Looking for a SFF advice on parts, list provided

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diableri

Gawd
Joined
Dec 13, 2006
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Hey guys, I'm about to build my first SFF and was hoping for a critique or advice on selections.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
General 1080 gaming, MMOs and general web crap. If for some reason Elements vid clip from vacation processing is tolerable, I'll do it on this instead of my real gaming rig but I doubt this.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
I don't care all that much. $2k? Yeah, tax and shipping in that.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
CA, South-Central. Microcenter is $60 in gas and at least $360 in wasted time away from me.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
See list below. GPU is completely up in the air. I haven't used an AMD card in about 7 generations so I was curious. That's the only reason the 480 got bumped on the list.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Not reusing anything unless it's a spare SSD which would be a 2.5" samsung flavor.
6) Will you be overclocking?
No, I don't think the heat is worth it in the FF?
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
1080 on a TV
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Immediately but if this form factor case had a better option in the next couple of weeks, I could wait.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
SFF so MITX I assume. I also like the idea of playing around with M.2. USBc would also be nice but I might be a bit too soon for that?
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
No, will be a new Windows 10 purchase.

PC Hound Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 6M ($214.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASUS ASUS COMPUTER INTL Z170I PRO GAMING ($159.91 @ Amazon)
Memory: CORSAIR 16GB (2 x 8GB) Vengeance LPX ($96.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 480 RX480M8BFA6 ($213.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SILVERSTONE 500W SFX Series SST-SX550 ($90.97 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design FD-CA-NODE-202-BK 202 ($87.98 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i NH-L9i ($38.94 @ Amazon)
Total: $903.76
Price may include shipping, rebates, promotions, and tax
Generated by PC Hound

EDIT: Bah, forgot a couple 120 fans for on the bottom (intake I assume?). Should be a blower GPU I think as well.

Any help and advice is appreciated but not really looking to save cash as what's here is fine with me. Things like "that PSU has a bad rep" or "cabling for that motherboard, in that case will be more difficult than X with the same features" or "that GPU is a is a space heater for SFF, try this one instead" would all be really helpful.

Thanks as always, you guys have never steered me wrong in the past.
 
Looks like a decent list of parts.

Question- you're planning on plugging this in using the TV - like a HTPC ? If so, do you have any other media equipment like a receiver? If so, they makes cases designed to stack with other receiver type equipment. They're not as small, but they "fit in" better when stacked with other media equipment. Things like the Silverstone Grandia line and the Fractal Node 605. Being slightly larger also allows for a bit more varied component selection.

I think the RX480 is the $200 king. This is partly because it's a good card, and partly because I'm not a fan of the 3GB 1060 cards. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of blower designs though, and I believe that both the cases you linked have ventilation directly across from the GPU to allow open-air coolers to function.

How important is the system being quiet to you in this build? For me, that's pretty important in my HTPC. A lot of the open-air type cooler cards will now completely turn off the fan on the GPU as long as the load / temps are low enough, which means silence from that component when not gaming. I don't know if that extends to the blowers - it's something they actively advertise on the open air cards and I don't see it mentioned anywhere on the card you linked.
 
Thanks for the help!

The set up this is for isn't living room, it's on a desk. I have a really wide desk and the TV sits off to the right side of it as something of a dual monitor set up (honestly so I can watch football and still work or game depending on the time of year). Right now I've got a mac mini hooked up to the TV as well that controls all my media. I will be taking care of my nephew a lot over the next few years and he loves a couple games and there's room for him to do it next to me so I can keep an eye on what he's up to. I figured I'd slide my other chair over right next to me while he did homework/games instead of having him off in another room. My idea was a thin case to set the TV on top of on my desk to save space. If it vents out the back and top then that would also be perfect heat dissipation for the desk/room set up as well.

I actually borrowed a cheap dell laptop with a current gen i7 in it and loaded up a couple games last night. I might not even need the GPU after checking that out as well which would be fine, less heat and more case options.

I don't think a little GPU noise is a game stopper, I could live with it. My current evga 1070 does shut off completely unless I fire up a game. Know exactly what you're talking about. I'll give some more consideration to the fans and noise now. Thank you!
 
If you don't need all the power that the RX480 offers, I do quite a bit of gaming on my HTPC which has a very inexpensive 2GB RX460 in it. It still plays most games in 1080p with high to medium-high details. And it's super lightweight on power usage and noise, which is why I bought it really.
 
Personally I would try to keep on the look out for a gpu deal, I think I have seen the 4gb rx 480's in the 150AR range, as well as refurb GTX 970's for $140, radeon 380 for $100, and the rx 460 fro 60 AR. Maybe look in the hot deals section or maybe slickdeals.net. Maybe another suggestion is if you are getting a z series chipset board and a nice cooler you might want to upgrade to a k series cpu so that you can overclock it ;)
 
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