micro-ITX build help

diduknowthat

diduknowthat

formerly liuliuboy
Hey guys, I'm thinking about selling my computer now and down sizing to a micro-ITX setup. The computer will be used mainly has a media center and maybe some light (TF2) gaming. I really want a small computer as I will be moving every 6 months for the next 2 years.

Currently I'm looking at the Antec 310-ISK case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129081

It looks perfect for a small setup, except for the fact that it only has a 150 watt power brick. I will probably be running a dual core i3 chip (55 watt TDP?), 4 gigs of ram, and a hybrid 7200 rpm hard drive. How much juice would I have left for a low profile graphics card? Would there even be any cards out there that's more powerful than intel HD 4000 integrated graphics that can be powered by the 150 watt power brick?

Alternately, are there any more powerful powerbricks out there? I think Pico-PSU has a 160 watt one but that's still not giving me much head room.

Any suggestions will be welcomed.
 
can you give us a budget, but i'd just avoid something like that and get one of the boxes with an SFX12v psu, that way they are easier to find, newegg has 3 good branded ones, although expensive, they are much better.

I'd go for one of these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163207

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811345017
&
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151063

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119261 (normal psu and claims supports full gpus like 7990/690)
 
Budget of $500-$600. I would really like to stick with a small system. I don't need it to be that powerful, just tiny.
 
Here ya go

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811345017

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151063 (new cards are uber efficient, don't even hit 300w and with 2 18amp rails this will have no problem)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0398006

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0394735

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0360527

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0401744

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0347353

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127599

If you can go a bit higher these are good too

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150598

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161426

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121669 (7850 is a lot better for 10 but free AC3 if you want that is a good deal)

If you don't mind the lower but still plenty good performance, AMD has good deals

http://www.microcenter.com/site/products/amd_bundles.aspx

and the next gen of FX is supposed to come out later this month so if you wait ti;; then it looks to be worth it provided the price is similar
 
jonnyp11 said:
Here ya go

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811345017

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151063 (new cards are uber efficient, don't even hit 300w and with 2 18amp rails this will have no problem)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0398006

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0394735

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0360527

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0401744

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0347353

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127599

If you can go a bit higher these are good too

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150598

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161426

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121669 (7850 is a lot better for 10 but free AC3 if you want that is a good deal)

If you don't mind the lower but still plenty good performance, AMD has good deals

http://www.microcenter.com/site/products/amd_bundles.aspx

and the next gen of FX is supposed to come out later this month so if you wait ti;; then it looks to be worth it provided the price is similar
Click to expand...


Hey Johnny, thanks for the list.

The setup you have is very powerful, almost too powerful for my use. I'm looking for something incredibly small (almost mac book mini small), and low powered and quiet. I'll take a look at the AMD FM2 series when ITX motherboards come out.
 
well for the cases you're thinking of it's nearly impossible to work with and the power just isn't there, that one remains small but has plenty of room and has handles and stuff so it will be easy to transport although putting it in a box would be smart no matter the case so it doesn't get scratched up
 
jonnyp11 said:
well for the cases you're thinking of it's nearly impossible to work with and the power just isn't there, that one remains small but has plenty of room and has handles and stuff so it will be easy to transport although putting it in a box would be smart no matter the case so it doesn't get scratched up
Click to expand...

Exactly, that's the point. I won't be needing the power. I'll have 2 laptops with me (one provided by my work, one left over from college), both of which will be plenty powerful for my needs.

I don't need a powerful computer, I just want to build the most powerful computer I can with 150 watts of power. That's exactly why the AMD Trinity APUs are looking so attractive right now.
 
diduknowthat said:
Exactly, that's the point. I won't be needing the power. I'll have 2 laptops with me (one provided by my work, one left over from college), both of which will be plenty powerful for my needs.

I don't need a powerful computer, I just want to build the most powerful computer I can with 150 watts of power. That's exactly why the AMD Trinity APUs are looking so attractive right now.
Click to expand...

Have you looked at the integrated motherboard, CPU and GPU boards? I will be using this one for a HTPC build for my parents. The CPU performance should be around the same as a dual core Pentium? I am not really sure what the graphics performance would be because I stopped looking into it when I heard it was more than enough for watching HD videos.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157228

EDIT: Are you set on that case? This is the one that I will be using. It comes with a 250w PSU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147131
 
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EEEEEEWWWWWWWW, Roadkill power supply.

And the E series is actually laptop processors, the bottom end ones, my brother had a e-300 and it does the just but it is pretty slow for anything real, doubtful it can play TF2 on anything but bottomed out.

How bout this case with the power supply from before, it's a frikin shoe-box! and has room for a full gpu if you ever wanted more

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119261
 
jonnyp11 said:
EEEEEEWWWWWWWW, Roadkill power supply.

And the E series is actually laptop processors, the bottom end ones, my brother had a e-300 and it does the just but it is pretty slow for anything real, doubtful it can play TF2 on anything but bottomed out.

How bout this case with the power supply from before, it's a frikin shoe-box! and has room for a full gpu if you ever wanted more

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119261
Click to expand...


Yeah Rosewill PSUs are not all that great but if he is building a system that is just a bit too powerful to run with enough headroom on a 150w PSU the 250w from Rosewill would work just fine. Sure it will not be all that efficient or have all of the extra features of a better gaming grade PSU it would work.

The way I understand it he wants a small low power HTPC first and a light gaming rig for TF2 second.

I know they are laptop processors. That's why they have such a low power design. I also mentioned that I was not sure about gaming performance. It meets my needs and I was just throwing it out there to see if it would work for him as well. He is smart enough to look up the performance to see if he could play the game at whatever settings he would want.

I still think that a Trinity based system would be the best for the money.
 
yeah trinity will do fine if nothing else, but he had said his budget was 5-600 so an i3 and all coupled with the savings at microcenter is just hard to pass up for the money.
 
True. I guess I was just thinking that if he did not need the performance there was not a need to overbuild. Apart from that the build that you suggested would be very good.
 
jonnyp11 said:
yeah trinity will do fine if nothing else, but he had said his budget was 5-600 so an i3 and all coupled with the savings at microcenter is just hard to pass up for the money.
Click to expand...

The Trinity chip with it's 7660 onboard surpasses i3's in terms of video performance. I guess the point is I don't need that much processing power, I just need a bit more video performance than is currently offered by intel's onboard video chips.
 
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