I think the Mini version of the Fortress case is ITX only. The standard FT-03 fits micro ATX.
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"I need a New PC!" 2012 Thread. 22nm+28nm, Tri-Gate, and reading the OP. [Part 1]
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I think the Mini version of the Fortress case is ITX only. The standard FT-03 fits micro ATX.
I am interested in building a great looking small form factor gaming PC. This is the case I want. This is the case I need in my life. It's the FT03-Mini from Silverstone. I need this. This will be perfect on my desk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1_OYsVbjek
In this video he fits a Nvidia 670 2GB card into it. Very impressive. I've never build a small rig before. I don't feel like going for the Alienware X51. I think that looks too much like a home console. And I think 555 is not enough, power wise. The goal is to make a capable and portable machine that can run games well at 1080p. Well. Not extremely well. Just good.
Cliffs;
- Micro-ATX
- SFX Power supply (a small form factor power supply)
- Slot-in DVD drive (ultra thin)
- The bottom 140mm fan seems very good.
Questions;
1) Do I grab a mobo with socket 1155? - And what would be a good mobo that is Micro-ATX? (Mini-ATX apparently is not supported)
2) what CPU would compliment the 670 Nvidia?
3) If I don't know want to OC CPU, do I need an aftermarked CPU cooler, or can I use the one that comes with the CPU. This is mostly because I don't want to apply new thermal paste and all that. I'm worried about heat though. Entire system only has 1 fan. Then again, I won't OC!
4) Since I am price sensitive, do you think it would be worth it, value-for-money-wise to wait for the 660 card? - cooling, size, price?
5) for such a tight fit that needs the least amount of cables for the best airflow (only one bottom fan!) would it be silly to get both a SSD and a HDD? Maybe it would be cheaper/better value to go for a Seagate XT Momuntus hybrid drive? half SSD/half HDD?
6) A quad-core ivy bridge and a 670 card - Can these two run on a 400 SFX(Small form factror) PSU? Should I go for those with the "bronze rating"?
7) do you think I can make this budget work for under 700 dollars (micro-atx mobo, nvidia card, cpu, 8 gigs of ram, ssd/hdd, SFX psu, the chassis, slot in dvd drive) ?
1) Yup! The ASUS P8Z77-M / P8Z77-M PRO or Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H would be good micro ATX motherboards to start looking at.
2) If you're looking at socket 1155 then 2500k or 3570k CPUs.
3) You don't need an aftermarket cooler if you aren't overclocking. I'm sure most big heatsinks wouldn't fit in that case, anyway. The 3570k is cooler and uses less power so if heat is a worry, then go for the 3570k CPU. Stock heatsink will be fine.
4) If leaked benchmarks are anything to go by, the 660Ti will be very similar to the 670 in performance. I've no idea about costs, but it would be naturally cheaper. How much cheaper is anyones guess.
(BF3)
(Crysis 2)
5) I quickly looked at a review of the case, seems there's plenty of room for an SSD and HDD. I'd go for both, and avoid the hybrid drives.
6) 80+ efficiency is always a good thing to have on your power supply. I wouldn't like to use a 3570k and 670 on a 400W power supply, but others on this board are less cautious with wattages than I am, and have indeed run that level of hardware on 400W. Just make sure the power supply is 80+ efficient and has enough amperes on the 12V rail to power the graphics card.
7) No, it'll be a bit more than 700$ off the top of my head.
TabletopTictacs
Member
Already got a copy of Windows 7, yeah. So I should go with the $900 build? I hope prices aren't too much more expensive over here.
I priced up the $900 build and it came out at a fair bit over £800, although I wasn't shopping around.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
1) Yup! The ASUS P8Z77-M / P8Z77-M PRO or Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H would be good micro ATX motherboards to start looking at.
2) If you're looking at socket 1155 then 2500k or 3570k CPUs.
3) You don't need an aftermarket cooler if you aren't overclocking. I'm sure most big heatsinks wouldn't fit in that case, anyway. The 3570k is cooler and uses less power so if heat is a worry, then go for the 3570k CPU. Stock heatsink will be fine.
