New build - suggestions required

[roast]

Hi all,

I'm planning on building a new rig shortly, something quite different. I'm not going to reveal it all yet but a Progress Log should be up within the next few weeks!

Anyway, I'm looking for some specific parts, and I need your help.

First off, this build is going to be in a very small, enclosed area, so my only option here is a mini-ITX board. The board has to have a PCI-Express x16 slot, and also built-in WiFi (or at least a mini-PCIe slot to accomodate a Wireless card) and preferably Wireless-N on the WLAN card.
Now I've been looking at Zotac's mini-itx offerings, and they do look quite tempting. However, availibility of these boards seems to be very limited (I'm in Ireland :shadedshu ) and I can only seem to find the versions with A/B/G wireless.
Anyone know of any other boards I could use, apart from Via? (not a fan of Via's chipsets.)

I'm also looking for a power supply. I'd like one of the AC adaptor (think:laptop charger) types that would be able to power this motherboard as well as one HDD, one ODD, and a GFX card. I know they are out there, but really dont know where to look! Reason being is I have limited space in this enclosure, so having the mass of the PSU out of the enclosure would be a godsend. I'm also interested in it because this build has to be uber-silent.

Next, I'm looking for a CPU cooler. I'm not 100% sure of how tall this enclosure will be, but I have a feeling I may need a low-profile one. And because I want this build to be silent, I would prefer a passive cooling solution.

I'm also looking for a passive cooler for the GFX card. I'm not 100% sure what GPU I will be going for yet, so I cant expect you guys to predict what I need...

Which brings me to the next one. There will be only 4 fans in this system. I need some high-quality 140mm fans, as quiet as possible. I'm hoping that two of these sucking air into the system, and two exhausting air will be enough to cool the passive CPU cooler, chipset cooler, and a passive cooling solution on the GPU.

Hopefully you guys can help me!

Thanks,
Mick.

 

[roast]

Come on TPU - dont fail me.

I've been looking around for more mobos. So far I've come up with only a few, an LGA-1156 offering from MSI, and two (very similar) LGA-775 mobos from AOpen.
I'm hoping to go 775 for this build, so that counts out the MSI board. And I cant seem to find the AOpen boards for sale from anywhere that would actually ship to Ireland.

Anyone have any bright ideas?

Thanks,
Mick.

 

[assaulter_99]

A budget might help, plus more info of what you plan to do with that build. Otherwise it'll be real hard recommending and helping you!

 

[Deleted member 74752]

Any of this work roast?

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1486208

 

[roast]

A budget might help, plus more info of what you plan to do with that build. Otherwise it'll be real hard recommending and helping you!

Budget isnt a huge concern right now. I want to see what my options are in regards the parts. I'll worry about price after.

Any of this work roast?

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1486208

Thanks for the link Rickss. The motherboard is tempting but unfortunatly doesnt come with Wireless N.

The PicoPSU looks nice, but from examining it, it only seems to provide 90w of power.... which is far too low for the build I'm planning, seeing as there will be a PCI-EX graphics card in the mix too.

Thanks for the help though, much appreciated.

 

[Mussels]

if your ITX build goes above 90W, you're gunna have some serious heat concerns.

You should definately aim under that 90W mark, for an ITX build - especially since you want to do it passively.

 

[roast]

if your ITX build goes above 90W, you're gunna have some serious heat concerns.

You should definately aim under that 90W mark, for an ITX build - especially since you want to do it passively.

I was hoping it would be fine, but I'm concerned now that you mention it. The enclosure should allow enough breathing space for the build. Its rougly 450x450x150mm(widthXbreadthXheight) so not as enclosed as some mmini-itx cases. Its going to be a custom-built enclosure.
What should I do in regards graphics cards then? I need to have a PCI-Ex graphics card in there..

EDIT:I found this http://www.mini-box.com/PW-200M-DC-DC-power-supply .....do you think this would be okay? I guess I'll have to find out what I'm doing in regards GFX before planning on the power supply...

