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Mini-ITX Gaming Box - any advice?

packcamera
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packcamera
packcamera
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Posted

Aloha all!

 

I have been lurking on this and a few of the other OSx86 sites and I think I am ready to de-virginize and start my first build. It is clearly going to be along winter, so I might as well have some fun indoors with a compact budget gaming box to dual-boot Windows 7 and OSX 10.9. The sole priority for me is to have a compact device and I am willing to sacrifice horsepower. I know there are other larger and more popular cases like the BitFenix Prodigy that can hold multiple GPUs and loads of extra hardware, but that is not my concern. My case choice is pretty firm and I am well aware of its limitations.

 

So with that said, below are the parts I plan to use. I will probably replace the CPU fan and case fan once everything is in place. I'm going to try the stock 150w PSU, but I know of a 220w or 300w PSU that will fit with some slight tweaks. From another builder using this case, the 150w PSU was adequate, but they were using a lower power CPU and GPU, so we will see...

 

Anyway, here is my parts list. From what I have researched, I'm hoping everything should play nicely with one another, physically fit in the limited space, and have DSDT/KETX support for OSX-land, but I will defer judgement to you the experts.

 

 

Thumbs up, thumbs down? Anything problematic? Something that I should substitute? Any hand-holding guides you recommend for this sort of build?

 

TIA. 

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vbetts
vbetts
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Here's the first question I have for you, are you planning on overclocking at all? Given the limited space and low psu rating, you will not get anything stable. If you are not overclocking, I would consider going i3 instead. That way, you save yourself money on the psu, and cpu but that money can go to something better instead.

 

Intel i3 4130t 2.9 ghz Haswell

Pros

35w package!

Hyperthreaded, giving you 4 threads on 2 cores total!

3mb l3 cache

Haswell architecture, so it may only be a dual core with 4 threads but the limited cores make up with a high IPC value.

Cons

Only 2 cores.

Clocked at 2.9 ghz, so you may sacrifice a small fraction of performance.

No Turbo Speed

 

So yes it may only be 2 cores, but like I said it makes up in being Haswell and that 3mb of l3 cache. The 2.9 ghz clocked speed will probably be the factor that may hold you back in a small fraction of performance, but you cannot expect a certain performance out of it seeing that it's very compact. You might be able to push up to a 54w i3 that has a higher clock, but watch out for your power. Also make sure you go for Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste. Best silver based thermal paste out there!

packcamera
packcamera
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Thanks Vbetts for the reply. I was considering the i3 for a while, especially since my priority is gaming and the GPU is essentially the key factor in performance. My decision to go with an i5 was to future-proof the computer as I'm sure I will be swapping out components as time goes by. 

 

I will certainly follow your advice about the paste. It has been a while since I have built up a PC, so I'm sure I will have a few hiccups along the way.

 

As far as OS X and this build are concerned, the only issue I have come across is the wifi card on the ASRock Z87E-ITX board is not supported, but they never are. I think I still have a USB wifi adapter that is OS X friendly, so that should be okay. Can anyone spot any more issues that may hinder OS X from working?

 

Clearly this section of this forum is not the chatty section (nearly 300 views, 1 reply), but I'm hoping to get the bugs worked out, and get this project started soon. I may try to put a guide together as well as I have been thinking of making this a Steam Box as well - triple boot. Should be interesting.

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