Hi all,
Ok, so, back into PC building after a few years and how things have changed! My last rig was an AMD Athlon FX-60 with a Radeon X1900XTX - looks positively doddering considering you could build a faster rig for probably a quarter of what that cost me.
I have early stage plans to build a SFF PC for the GF's birthday. Ideally I want to keep it as small as possible and base it around a Zotac H55 Wifi motherboard. I am really here to get some ideas about cases, power consumption and cooling as the thing needs to be small, quiet and stylish, yet have the graphical oomph to drive a 24inch monitor (my cast-off) at native resolution through DVI.
I like the looks of the Nexus Psile case, and like that it comes with a DVD writer as an optical drive is a must.
The full specs are as follows:
Mobo: Zotac H55-ITX-A-E Wifi (Wifi is vital and it would be good to be integrated into the board)
CPU: Core i3 540 or similar (I know Ion boards are available cheaper but it needs to run pretty snappily as if I build a PC she deems to be duff I'll be in for some eye rolling
RAM: 4GB Generic. She's not going to be gaming, OCing or anything more stressful than Skype or watching DVDs. Though Mushkin is the flavour of the month around here, isn't it? I'd spend a bit extra on the RAM if anyone thought that it would be worth it.
SSD: 64GB Crucial. I want to try a SSD in preparation for my own build. Plus it needs to be quick (see CPU above!) 64GB might not sound like a lot, but she'll really only need 20 for Windows 7 plus a few GB for iTunes and e-mails etc. Anything else can go on a USB external drive if she needs it later.
Case: Nexus Psile. Like I said, I am attracted to this case, however it is relatively pricey. Can anyone suggest a similarly stylish (a lot of these cases look fairly industrial!) m-ITX case with room for an optical drive?
Cooling: Passive? I suppose it depends on the case, however if possible I would like to passively cool the CPU - or fit as big a heatsink as I can in order to cut down on noise.
Power supply: No idea. I don't know how much power I'll need to run this lot without overly stressing it. I think 120W should do it. I have no aversion to using an external power brick and a pico PSU; if anyone has any experience with these I'd like to hear from you.
GPU: Onboard. Looking at using the onboard graphics capability. If anyone thinks that this would be sluggish running a 24inch at 1920 x 1200 and a dedicated card would help, again please give me a heads up. Something with a passive heatskink for preference.
Any ideas or suggestions gratefully received!
Thommo
Ok, so, back into PC building after a few years and how things have changed! My last rig was an AMD Athlon FX-60 with a Radeon X1900XTX - looks positively doddering considering you could build a faster rig for probably a quarter of what that cost me.
I have early stage plans to build a SFF PC for the GF's birthday. Ideally I want to keep it as small as possible and base it around a Zotac H55 Wifi motherboard. I am really here to get some ideas about cases, power consumption and cooling as the thing needs to be small, quiet and stylish, yet have the graphical oomph to drive a 24inch monitor (my cast-off) at native resolution through DVI.
I like the looks of the Nexus Psile case, and like that it comes with a DVD writer as an optical drive is a must.
The full specs are as follows:
Mobo: Zotac H55-ITX-A-E Wifi (Wifi is vital and it would be good to be integrated into the board)
CPU: Core i3 540 or similar (I know Ion boards are available cheaper but it needs to run pretty snappily as if I build a PC she deems to be duff I'll be in for some eye rolling
RAM: 4GB Generic. She's not going to be gaming, OCing or anything more stressful than Skype or watching DVDs. Though Mushkin is the flavour of the month around here, isn't it? I'd spend a bit extra on the RAM if anyone thought that it would be worth it.
SSD: 64GB Crucial. I want to try a SSD in preparation for my own build. Plus it needs to be quick (see CPU above!) 64GB might not sound like a lot, but she'll really only need 20 for Windows 7 plus a few GB for iTunes and e-mails etc. Anything else can go on a USB external drive if she needs it later.
Case: Nexus Psile. Like I said, I am attracted to this case, however it is relatively pricey. Can anyone suggest a similarly stylish (a lot of these cases look fairly industrial!) m-ITX case with room for an optical drive?
Cooling: Passive? I suppose it depends on the case, however if possible I would like to passively cool the CPU - or fit as big a heatsink as I can in order to cut down on noise.
Power supply: No idea. I don't know how much power I'll need to run this lot without overly stressing it. I think 120W should do it. I have no aversion to using an external power brick and a pico PSU; if anyone has any experience with these I'd like to hear from you.
GPU: Onboard. Looking at using the onboard graphics capability. If anyone thinks that this would be sluggish running a 24inch at 1920 x 1200 and a dedicated card would help, again please give me a heads up. Something with a passive heatskink for preference.
Any ideas or suggestions gratefully received!
Thommo
