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Hey folks,

 

I recently moved to another country and left my workstation where I lived before. For several reasons I'm about to make a new build, this time on a more tight budget. I was first setting up the usual ATX mid tower setup I usually do, but soon realized I won't ever do any SLI/Crossfire or huge HDD setups in the future while being here. This lead me to some pretty nice ITX builds on partpicker and I dig the idea of a small layout for my limited work space. Also I love the minimal looks of the Corsair 250D Mini case. This is not meant for any gaming, pure low profile workstation. I would want to triple boot though.

 

 

corsair-obsidian-250d-01-hardaily-553x62

 

Since it's gonna be budget I wanna base this build on a Pentium G3258 which to me it seems is widely used for OC budget builds for it's great performance/price ratio. Any suggestions on comparable processors I wouldn't mind though. As for the GPU I first thought about a GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB SC by EVGA because of it's very low TDP and good price/performance. But it still pushed the overall total too high so I thought maybe a cheap Radeon would fit better for OSX anyways. So I ended up flirting with a R7 250 by MSI.

 

My biggest concern, and reason why I'm writing this, is about competitive alternatives to CPU & GPU and the cooling system for over clocking the Pentium. Also the wifi controller on the MSI Z97I AC motherboard is an Intel Dual Band Wireless AC 7260 card. Probably a no-go for OSX? I'm thinking about USB WIFI? I wouldn't mind for one USB less.

 

To boil it down to a short list of components:

  • Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual Core OC
  • Silverstone AR06 40.2 CFM CPU Cooler or Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
  • MSI Z97I AC Mini ITX
  • G.Skill Ripjaws X 1x8GB (so I could buy another one in some future)
  • MSI Radeon R7 250X 1GB GPU
  • Samsung 850 EVO 250GB 2.5" SSD
  • Corsair 250D Mini ITX Tower Case
  • Corsair CX 430W 80+ Semi-Modular ATX PSU

I made this list on pcpicker if you want to see parts specs.

 

So regarding my concerns:

  1. Do you know if any of this would give me headaches running OSX?
    (e.g. if I installed an all-in-one water cooler would it be recognized at all by OSX?)
     
  2. Can you think of better alternatives for CPU & GPU?
     
  3. Most mini ITX builds I've seen do use water cooling indeed. Although I've read of enough people who OC well with a heatsink.
    Do you think the Silverstone would do it? Would you install extra case fans if I went with it?
    (The case supposedly comes with two from what I read)

 

Thank you for your attention everyone. Any comment is appreciated. Critics won't be flamed. I'm grateful to the community.

Kudos

 

Deridjian

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