Looking to downsize my rig

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

Hey guys,



I admit, I could easily do this myself but I am curious what you guys can come up with.

I want to downsize my rig from the Full ATX monster it is to a Mini-ITX mini-monster. I have a very limited budget since I work as a security officer even though I am a certified Computer/Network technician. It seems that companies don't want to hire new guys with less than 1 year's "experience" under their belt.

I figure my max budget for the downsize is around $300 to $350 depending on the size of my tax refund. Believe it or not, I make well below the poverty level in Mississippi. To put this into perspective, the national poverty salary level is somewhere around $15k/year. I make less than that. ^_^

So, enough economics, let's get to what is in my current Rig.

My current rig consists of :

• Intel i7-4770k
• Corsair H100i (I hate this)
• Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3
• 16GB Crucial Ballistics Sport LP 1600MHz RAM
• Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 Ghz
• Corsair HX750
• CoolerMaster HAF XB
• Creative Soundblaster X-fi Titanium PCIe
• Crucial M4 128GB SSD
• ADATA XPG SX900 256GB SSD
• WD Black 7200RPM 2TB HDD
• Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB 5400RPM HDD
• Hanns G 27" 1920x1200 16:10 Monitor
• CoolerMaster Storm Trigger CherryMX Blue KB
• Logitech G500 Mouse
• DVDRW

I personally HATE the H100i. I think the construction is cheap and sucks. I had to replace the mounting bracket since it warped and the screws actually broke off. It also doesn't cool for crap any more.

My Case is nice and all but it is admittedly massive. And it limits me to 2 HDDs. Not that I necessarily need more than 2 Drives but for the SSD mounting, adding another drive is a real Pain. I have to remove the PSU to access the back of the drives.

The soundcard I could live without as long as the onboard sound does not blow. I am interested in going external soundcard though. Mayflower is nice but really expensive right now. The only reason I have a soundcard is to split the audio between rear and front panels so I can run TS3 through my headset and game audio through the speakers. I used to power a 5.1 setup but now I am down to 2.1.

I wish I could downsize my monitor to a 24" and go IPS but first, who would buy my Monitor, and secondly, would it really be worth it?

I love my GPU but damn that thing can get hot and it eats power like a champ. I am leery of switching to Nvidia and do not relish being locked into Gsync. I would love to wait for the R300 series but AFAIK that is a year away?

The case would need to be small but still fit my GPU and drives. Something where SSD placement could be creative?

I guess what I am looking for in budget would be:

• Motherboard - with BT4.0 and Wireless AC
• Mini-ITX case
• CPU cooler to replace H100i NOT water cooling
• Maybe GPU recommendations but not really. Really watching the new AMD cards. I generally change GPUs every 3 years.

I will show you what I would pick but I am open to suggestions. Another SSD would not be a bad Idea. I do want to add Linux to an SSD. Maybe swap the HDD on my laptop for a new SSD. That would add 500GB to my desktop. I generally buy from Amazon or Newegg.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/VPj799

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/VPj799/by_merchant/

• CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (Purchased For $0.00)
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9B SE2 37.9 CFM CPU Cooler ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($122.98 @ Newegg)
• Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (Purchased For $0.00)
• Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $0.00)
• Storage: A-Data XPG SX900 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $0.00)
• Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $0.00)
• Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (Purchased For $0.00)
• Case: Rosewill Neutron Mini ITX Desktop Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)
• Power Supply: Corsair Professional 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $0.00)
• Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer (Purchased For $0.00)
• Other: Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB (Purchased)

Total: $232.95Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when availableGenerated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-14 22:04 EST-0500

 

[krusha03]

I personally HATE the H100i. I think the construction is cheap and sucks. I had to replace the mounting bracket since it warped and the screws actually broke off. It also doesn't cool for crap any more.

I have never used it but usually people are really happy with the h100i and it is considered one of the best AIO watercoolers out there. Also i personally would preffer AIO if going ITX and plan to overclock as it saves space and it's more effective in cooling the cpu and getting the heat out of the case

I wish I could downsize my monitor to a 24" and go IPS but first, who would buy my Monitor, and secondly, would it really be worth it?

