Mini ITX PC Build

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted sulking member 63079
  • Start date Start date
D

Deleted sulking member 63079

Guest
The laptop isn't ideal for editing on and since we've just finished converting the cupboard under the stairs into an "office", I'm looking at building a Mini ITX PC to fit in it.

Going for a smaller case, as I'm not going to be adding any optical drives or anything, so I think I should be able to get away with it.

Looking at a Core i5 or i7 build, 16GB ram, SSD for primary drive with a 2TB HDD for storage.

Not sure on the graphics card yet, maybe a GTX 750 Ti if they fit in mini cases. Also going to look at the quieter options for CPU cooling and a quiet case / PSU to keep the noise down.

If anyone has any thoughts / tips, they'd be greatly appreciated, I've not built a PC for years!
 
A quiet cpu fan will have a large diameter, yet still need to be small enough to fit the smaller case. With my microATX build it was quite difficult to be sure, before buying online, that the case and fan combination would work. the Scythe Shuriken 2B Low profile heat pipe fan was the answer.
0fd929e169.jpg
9.5cm wide case:
1253110449normal.jpg

Luckily I'd found a website that let you configure your system from compatible components. So I could see what fitted. But the site no longer offers that. Here's the photo story of my i5 + microATX build that might be of interest.
10670275_96db843e01719c7fc17af005fa232928_standard.jpg


Some small cases don't have slots for extension cards. Or just one slot. You can see above, my case has 2 half height slots, with my wifi card in one. The case had room for 1 HDD. But i squeezed a SDD in. If you don't need a DVD then there is loads of room.

The motherboard has on board Intel graphics. Worrying about heat and noise, I put off buying a graphics card. And it turned out the on board graphics was more than good enough. YMMV.

Finally, I dumped the power supply (SFX format) that came with the case and bought a super quiet Xilence 250w one. Which is hardly audible.
 
Last edited:
My current ITX build is:
Lian-Li PC-Q18B case
Gigabyte GA-Z97N Gaming 5 mobo
Intel i5-4690T CPU (45W)
16GB PC3-1600 RAM
Silverstone 450W SST-ST45SF-G PSU
SSD for OS but it's swappable so varies depending on the OS I'm using
2 x 1TB WD Blacks in RAID 1

I can't remember what CPU cooler I used but it will have been picked for low noise.
I admit this is a fairly premium set of components but I wanted a good number of internal drives plus the PC-Q18's hot-swap drive cage; the cheaper PC-Q08 would probably suit most people better.
I picked the mobo as it has five SATA sockets plus eSATA and S/PDIF which was exactly the spec I wanted.
The fully modular PSU is a boon in small cases as there aren't surplus cables clogging the air flow. The Silversone SFX PSUs also have short mobo cables which further keeps the airflow clear.
I haven't found a need for a separate GPU yet but would go for a GTX 750 over the Ti to drop the power requirements. Make sure you select a case with two expansion slots as just one will severely limit your choice of GPU.
 
Snapsh0t said:
My current ITX build is:
Lian-Li PC-Q18B case
Gigabyte GA-Z97N Gaming 5 mobo
Intel i5-4690T CPU (45W)
16GB PC3-1600 RAM
Silverstone 450W SST-ST45SF-G PSU
SSD for OS but it's swappable so varies depending on the OS I'm using
2 x 1TB WD Blacks in RAID 1

I can't remember what CPU cooler I used but it will have been picked for low noise.
I admit this is a fairly premium set of components but I wanted a good number of internal drives plus the PC-Q18's hot-swap drive cage; the cheaper PC-Q08 would probably suit most people better.
I picked the mobo as it has five SATA sockets plus eSATA and S/PDIF which was exactly the spec I wanted.
The fully modular PSU is a boon in small cases as there aren't surplus cables clogging the air flow. The Silversone SFX PSUs also have short mobo cables which further keeps the airflow clear.
I haven't found a need for a separate GPU yet but would go for a GTX 750 over the Ti to drop the power requirements. Make sure you select a case with two expansion slots as just one will severely limit your choice of GPU.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not sure I really need the GPU or not tbh, although, now that Lightroom utilises the GPU acceleration I figured I might as well get the most out of it.

I was looking at the ASRock Z97E Mobo, which has 1 PCI-E 3 port for the graphics card, and a second Mini PCI-e, although it also has wifi built in, so not sure I'd even need the second expansion port.
 
I'd be tempted to look at the 'Pico PSU' power supply if space is at a premium in the case. They work with an external power brick. I use one in my media centre PC and they're cracking bits of kit. These guys sell them/give you an idea of what the kit is/does but aren't the cheapest:

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/psu

Also wouldn't bother with a discrete graphics card/GPU personally - decent CPU/plenty of RAM/SSD would be better IMHO.

Si
 
Last edited:
Simon Lund said:
I'd be tempted to look at the 'Pico PSU' power supply if space is at a premium in the case. They work with an external power brick. I use one in my media centre PC and they're cracking bits of kit. These guys sell them/give you an idea of what the kit is/does but aren't the cheapest:

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/psu

Also personally wouldn't bother with a discrete graphics card/GPU personally - decent CPU/plenty of RAM/SSD would be better IMHO.

Si
Click to expand...

This. Would be the best bet if you dont use the PC for anything strenuous
 
So, I'm provisionally looking at:

ASRock Z97E Mobo
Core i7 4790
16GB Corsair Red memory
240GB Kingston SSD
2TB Samsung Sata drive

And that just leaves me needing a cooler and a PSU?
 
The toughest part, I found, was finding a nice small case and knowing which cpu fan would be quiet yet still fit. And which power supply would be quiet too. Before ordering all the parts online. I even went into a a few components shops. But they couldn't tell me what would fit without opening all the boxes and assembling them in a trial and error process.
 
Last edited:
ianp5a said:
The toughest part, I found, was finding a nice small case and knowing which cpu fan would be quiet yet still fit. And which power supply would be quiet too. Before ordering all the parts online. I even went into a a few components shops. But they couldn't tell me what would fit without opening all the boxes and assembling them in a trial and error process.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I got fed up trying to figure out what fitted and what didn't, so I've just bought a full size machine instead!

Didn't go with the i7 in the end, decided Core i5 4690K was enough performance for me and kept the price down a little bit.

240GB kingston extreme Pro as my OS drive, and 2 x 2TB WD Red Drives as storage. One will be a backup of the other, but I'm not going to RAID them.

500w Corsair modular PSU and a BeQuiet case, GTX 750TI, 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM and a card reading module to go in one of the drive bays on the front.
 
This site might help as they specialise in quiet build components

http://quietpc.co.uk

PS I have bought case fans from them in the past.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top