4) If leaked benchmarks are anything to go by, the 660Ti will be very similar to the 670 in performance. I've no idea about costs, but it would be naturally cheaper. How much cheaper is anyones guess.
(BF3)
(Crysis 2)
5) I quickly looked at a review of the case, seems there's plenty of room for an SSD and HDD. I'd go for both, and avoid the hybrid drives.
6) 80+ efficiency is always a good thing to have on your power supply. I wouldn't like to use a 3570k and 670 on a 400W power supply, but others on this board are less cautious with wattages than I am, and have indeed run that level of hardware on 400W. Just make sure the power supply is 80+ efficient and has enough amperes on the 12V rail to power the graphics card.
7) No, it'll be a bit more than 700$ off the top of my head.
Thank you Abunai. This covered everything I needed to know
At this stage I wouldn't go for a 560 Ti.
This is what I was thinking of from shopping around, see what you think.
All that leaves round around £258 for a GPU, so you could either go for a good 7950 and OC it like this
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-...92-cores-dual-link-dvi-i-hdmi-2x-mini-display
Or pay a bit more and get a 670 but it doesn't have a fancy cooler
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-...gddr5-gpu-965mhz-boost-1045mhz-cores-1344-2xd
It's up to you whether you go for the 7950 or the 670, but it's just my idea of what I'd look at for that money. Also worth noting is that the 660 Ti is coming out this week so I'ld probably hold off to see what price and performance it brings as it could potentially be a very, very good card.
No SSD for that price but you could get one at a later date. If you wanted one you'd have to drop your GPU to a 7850 which is still a fine card.
Hopefully some of the other guys on here can weigh in with their opinions on it.
I'd switch to the following (all prices from NCIX):
ASRock Z77 Pro 3 ATX Motherboard - $109.98 (AR)
Intel Core i5 3570K CPU - $229.99
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM HDD - $119.98
Kingston 2X4GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM - $39.98
ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24X SATA DVD Writer - $19.99
MSI GeForce GTX 570 Twinfrozr II GPU - $239.99 (AR)
Bitfenix Merc Alpha Steel Black ATX Mid Tower Case - $34.99
Total: $794.90
Then, as soon as you can save up ~$100, buy this:
Crucial M4 128GB 6Gbps SSD - $109.99
(Or an equivalent from Intel or Samsung)
On the motherboard and processor front, Intel are simply better value for money at the moment unless you're looking at low-end integrated graphics set-ups. The 3570K is a great CPU and will overclock nicely.
For GPUs, I'd advise you switch over to a Nvidia. The 7850 is a great value GPU in its range at the moment for games, but like all AMD cards, it currently isn't supported by Adobe for GPU acceleration for Photoshop. Adobe are planning to bring in support for AMD GPUs at some point, but there's no indication of when that's going to happen, so you're better off just sticking with a nVidia card for the moment. The 570 will give you pretty much the same performance in games as the 7850, but with the benefit of making Photoshop a lot speedier.
I would almost say that an SSD is essential for Photoshop work, but I left it out to fit within the budget constraint (as, unlike going with a cheaper motherboard, CPU or GPU, you can just add an SSD in at a later date). Make sure to get an SSD as soon as you can afford one, though, it'll make a huge difference to Photoshop performance.
So first things first, FT03 Mini is Mini-ITX. The standard FT03 is mATX. The major thing that you want to keep in mind with these cases is that you're essentially required to use reference videocards. Non-reference videocards that use heatpipes do not work as intended when rotated 90 degrees. If you're unsure as to what I mean by 'reference' and 'non-reference', the reference design cards look like this:I am interested in building a great looking small form factor gaming PC. This is the case I want. This is the case I need in my life. It's the FT03-Mini from Silverstone. I need this. This will be perfect on my desk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1_OYsVbjek
In this video he fits a Nvidia 670 2GB card into it. Very impressive. I've never build a small rig before. I don't feel like going for the Alienware X51. I think that looks too much like a home console. And I think 555 is not enough, power wise. The goal is to make a capable and portable machine that can run games well at 1080p. Well. Not extremely well. Just good.
