn't have thought it makes that much of a difference, but for the small price diference I'd go for 1600.

@Cat thanks for pointing out that Xeon. I wasn't aware of that processor, might come in handy for my own build.

Is it just me or has the price of the i5 2500K rocketed recently?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I wouldn't have thought it makes that much of a difference, but for the small price diference I'd go for 1600.

@Cat thanks for pointing out that Xeon. I wasn't aware of that processor, might come in handy for my own build.

Is it just me or has the price of the i5 2500K rocketed recently?

I am watching that CPU as I want one for my SFF PC. The lack of IGP means no Quick Sync but this does not bother so much. The 15W low TDP OTH is much more useful.

It could be down to the exchange rate as I suspect the Core i7 will sell less units than a Core i5. On top of this add profiteering too if it is popular and you end up with the increased price.

[mitchgixer6]

Sorry but what does the IGP do?

Edit-: Sorry just ignore me, Inegrated Graphics Processor I presume.

[jim]

Right, this is where I'm at now:

http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/2d...3b8379cfaa0fff

(Ignore the dupe slot-loader drive)

Definitely a bit over-budget, but I'm pretty happy with it. Wish I could squeeze a more powerful graphics card into it, considering the amount I'm spending, but I don't really want to skimp on any of the other parts. And the graphics card should be the easiest part to replace if I ever want to.

[jim]

Sorry but what does the IGP do?

Edit-: Sorry just ignore me, Inegrated Graphics Processor I presume.

Yup, enables integrated graphics.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Right, this is where I'm at now:

http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/2d...3b8379cfaa0fff

Definitely a bit over-budget, but I'm pretty happy with it. Wish I could squeeze a more powerful graphics card into it, considering the amount I'm spending, but I don't really want to skimp on any of the other parts. And the graphics card should be the easiest part to replace if I ever want to.

You have two DVD rewriters!!

The SSD was around £260 to £270 until recently!!

You can get it much cheapr from Amazon or Dabs:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004W2JL2...SIN=B004W2JL2A

http://www.dabs.com/products/crucial...m_content=Q200

I would also get a Samsung F3 1TB TBH as the case has mounts for 3.5" drives:

http://images.anandtech.com/doci/4294/s-drives.jpg

It seems the motherboard is far cheaper at other retailers too:

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/...roductId=45383

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-ma...?q=asus%20gene

[kasavien]

Thanks for this thread, it's perfect timing for me, i'm looking into a very similar build but going to hopefully get scan to build it , because I don't trust myself to get it working and I'd rather it was all sorted without any worry.

Anyway this thread has proved to be a very good sanity check for what I was thinking, thanks!