Some people swear by the 16:10 standard and those screens are usually more expensive since they are rarer so try, maybe it will be worthwhile. 24" IPS screens start at like $140 but if the money is short you might better invest in a GPU

I love my GPU but damn that thing can get hot and it eats power like a champ. I am leery of switching to Nvidia and do not relish being locked into Gsync. I would love to wait for the R300 series but AFAIK that is a year away?

Actually its only 1-2 months away so you should wait before investing in a new gpu. The only thing is that the 390 will be water cooled like the 295x2 and it seems AMD again decided on raw performance.

• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9B SE2 37.9 CFM CPU Cooler ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($122.98 @ Newegg)
• Case: Rosewill Neutron Mini ITX Desktop Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)

I would get the acer motherboard as it is cheaper, has better audio, 6 phase vrm with cooling vs 4 phase without and the wifi antennas are not attached to the back of the IO. Wrt to case it's a personal choice so go with what you find the best. The Bitfenix looks nice but I think you will have to remove 1 HDD cage to put the vga. Another option would be the HAF Stacker 915. And I would still go with watercooling, and if you think your h100i cannot be saved the CM 240M is a good performer also

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Seidon 240M 86.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($109.99 @ Micro Center)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card
Case: BitFenix Prodigy (Black) Mini ITX Tower Case ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $249.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-15 19:56 EST-0500[/QUOTE]

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

Thanks for the suggestions. If AMD is going AIO on its new GPUs, then maybe keeping the CPU cooler as an Air cooler would be best to make room for the GPU rad. I like the raw perf that AMD puts out.

The Prodigy is a nice case and I did build my mom's rig using it but I don't think I would use it.
I do not plan on OCing my CPU. Granted that is generally why you would get the Z97 chipset but I like the other features too. The ALC1150 is nice and all but from what I hear I would need some $150+ headphones to hear the difference.
Plus, I am unsure of Asrock's quality. Gigabyte has not done me wrong yet. Any suggestions?
That ASUS Maximus board is interesting. It would be interesting to combine that board with a case and cooler for ~$300.

 

[krusha03]

Thanks for the suggestions. If AMD is going AIO on its new GPUs, then maybe keeping the CPU cooler as an Air cooler would be best to make room for the GPU rad. I like the raw perf that AMD puts out.

The Prodigy is a nice case and I did build my mom's rig using it but I don't think I would use it.
I do not plan on OCing my CPU. Granted that is generally why you would get the Z97 chipset but I like the other features too. The ALC1150 is nice and all but from what I hear I would need some $150+ headphones to hear the difference.
Plus, I am unsure of Asrock's quality. Gigabyte has not done me wrong yet. Any suggestions?
That ASUS Maximus board is interesting. It would be interesting to combine that board with a case and cooler for ~$300.

The Rosewill has enough space for both a 240 rad for the CPU and a 120 rad for the GPU. Quality wise Asrock has come a long way and they always have some nice features that other manufacturers dont "dare" to implement. For example that board has a mini pcie slot for SSD on the back of the board. If you check out new egg reviews you will see there are a lot more 1/2 star reviews of the gigabyte than the asrock and the asrock has better overall grade.

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

Hmm. that is true. I love my current Gigabyte board but I find the AMD ones are much much better than the Intel ones..........

 

[Hood]

Thanks for the suggestions. If AMD is going AIO on its new GPUs, then maybe keeping the CPU cooler as an Air cooler would be best to make room for the GPU rad. I like the raw perf that AMD puts out.

The Prodigy is a nice case and I did build my mom's rig using it but I don't think I would use it.
I do not plan on OCing my CPU. Granted that is generally why you would get the Z97 chipset but I like the other features too. The ALC1150 is nice and all but from what I hear I would need some $150+ headphones to hear the difference.
Plus, I am unsure of Asrock's quality. Gigabyte has not done me wrong yet. Any suggestions?
That ASUS Maximus board is interesting. It would be interesting to combine that board with a case and cooler for ~$300.

