Do you actually need £800 of hardware in a Mini-ITX build?

This was the topic that kicked it all off!


We were checking Anandtech's review of the AVADirect Nano Gaming Cube, and thought "Hang on, we could do that sort of design!"


So, with our usual aplomb, we dived straight in to checking out the hardware situation.


Our builds came out with a couple of similarities, such as opting to go for Intel's Core i3 processors over anything more substantial or slower, 4GB of Corsair DDR3 and using a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB drive with a DVD drive, but that's where it all ended.




My original build:


Lian-Li PC-Q08 case
Zotac H55-ITX WiFi
Core i3 530
Stock processor HSF
4GB Corsair XMS3 1333MHz DDR3
1TB Spinpoint F3
Sapphire Radeon HD5870 Vapor-X
Silverstone Strider 450W PSU
Windows 7 Home Premium OEM


Sleepy's choice:


Silverstone Sugo SG07 w/ 600W PSU
Gigabyte H55N USB3
Core i3 540
Scythe Shuriken Rev B HSF
4GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz DDR3
96GB OCZ Vertex SSD
1TB Spinpoint F3
MSI Geforce GTX460 1GB Cyclone
Windows 7 Home Premium Retail


We both opted for aftermarket graphics card coolers. Reference just wasn't going to cut it here.


The big difference is where we placed our budget constraints. Sleepy, with his PC already SSD-equipped, wouldn't sacrifice the performance offered by it for my beefier graphics. Likewise, the portion of budget allocated to CPU coolers wasn't even considered by me, because I foolishly thought the i3-5xx series had Turbo Mode. Silly me.


I did, however, pick up on a seriously nice deal that paired my memory with the F3 for under £100, so I was ahead in the money aspect. I also opted for the OEM version of Windows 7, because I figured the box wouldn't need upgrading once it was built. This levelled up any budget differences, so the battle was between having an SSD, or having a vapour chamber.

After some consideration, we realised the sweet spot for us was around the £800 mark. If I dropped my graphics card (that took a good 40% of budget) down to GTX460 levels, I was getting a £650 beastie. Which meant I could happily toss in a cooler, overclock by 7MHz to catch up to the 540, and everyone would be a winner. Until I thought "Well, the budget now allows an SSD...", so after some tweaks on both ends, we more or less ended up with the same machine.


This morning, I realised one vital thing.


We'd set ourselves no limits. We'd been given no restrictions, and by our own forces with no outside help, had both gone out and crammed a more or less identical amount of money in to a shoebox of our choosing.


That value was £800!


Now, I hear the voices saying "Will, you're mad! That's not irrational or point-worthy! Why mention it!?"


If this had been our only rig, to do everything with, and the fact that it was portable was just a cute by-product, I'd have loved that. A shoebox-sized rig with enough power to beat up several startup graphic design studios, for under a grand? Well, that's spectacular!


Unfortunately, the idea behind the project was a LAN box. They don't NEED to play Crysis. They just do what they need, when they need. Starcraft, Counter-Strike, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Left 4 Dead, maybe a bit of Football Manager if we were having a slow but manly day with cheap beer and takeaway vindaloo with extra testosterone.


Purely from an academic standpoint, I'd step back, drop the graphics down to a much lower level (KFA2's GTS450 at £100 makes a very strong play for me here), stick in a Pentium G6950, drop the SSD, and live with having to turn down the resolution to 1600x900 sometimes (several graphics purists died in the making of those last dozen words).


Better yet, I could recycle some old Core 2 gear. It wouldn't set the world on fire, but it'd do what I needed, more likely than not. Mini-ITX board, drop in a E5xxx Pentium, and fire away.


LAN-boxes should be fun - it's a primary ethos of it. But they shouldn't be quite as expensive. After all, having all that hardware sit around doing nothing while you're playing on a full ATX rig at home is wasteful. If you're doing to do small, do it right. Do it cute. Do it powerful if you need it. But don't think of it as a secondary rig if you do. It'd make a lovely little gaming box on your desk in its own right.


Maverick.

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Sleepy here, and I'm going to add my thoughts on the matter.

I would personally have a mini-ITX build do much more than just LAN gaming, although that would be a huge part of the point of getting one. In my mind, I had a machine that would do much much more than just game. I added the SSD in my initial build because my main rig has one (albeit a cheap one) and I don't think I could use a rig, gaming or otherwise, on a daily basis without an SSD.


Any moderately powerful computer in my presence will be used as a DAW. A digital audio workstation. This means I want storage speed and a fair amount of power. In my own experience with SSDs, they make programs like Cubase, Studio One and Protools feel much snappier. You are never waiting for the hard disk when importing audio files, or copying them to new locations.


Music aside, an SSD makes sense to me in the context of a mobile gaming rig. When you pull up at a friend's house for a night of booze and guns, you really don't want to be waiting on anything for your fix. Granted, it's a small wait, but a tangible one nonetheless.


Onto the subject of similar budgets, I too found it rather surprising when we levelled out about the same sort of price, but with rather unique builds. My choice of an Intel i3-540 and an aftermarket cooler was one born out of a desire to overclock. This wasn't a practical choice, as the games that this machine would really be running would need more graphics horsepower than clock speed, but I wouldn't be a hardware enthusiast if I didn't want to squeeze all the power out of that little hunk of silicon.


I also opted for a slightly weaker GTX460 from Will's mighty Sapphire 5870. The MSI card I chose has a reputation for being quiet and cool, and my initial thoughts were that, as a LAN box, this would be playing on many screens, from 1080p down to budget 17" LCDs, and that such an expensive card as the 5870 would be wasted.


The Gigabyte motherboard I chose instead of Will's Wifi laden Zotac board was purely a choice based on my personal needs. I don't need Wifi on board while at home, or any of the places I would expect to cart this budget monster around.


Overall, I think that this little thought experiment highlights the different ways that even similar minded individuals can approach a single problem. It definitely shows that two heads are almost certainly better than one when it comes to speccing systems. Bouncing choices off someone else is an excellent way of ensuring that you haven't made any silly choices. Like that silly Lian Li case.


Bright red? Really, Will? (Yes! Really! xD - Will)


sleepy