I'm wanting to have a second machine as a backup for work and also for a dedicated gaming set up for driving games, so also having decent GPU to power something like a trio of 1080p 27" screens, or a widescreen 34" curved Dell or LG 1440p screen.
This new machine might become the main one, and my current one the backup one. I'm not entirely sure right now.
But I'm fed up of huge cases. They just seem like they hold lots of dead air and empty space these days.
So I want all the best of everything also in a small case. Quiet, fairly cheap, small, powerful. Not too much to ask for haha.
Current thoughts are:
Cooltek U2 in red £60
Red themed Asus ITX X97 mobo ROG thingy £150
i5 or i7 @ 4.0ghz or so with Noctua NHD14 or equivalent, I'm pretty sure it fits alongside VGA but I guess the mobo config will determine that. £250-£300
Zotac GTX970 (looks like it's 20-21cm long, the U2 can accommodate 22cm VGA cards) £260
Any ram, I'm not really sure on ram but I have some mid-range corsair stuff that fits under my NHD14 right now that seems ok. But I'd probably get 16gb at least, and if it's cheap enough 32gb. £100
M2 drive for storage. Data can go on the other machine, or a NAS if I get around to it. Probably 256gb should be ample, with a split partition for system/local data. £150
PSU, whatever fits and does the job. Looks like I have more choice than ever these days. £100
CD/DVD can be external USB so that isn't a problem.
Hopefully those ROG boards have good audio so that is covered there.
So far I'm at around £1150, which seems a lot, but it'd be more than ample for any current games/workload needs I have, and hopefully it'd be fairly quiet too. And it's really nice and small too.
Have I missed anything really obvious?
It'll have WiFi, LAN, audio, decent processor, lots of ram, nice GPU, fast HDD... I really can't think what else it's missing and seems like a great price considering the spec and size etc.
I'll try figure out more exactly what I want but there are so many mobo choices even in ITX. And how they impact VGA position and CPU cooler position are really the main problems hehe.
Thanks for any thoughts/advice at this early stage.
Dave
This new machine might become the main one, and my current one the backup one. I'm not entirely sure right now.
But I'm fed up of huge cases. They just seem like they hold lots of dead air and empty space these days.
So I want all the best of everything also in a small case. Quiet, fairly cheap, small, powerful. Not too much to ask for haha.
Current thoughts are:
Cooltek U2 in red £60
Red themed Asus ITX X97 mobo ROG thingy £150
i5 or i7 @ 4.0ghz or so with Noctua NHD14 or equivalent, I'm pretty sure it fits alongside VGA but I guess the mobo config will determine that. £250-£300
Zotac GTX970 (looks like it's 20-21cm long, the U2 can accommodate 22cm VGA cards) £260
Any ram, I'm not really sure on ram but I have some mid-range corsair stuff that fits under my NHD14 right now that seems ok. But I'd probably get 16gb at least, and if it's cheap enough 32gb. £100
M2 drive for storage. Data can go on the other machine, or a NAS if I get around to it. Probably 256gb should be ample, with a split partition for system/local data. £150
PSU, whatever fits and does the job. Looks like I have more choice than ever these days. £100
CD/DVD can be external USB so that isn't a problem.
Hopefully those ROG boards have good audio so that is covered there.
So far I'm at around £1150, which seems a lot, but it'd be more than ample for any current games/workload needs I have, and hopefully it'd be fairly quiet too. And it's really nice and small too.
Have I missed anything really obvious?
It'll have WiFi, LAN, audio, decent processor, lots of ram, nice GPU, fast HDD... I really can't think what else it's missing and seems like a great price considering the spec and size etc.
I'll try figure out more exactly what I want but there are so many mobo choices even in ITX. And how they impact VGA position and CPU cooler position are really the main problems hehe.
Thanks for any thoughts/advice at this early stage.
Dave