Cliffs;
- Micro-ATX
- SFX Power supply (a small form factor power supply)
- Slot-in DVD drive (ultra thin)
- The bottom 140mm fan seems very good.
Questions;
1) Do I grab a mobo with socket 1155? - And what would be a good mobo that is Micro-ATX? (Mini-ATX apparently is not supported
2) what CPU would compliment the 670 Nvidia?
3) If I don't know want to OC CPU, do I need an aftermarked CPU cooler, or can I use the one that comes with the CPU. This is mostly because I don't want to apply new thermal paste and all that. I'm worried about heat though. Entire system only has 1 fan. Then again, I won't OC!
4) Since I am price sensitive, do you think it would be worth it, value-for-money-wise to wait for the 660 card? - cooling, size, price?
5) for such a tight fit that needs the least amount of cables for the best airflow (only one bottom fan!) would it be silly to get both a SSD and a HDD? Maybe it would be cheaper/better value to go for a Seagate XT Momuntus hybrid drive? half SSD/half HDD?
6) A quad-core ivy bridge and a 670 card - Can these two run on a 400 SFX(Small form factror) PSU? Should I go for those with the "bronze rating"?
7) do you think I can make this budget work for under 700 dollars (micro-atx mobo, nvidia card, cpu, 8 gigs of ram, ssd/hdd, SFX psu, the chassis, slot in dvd drive) ?
Non-reference looks like this:
So, make sure that you get a card that has a design similar to the former. The downside to this requirement is that the reference coolers are much more noisy. We're talking a factor of 10 on the power ratio in terms of noise.
Next issue with ITX is that onboard sound on all ITX motherboards is kind of bad, if sound quality is important to you. This means you might want to consider a DAC.
Finally, you are pretty limited on CPU coolers with the FT03 Mini. In addition to that, you have to be very careful when choosing which cooler and which motherboard. So you need a Venn diagram of cooler compatibility to see what you can use. Using the Samsung 30nm RAM will help tons as you won't worry about interfering there. Still though, a lot of coolers that fit height wise will end up interfering with the videocard depending on the ITX motherboard CPU socket placement. Ultimately, your safest (and Silverstone's recommended part) is any of the 120mm closed-loop coolers like the Corsair H40/60. With the only placement of the radiator being the intake, this *will* mean higher GPU temps than normal. This also means a lower overclock with Kepler, as they are limited by a 70 degree celcius heatwall.
If you are okay with those drawbacks, then just keep it all in mind when buying parts to ensure you have a well-functioning system. If that all sounds like too much, some other options as far as ITX cases go.
Bitfenix Prodigy
Lian Li PC-Q11B
Coolermaster Elite 120
Silverstone SG08
Lian Li TU200A
As far as motherboards go, there's only two options out there right now. ASUS and ASRock have ITX motherboards that are both excellent. There's no reason to go with the ASUS board really, unless there is some case/cooler compatibility issue with the ASRock. EVGA will also have one out in a few days/weeks that is looking promising. I'm going with the ASRock myself.
For your other questions.
2) Go with a 3570K.
3) Mostly answered, and yes, you will overclock.
4) Yes.
5) SSD + HDD for storage is definitely the best way to go.
6) A great combination on the PSU front for ITX is the Silverstone Strider 500W with the short cable kit. This will reduce the amount of cables you'll need to deal with in your build, freeing up room and airflow.
7) No way.
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
Not sure if this was posted already but Crucial M4 128GB SSD is on sale at Newegg for $90.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...48442&RandomID=922719822515620520120813092929
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...48442&RandomID=922719822515620520120813092929
If you are on the fence, buy it now.