 

[Mussels]

it all depends on your needs for the graphics. If you only need aero level performance, there are itx 780g boards with quite decent onboard video

 

[roast]

it all depends on your needs for the graphics. If you only need aero level performance, there are itx 780g boards with quite decent onboard video

Midrange gaming. Its for my girlfriend, but its probably going to be used for Source engine games, Unreal 3 engine games, possibly Crysis/Warhead and the usual obligatory girl game Sims 2 and 3. Women love controlling lives

It will probably be used with my old monitor, a 19" LCD running at 1440x900.

Other than that, general use and watching HD video.

 

[Mussels]

my advice: AMD CPU (Athlon II series) - they undervolt really well at stock (my media PC uses 55W of power, 90W or so at load)

An ITX board with 2.5" HDD's and SODIMM ram, should use less power than that. i'd say 10-15W less.

For video card, something like a 4670, perhaps?
just dont forget that in ITX style cases, there usually isnt much room for air below the video card to feed the fan, so there also isnt room for large passive heatsinks.

Oh, and for cards in this range - 4x slots have enough bandwidth, especially if they're 2.0 slots

 

[roast]

my advice: AMD CPU (Athlon II series) - they undervolt really well at stock (my media PC uses 55W of power, 90W or so at load)

An ITX board with 2.5" HDD's and SODIMM ram, should use less power than that. i'd say 10-15W less.

For video card, something like a 4670, perhaps?
just dont forget that in ITX style cases, there usually isnt much room for air below the video card to feed the fan, so there also isnt room for large passive heatsinks.

Oh, and for cards in this range - 4x slots have enough bandwidth, especially if they're 2.0 slots

I was hoping to go with an nVidia/Intel combo, but from looking at the reference specs of the 4670, looks like I might possibly go for that, or a very similar card.

I found this: http://www.mini-box.com/PW-200M-DC-DC-power-supply
I may get this to provide a little bit more headroom.

The thing is, I'm not using a premade case, I'm building my own enclosure. From what Ive planned, theres nearly enough space in the enclosure to fit two of these mini-itx boards. From this, I think I might be okay temp-wise without undervolting anything, and still being able to stick with my planned passive cooling options. With the dual 140mm fans, air will be blowing into the case at the right-side of the motherboard, and then exhausting thru the rear of the enclosure, at the left side of the motherboard. Basically, the air from these fans should be passing quickly enough through the case, and the airflow will be going over the GPU and the CPU evenly.

The HDD/ODD/PSU(if I decide for a normal ATX PSU) will all be located in a different chamber, cut off from the main one, so heat from that wont be in the main chamber with the MBX/CPU/GPU.

Any idea what motherboards I could use? AMD or Intel?

 

[Mussels]

I was hoping to go with an nVidia/Intel combo, but from looking at the reference specs of the 4670, looks like I might possibly go for that, or a very similar card.

I found this: http://www.mini-box.com/PW-200M-DC-DC-power-supply
I may get this to provide a little bit more headroom.

The thing is, I'm not using a premade case, I'm building my own enclosure. From what Ive planned, theres nearly enough space in the enclosure to fit two of these mini-itx boards. From this, I think I might be okay temp-wise without undervolting anything, and still being able to stick with my planned passive cooling options. With the dual 140mm fans, air will be blowing into the case at the right-side of the motherboard, and then exhausting thru the rear of the enclosure, at the left side of the motherboard. Basically, the air from these fans should be passing quickly enough through the case, and the airflow will be going over the GPU and the CPU evenly.

The HDD/ODD/PSU(if I decide for a normal ATX PSU) will all be located in a different chamber, cut off from the main one, so heat from that wont be in the main chamber with the MBX/CPU/GPU.

Any idea what motherboards I could use? AMD or Intel?

to be honest, when it comes to low wattage systems, i cant recommend AMD's 780G and 785G chipsets enough.