Greetings Bit. It’s that time of the year again (PC upgrade time, not whatever you were thinking off. Gross) and truth be told, I’m a little bit confused as to what get. Or more accurately, what form factor I want. I really don’t NEED to upgrade but I’ve been offered a fair amount of cash for my current Board/CPU/RAM (see sig) and it seemed silly not to take them up on the offer. To replace it I’ve decided on the i7 2600K CPU and 8GB Corsair Vengeance RAM (Same as the ones sold, only 2x 4GB sticks instead of 3x 2GB) That leaves met with a choice of motherboards and I’ve narrowed it down to the following options Option 1 Asus P8P67 Pro/Deluxe (depending on price difference) This will end up being the “easiest”. I can just bolt this into the case with minimal rebuilding/rerouting of cables. Also unlike the R3G I’ll have a slot open between the 2 GTX260s. It's still going to weight a ton and be difficult to take to a LAN Option 2 Zotac Z68 Mini-ITX WiFi If I do go with an ITX board there is going to be a thing or two that might be a problem at some stage. However, it will (hopefully) be a bit easier to transport to a LAN... 1) Get a smaller case. Preferably a Lian Li PC-A08. Not really an issue tbh. 2) The current PSU (Corsair AX1200) is huge. The AX1200 is going to be horrible overkill. I got the AX1200 because at the time I had 2x GTX480s and was planning on perhaps adding a third. They’ve since been sold but I’ve kept the PSU mainly because it’s awesome. I can sell it and get a smaller unit like the AX650 or I can simply use a Lian Li extender bracket type thingy with the smaller case so that the PSU doesn’t swamp the inside of the case. 3) I’m only going to be able to use a single graphics card. Not too big of an issue really since I find that even a single GTX260 is still very capable of running games @ 1920x1200. (Witcher 2 being the only game I currently play that can’t be run @ max settings) Truth be told I’ve been considering getting a new graphics card before I sold the board/CPU/RAM anyway. But I can hold out a couple of months with a single GTX260 if needed... 4) I’m going to have only 4 SATA ports (but I can remove the WiFi module and install a mini SSD for the OS if I wanted and just use a USB dongle should I need wireless at a later stage) Which is not normally a problem but I’ve been using my PC as a server for holding my ripped CDs/DVDs/BluRays which I then watch on the WD media player that lives under the TV. HDDs fill up pretty fast if you’ve got a bunch of BluRay movies and series on there So I’ll probably have to get a few external HDD chassis things. I can always use a different ITX board that has more than 4 SATA ports though (Zotac H67-ITX WiFi perhaps) but that means no overclocking. Although that might not even be needed with the 2600K. Depends on how long it’s going to take to encode a BR movie/boxset and whether I’m feeling patient I guess... I’ve actually just thought of a third option (or rather option 2b) and I must say I’m feeling rather dumb for not thinking of it sooner. Option 3 Go Option 2 but use Zotac H67-ITX WiFi instead Keep AX1200 Keep single GTX260 See if the CPU will be sufficient @ stock speeds If no: replace 2600K with i3 something or other, install smaller PSU, and convert to fileserver, fall back to option 1, overclock the 2600K, perhaps replace the GTX260s. If yes: add GTX580/similar anyway, maybe replace AX1200 with smaller PSU. I rather like option 3 at the moment but I’m slightly biased... Anyone have a better idea or suggestion perhaps? tl;dr : ATX or ITX PC?
The incoming Lian Li PC-V353 is a fantastic case http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=582&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=63 Did you consider using mATX ?
Had a Lian Li V350 a while back. Very nice case but didn't like the layout too much... Considered mATX but since I just sold my mATX board I felt that a change is in order
Right ok, well I've had an ITX rig for the past year or so, so I'll give you my thoughts. 1. If you go Lanning - they are great! Mine literally fitted in a backpack! Shove it in, go to mates, set it up, and your gaming before you even know. 2. They do restrict your ability to fiddle with your system all the time. This can be good if you are the kind of person that likes to buy lots of pointless swishy fan controllers, sound cards etc etc and then have buyers remorse when you realise they were a waste of money and that onboard sound was good enough. This can be bad if you are the kind of person that spends the whole time fiddling with your rig, re routing cables to make it look neat, upgrading parts, making sure the cooling is sufficient etc etc. 3) They look great on a desk! You don't have to hide away a monster tower which people gawp at when they walk in the room. They fit in perfectly with the rest of your gear. 4) They do stop you doing SLI - which from what I can tell, is no bad thing. In your situation, you clearly want to go ITX, so I would! Especially with the Z68 boards out now! My advice would be to a) get rid of monster PSU - and get something about 650w that can handle an OC'd 2500k and any single GPU on the market today (580 for example) b)plough that money into a new GPU - the GTX 260 has had its day now - and you've probably had a good few years with it. You could sell it for perhaps £45 and along with the extra money from the PSU you could then buy something like a 560ti. Don't worry about the lack of SATA ports, chances are, you won't be able to fit more than 4 SATA devices in the chassis anyway, and if need be, give up a DVD drive and just get an external one to use whenever necessary (twice a year probably! Choose your components carefully though, the amount of cooling available to you is going to be limited, so make sure you choose the coolest running 560ti you can, and preferably one that vents out the back of the case. Make sure you do a bit of research when choosing your components too - will they fit! Sounds stupid, but space is very tight! Oh and don't expect too tidy a build, its hard to tuck cables etc away. Have fun!