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
Let's say I add this to my already fully set-up PC. Can I just install Windows on it and set it to be my boot drive and everything will be cool? Oh, and can I even leave my existing Windows installation on my normal drive in case there's ever a problem with the SSD?
Just saw that this is $80 on Buy.com today.
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=221150373
Tax could be a differentiator, naturally.
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
Thanks for posting! Bought for $80 flat. This better improve my life somehow because I really don't feel like I need it.
Women/men will throw themselves at you in admiration of your load times.Thanks for posting! Bought for $80 flat. This better improve my life somehow because I really don't feel like I need it.
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
Sorry for all the questions, but would it be a good idea to buy another for my wife's PC that I built in 2008? I'm thinking it might make an even more significant difference on older hardware. Is that wrongheaded?
Solideliquid
Member
So Im trying to keep this at about $1000. Can someone recommend the rest of the parts if you were build this PC centered around an i7 quad core and GIGABYTE GV-N670OC-2GD GeForce GTX 670 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express from Newegg ($399)?
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
She's mostly using MS Office and stats software; multitasking doesn't consist of anything very processor or drive intensive. Boot times aren't that important (she just boots it in the morning), and that PC has been taking forever to POST since I put in a PCI wireless card and a Radeon HD 5450 1GB. I haven't bothered to troubleshoot that, so the boot time may not be improved by an SSD anyway.
Thanks for the advice!
Since this is a gaming forum: Is it fairly easy to set up Steam so that I can install certain games on the SSD while leaving most of them on my normal drive?
Steam Mover tool, OP.
OP. You don't want an i7 unless you are doing multimedia work.
I am looking to go liquid cooling once I get paid tomorrow and I am pretty sure I am going to get the corsair H-100 for my CPU. Now the question I have is this, does anyone have an experience with liquid cooling on their VGA card? There is on "designed" for VGA cards, but it is pretty expensive and was wondering if I bought a lower model of corsair would that work on my VGA card. For reference I have a EVGA 670 FTW card.
Also if I did not go liquid cooling on the VGA card, what would be the best after market fan I could get for that card?
Also if I did not go liquid cooling on the VGA card, what would be the best after market fan I could get for that card?
Iacobellis
Junior Member
Should be. What i3 specifically?
I know this is kind of confusing because it says 'liquid cooling' with the Corsair H series stuff, but it's not really liquid cooling. They need to be considered as nothing more than an air heatsink with a different shape/design.
If you were looking to do a full liquid cooled system, you're looking at a base of $400-$600, and if you need a case that can support it, then another $100-200.
That being said, the H100 has the same performance as a Noctua NH-D14, Coolermaster TPC 812, Phanteks 140mm sink, and NZXT Havik 140. If there is another reason why you want it, then we can go on from there.
I think ARMA is a bit CPU-dependent, might want to do some google-fu to check it. It will play it just fine, but 'fine' is also subjective. Is 30fps okay? 60? 120? 1440p resolution?
I'd like 60 FPS and 1080p.
Arma II is terribly unoptimized. Even my 2500K/670 can't pull off a solid 60fps on it (more like 45-60).
In dayz? you'll need low settings.
i'm on a 3570k and i get as low as 25-30 on very high/1080p in some parts of the dayz map.
Not necessarily. On low settings, Arma's engine relegates some tasks to the processor instead of the GPU, so Mystearica might actually get slightly worse performance.
So should I get a better CPU?
Shouldnt a HDMI connection let you use high quality multichannel PCM audio?
I would think so. I'm using an i5 3570K with a small OC and a GTX 460 1gb and the ARMA 2 engine can get a little sluggish. It isn't all that common though for me.
Part of the trick to ARMA 2 is finding a settings tweak guide and following it. Certain settings that cause no issues in other games can screw up your ARMA 2 performance (hello Video Memory setting).
wouldn't surprise me.
You don't absolutely have to. I'm pretty positive it would run fine on an i3. You just need to tinker around with the settings a bit and not just put everything on low and expect great performance.
