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Attempting a SFF build for the girlfriend


whitefiretiger

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Well my girlfriend likes to play Tera and PWI but shes been doing it on a ASUS X551M (think I've got that model right) black friday special laptop I gave her.

 

So I decided that I'd see about building her a desktop. After talking to her brother over the holiday we decided a very energy efficient SFF build would be to her liking (she doesn't like big cases that are hard to move and the main reason she's stuck to laptops is energy efficiency). We came upon a combo deal for a AMD Athlon 5350 (2.05Ghz quad core) & ASROCK AM1B-ITX mITX mobo brand new for $70 shipped and so we went in together to buy it. While this wont be a crazy powerful pc it will be cheap and more than blow the laptop away (laptop is 2Ghz dual core maxed out at 4gb ram).

 

Im planning on 8gb ddr3 1600 (probably pull the kit from my pc and get some 1866 for mine)

Not completely sure on gpu yet as the R3 that is built into the cpu is horrific so I may use my old PNY Geforce GT 730 or may keep my eye out for something else.

 

Plan is a small (thinking 240gb ) SSD and a 500gb 2.5" hdd). Would also like to have an odd and sd card reader as she would likely use an odd and will need a sd reader.

 

Now where I'm having trouble is deciding on a case. I have an empty xbox 360 case that I've been wanting to put a mitx build into but I'm not sold on the idea for this as I doubt I could get it built quite the way I want to for her needs.

I also have a Dell 537S case (good bit bigger than the xbox case but still a baby when setting next to my full tower) with a 250w psu, odd, card reader. This would be a lot easier to put together and have everything she would need with some room to grow.

I'm still looking into other case options as well but don't want to go too crazy as budget is key.

 

Any input welcome.

Edited by whitefiretiger

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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163274&cm_re=Silverstone_mitx-_-11-163-274-_-Product

 

Bought one of these for my htpc build and have been very happy with the size/value of it. It uses a standard size PSU to help on the budget, and can still fit a large GPU should you go that route later. They have a solid front version too, but I wanted airflow and liked the look of it.

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Thanks. Unfortunately a cube style isn't the desired shape for this. Basically a mini tower is what i need here.

 

Currently leaning toward this dell case I have but wishing it was a hair smaller.

 

This is pics of the dell case i grabbed from the web (not home)

8ed07870ec0cad81950246a4897a5c71.jpga311add610238a68ffd881d7dbb52f09.jpg

 

I've even been toying with the idea of hacking up a couple junk cases and try building to needs.

Edited by whitefiretiger

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  • 3 weeks later...

Decided to go with the Dell case. To keep things simple.

Thinking about adding 4 holes to the side and mounting a 120mm fan where the vent is as I don't like there only being the single 80mm top exhaust fan.

 

I did just decide to go with the 1gb GT730 gpu I had setting and 8gb ripjaws that was in my pc.

 

I gave it a test run with an old 80gb hdd and it ran smooth.

I'm hopefully going to be picking up a SSD on Friday or Saturday (if it out performs my current ssd in my pc I'll be cloning and using my old one in this build) and if I can figure out where I packed it away I know I have a WD Scorpio Blue 250gb that only saw a little use before the laptop it was in got an upgrade that I'll use for additional storage on this build.

 

I'll try to get some pics up as soon as I can (have to find my real digi cam as my phones camera stopped working)

 

 

Sent from my LGLS770 using Tapatalk

Edited by whitefiretiger

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  • 2 weeks later...

I didn't find my camera until tonight but its good timing as the build is all done and running. I'm going to be giving it to my girl tomorrow.

 

I must say I'm very impressed with this little AM1 setup its very quick for being a 2.05ghz quad core. I did OC it a little bit to 2,184mhz (thats all I could get as this has the 105 fsb issue that gives no boot disc error so i could only do 104) and it did provide a small boost in performance. This little setup is over 2X her current setup (laptop) and should serve her well and theres always room for improvement (biggest things I'd like to have done different is larger SSD (ended up using my old 120gb and better GPU maybe go to a 750 TI down the road)

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