I used to swear by Asus because of their reputation for reliability, their driver support, and their features. Now it seems they are slipping, but their prices are still higher than anyone else. Asus quality control isn't what it used to be. Neither are their component choices. For example, my $300 Asus Z97-Deluxe board, their flagship channel board, has 5K solid capacitors, which they claim have 2.5x the lifespan. 2.5x what? By contrast, Asrock has boards as low as $135 that have 12K platinum caps, alloy chokes, and nexFET MOSFETs, all which run longer, cooler and more efficiently. Asrock is my new board of choice. I recently bought a $79 Asrock board (H97M Pro4) that runs perfect, has decent cooling blocks, and overclocks my Pentium G3258 to 4.4 GHz easily and has great software and great driver support - it all just works, without any problems at all. As for Gigabyte, their boards have never tempted me at all (even the paid reviewers find too many problems).

 

[krusha03]

Hmm. that is true. I love my current Gigabyte board but I find the AMD ones are much much better than the Intel ones..........

I for one am not loyal to any brand and always go for the best price / performance. I had a Asrock 970A Pro3 that i changed now to Gigabyte 970A-UD3 and while the gigabyte board is better for overclocking (8+2 phase vs 4+1 phase) the bios and PWM fan control sucks (its like off / on instead of gradually changing speed)so i have to resort to using SpeedFan and custom curves to keep the PC quiet at low load. The Asrock board had much better bios, the fan control could be set to any target temperature and speed and had faster start up. However that was the cheapest 8+2 phase board I could find for my FX

 

[Caring1]

If you're not set on that Rosewill case yet, here's a nice option, and cheaper:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133260 $49.99

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

People seem to keep forgetting I have a DVDRW. While some people can get away without having a DVD drive, I still use mine. if I could find a good slot loading one that went with a case that also supported one of those noctua type air coolers that would be nice.

 

[Caring1]

Ok, if your ATX is too big have you looked at m-ATX cases?
This one, I think is cool: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811854011
or this mini-ITX case : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119292

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

Ok, if your ATX is too big have you looked at m-ATX cases?
This one, I think is cool: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811854011
or this mini-ITX case : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119292

First, the Stacker is almost 2 feet long. and the second case.....it is mATX. I want to go Mini-ITX. Small and beastly. My desktop is nicknamed MightyMouse but it is a huge computer. To truly be MightyMouse it should be small like a mouse.

 

[Hood]

I agree with Caring1, that Phanteks Evolv case is sweet. It has thick aluminum panels on all sides, and has the 5.25 bay in the rear. A little pricey, and slightly large, but has a unique look. I've wanted one since they came out, waiting for the price to drop...

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

Does anyone have Mini-ITX cases to recommend besides the Elite 130? I want to be able to have a good air-cooler as an option instead of an AIO.

 

[ne6togadno]

http://www.cooltek.de/en/cubes/
http://www.cooltek.de/en/powered-by-jonsbo/

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

http://www.cooltek.de/en/cubes/
http://www.cooltek.de/en/powered-by-jonsbo/

OMG I fracking love you!! I love the W series. I can totally do a slot loader. I burn Linux distros among other things like audio CDs. So, having a DVDRW is important. Plus, the 320mm GPU max is amazing. I hope the case is not "big" like the HAF XB.

 

[ne6togadno]

http://www.cooltek.de/en/powered-by-jonsbo/w2/131/w2?c=245 385 x 278 x 395mm
http://www.cooltek.de/en/powered-by-jonsbo/w2/131/w2?c=245 356 x 242 x 362 mm
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/?category=Cases&manufacturer=Cooltek&pp=25&order=date
you might have problems with availability in usa thou. havent seen em in newegg but i havnt checked in other pc stores.

got http://www.cooltek.de/en/cubes/coolcube-mini/14/coolcube-mini?c=107
for my upcoming freenas based build.