I was confused about this statement. I was pretty sure ATI/AMD was always ahead of Nvidia when it came to adobe support, so I had to take a look into this.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2253643
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2251507
http://www.cgchannel.com/2011/03/review-gpu-acceleration-in-adobe-creative-suite-5/
In essence, AMD > Nvidia for CS6 support. I guess CS5 was still accelerated with nvidia, but AMD still prevailed there.
It's completely dependent on your set up. If you're piping audio to a receiver the best option would be an optical cable (so no soundcard, it would make no difference coming from your mobo, it's digital) so that there is no analogue inconsistency or post being done by you computer. If you've got headphones that need to be amped then you'd need an appropriated soundcard to amp them.
You just need undecoded out, via optical.
Hi,
So im building a PC, where a primary function will be watching movies and tv shows with 5.1.
I'm not sure which route to go:
1:
MB: Asus MAXIMUS V GENE + SC: No Sound Card
2:
MB: Asus P8Z77-M + SC: Xonar DG
The cost differential is £35 more for the MAXIMUS (which i'm not too concerned with). Is the Xonar DG better than the Audio SupremeFX III built in on the Maximus MB?
If there is a minor difference, is the Maximus board worth it for any other features? I won't be overclocking, there will be infrequent heavy data processing and small gaming (Civ5 and next gen simcity).
Also my speaker are some Logitech X-530's which i'm not considering upgrading.
The other specs of the PC:
i5 3570k
16GB DDR3 1600mhz
128GB Samsung 830
GTX 660ti/670 (waiting on that decision)
Windows 8
So im building a PC, where a primary function will be watching movies and tv shows with 5.1.
I'm not sure which route to go:
1:
MB: Asus MAXIMUS V GENE + SC: No Sound Card
2:
MB: Asus P8Z77-M + SC: Xonar DG
The cost differential is £35 more for the MAXIMUS (which i'm not too concerned with). Is the Xonar DG better than the Audio SupremeFX III built in on the Maximus MB?
If there is a minor difference, is the Maximus board worth it for any other features? I won't be overclocking, there will be infrequent heavy data processing and small gaming (Civ5 and next gen simcity).
Also my speaker are some Logitech X-530's which i'm not considering upgrading.
The other specs of the PC:
i5 3570k
16GB DDR3 1600mhz
128GB Samsung 830
GTX 660ti/670 (waiting on that decision)
Windows 8
I'm reading through these now, but the only arguments for relatively worse PS acceleration with nvidia's offerings is with Kepler cards, which is absolutely true because compute performance on them is gimped. Which would be irrelevant in any case since there is no OpenCL support in CS5.5 afaik, and he would not be getting a 600 series card.
My headphones sounded better with the MVG onboard than it did on my Xonar DX.
Also, Civ V loves a fast proc for the turn lag. It's actually the first game I load up when I do overclocking to bench during turn 490. All you'll need to do is modify two values in BIOS and then check it with a stress program like P95. It's a total piece of cake with Sandy/Ivy.
*edit*
There's also the mSATA port on the top of the board, pretty cool feature.
TabletopTictacs
Member
Thanks, looks like I'll go for this then. I'll buy everything that's out now but I'll hold off on the GPU in case the the 660 Ti you mentioned is in budget and better. Thanks again!
Vigilant Walrus
Member
So first things first, FT03 Mini is Mini-ITX. The standard FT03 is mATX. The major thing that you want to keep in mind with these cases is that you're essentially required to use reference videocards. Non-reference videocards that use heatpipes do not work as intended when rotated 90 degrees. If you're unsure as to what I mean by 'reference' and 'non-reference', the reference design cards look like this:
Non-reference looks like this:
So, make sure that you get a card that has a design similar to the former. The downside to this requirement is that the reference coolers are much more noisy. We're talking a factor of 10 on the power ratio in terms of noise.
Next issue with ITX is that onboard sound on all ITX motherboards is kind of bad, if sound quality is important to you. This means you might want to consider a DAC.
Finally, you are pretty limited on CPU coolers with the FT03 Mini. In addition to that, you have to be very careful when choosing which cooler and which motherboard. So you need a Venn diagram of cooler compatibility to see what you can use. Using the Samsung 30nm RAM will help tons as you won't worry about interfering there. Still though, a lot of coolers that fit height wise will end up interfering with the videocard depending on the ITX motherboard CPU socket placement. Ultimately, your safest (and Silverstone's recommended part) is any of the 120mm closed-loop coolers like the Corsair H40/60. With the only placement of the radiator being the intake, this *will* mean higher GPU temps than normal. This also means a lower overclock with Kepler, as they are limited by a 70 degree celcius heatwall.
If you are okay with those drawbacks, then just keep it all in mind when buying parts to ensure you have a well-functioning system. If that all sounds like too much, some other options as far as ITX cases go.
As far as motherboards go, there's only two options out there right now. ASUS and ASRock have ITX motherboards that are both excellent. There's no reason to go with the ASUS board really, unless there is some case/cooler compatibility issue with the ASRock. EVGA will also have one out in a few days/weeks that is looking promising. I'm going with the ASRock myself.
For your other questions.
2) Go with a 3570K.
3) Mostly answered, and yes, you will overclock.
4) Yes.
5) SSD + HDD for storage is definitely the best way to go.
6) A great combination on the PSU front for ITX is the Silverstone Strider 500W with the short cable kit. This will reduce the amount of cables you'll need to deal with in your build, freeing up room and airflow.
7) No way.
thanks, but just for clarification;
1) The AsRock Mobo - Does it have bad sound? when you say bad sound will it mean that its bad when just playing games or listening to music with headphones or some speakers? is it because the drivers are bad? or is it just bad in terms of audiophiles?
2) the CPU cooler. it sounds crazy. im afraid the GPU will overheat if I put a radiator on the bottom. I dont think there is any room in the case. Wouldnt it be better to just use the stock cooler (as its small) and just not OC the CPU. Thats a beefy Quad-core in its own right!
3) the PSU. Thats a cool looking PSU and I love its fully modular, but it looks like its not SFX. Can standard ATX fit inside of it?
4) Do you think there is any chance the 660 ti will be smaller, so even non referenced oc'ed cards can fit?
I loved my 470 Gigabyte (looks exactly like the picture you posted). factory oc'ed with 3 fans. its awesome!
i need this small form factor gaming rig because im going to move the machine physically around. I want to get the best cooling, performance and noise possible.
But then.... what would be the point of recommending the 500 series if the 7850 triumphs them at a similar price point?
CS5 is still dependent on CUDA. If CS6 was an option I would completely agree.
1) I mean worse than other motherboards, so it won't be very loud and sound kind of hollow.
2) It won't. Silverstone themselves suggest using those. Quad-core doesn't mean much of anything as most games only use 1-2 cores due to aging engine coding. Frequency is king of everything. You *will* overclock.
3) Good catch! I had never noticed that before!
4) Its not an issue of how they fit, its an issue of orientation and thermodynamics. Heat rises, and the longest part of the heatpipes is vertically below where the GPU is. Non-reference cards in any 90 degree orientation Silverstone case is a no-no (FT02, RV02/03, etc).
If you want less restrictions with a better case in every regard, get the Bitfenix Prodigy. The thing is tiny and weighs very little. You can stick just about any cooler in it, and even use cards as big as the GTX690. I've been playing around with one for the past two weeks working on my own ITX build and I'm absolutely smitten with it. There are so many amazing features on it, especially for the price. Watch this review on it. I can honestly say that in many ways I'm more impressed with it than some $200-$300 cases I've used.
With the handles, it'll be easier to move around than the FT03 mini.
turnbuckle
Member
Thanks for the info. I went to Best Buy Friday to see what they had and I ended up buying a GTX 660 Ti. Said they just got them in and the stock of ATI cards available wasn't very good. I can't seem to find drivers for this card on their site, but it's working great so far.
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