So in comparing the PC apple to the console orange there are really only a couple of categories you must award an edge to the Console (which is, of course, itself a budget PC): Price, and the "couch factor."
Price is actually a little dicey. It's more like a "buy-in" price, where the console wins. If you start looking at things like cost of ownership and maybe a price per value kind of thing, the PC starts to get a lot more competitive. A PC is ready to customize. Dying to be customized, in fact. This versatility might make its money back to its owner as you can use it for a myriad of things, in literally any way you want to. Coupled with digital distribution game sales on platforms such as Steam, the PC allows their owners to buy games at a much cheaper rate (due to the lack of royalty on the Windows platform) than its console brethren.
The "couch factor" as it were, allows for you to play video games slumping on your couch, with Doritos stained orange fingertips mashing on a controller as -- according to many -- God intended. I'm not always the biggest fan of this idea, in part, due to the fact the controllers just don't have the resolution that the keyboard/mouse combo have. I also am not a fan of the lower resolution on TVs, and the speed of the hardware found on today's aging consoles. But even after saying all that, there is a real argument here; sometimes you just want to slump in front of the TV and play your games. That, and if you want to make this a social thing, particularly in sports games... it really is a better experience.
So I wanted to have my Doritos cake and eat it too. I did not want to sacrifice quality for the "buy-in" price of a console and was quite willing to invest in a mini-living room PC that would provide gaming, media, and more. And so began my quest to build the shoebox PC!
First, in this example I'm shelling out a decent amount of dough. As I said, I wanted to future-proof this purchase.
[: The Shopping List :]
SilverStone SST-SG08B Black Mini-ITX Desktop Computer Case 600W Power Supply
ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe LGA 1155 Intel Z77 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core
(2) CORSAIR Vengeance LP 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW 2GB Video Card
Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3/240G 2.5" 240GB Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (System Drive)
Samsung Electronics 840 Pro Series 512gb SSD (Data Drive)
Western Digital Blue WD10EALX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" HDD (Backup Drive)
Logitech Wireless Combo MK260 920-002950 Black USB RF Wireless Standard Keyboard and Mouse
Panasonic UJ240 6x Blu-ray Burner BD-RE/8x DVD±RW Drive
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM
So you can see cost could be easily trimmed on memory, storage, and even processor model. But if you want to be an enthusiast, go big!
The items on the list that really "make" a mini-pc are the case and the motherboard. And in this setup I went with the Silverstone SG08B for the case and the Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe for the motherboard.
The Silverstone case dimensions are quite small at 8.75" x 7.49" x 13.82" (WxHxD), and it's black aluminum finish allow it to fit in aesthetically quite easily with other home theater components. It uses a positive pressure system: a single 180mm fan on top of the case blows air through the case and pushes out through the side venting. Early on I decided to use stock cooling (as this was not going to be an overclocked system), so this seemed a-OK with me. Note: I did see a review where they successfully swapped this fan out with a radiator and closed watercooling system.
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| All that stuff has gotta go in that little black box |
The case comes with a 600W power supply -- more than sufficient for a mini-pc system. It is, unforunately not modular. This seems to be a strange design choice for such a small space! It would be theoretically possible to swap it out with a modular one, but you will have to do your research... it is a tight fit with the video card.
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| A lot of performance packed into a tiny space |
The Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe was chosen for the motherboard do its high performance reviews as a Mini-ITX board and the inclusion of a built in wireless radio. Wires... the natural enemy of living rooms since ancient times.
[: Putting it all Together :]
Ok so the next step is putting all the pieces together. I was pretty nervous as this was my first Mini-ITX build and, unlike more traditional builds, requires more attention to spatial details. It went pretty fast, actually. I was sick when I did it, so I did a couple of bonehead things along the way
(including using the part that was meant to be discarded for the VGA duct and almost throwing away the actual duct), but I made it through pretty well.
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| The Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe installed |
The first thing I noticed after installing the motherboard was just how tiny it actually was! It went in without a hitch.
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| Cable management. Early and often |
Cable management was one of the hardest things to do in this build. It was a constant process of planning, tying, fitting a component, and the re-evaluating the cable positions.
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| Already starting to get crazy... even before the video card is installed (that groove to the left will be its home) |
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| Gigantic Video Card. Check. |
The most challenging component to install was the full sized video card. This was easily the hardest step. After much patience (and by patience, I mean swearing) I was able to install the card from the side and click into place.
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| Hard drive cage, Slim DVD drive, and fan installed |
Finally the HDD cage, fan, and DVD drive were installed. This added the last roadblock; trying to get these components in and cables placed in a way to allow for the case to close properly.
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| Reporting for duty |
[: Temperatures :]
With a mini-case comes hight temperatures. Or do they? Let's take a look.
For GPU stress testing I used Real-Time HDR IBL while for CPU stress testing I used Prime95. The 180mm fan has two settings: High and Low. All tests were run with both fan settings. All temperatures are in Celsius.
CPU Testing
Idle (Fan on Low)
CPU Average 31 (31 33 30 30)
Idle (Fan on High)
CPU Average 29 (29 30 28 28)
Prime95 small fft (Fan on Low)
CPU Average 81 (79 78 81 85)
Prime95 small fft (Fan on High)
CPU Average 79 (77 75 79 83)
GPU Testing
Idle (Fan on Low)
GPU 35
Idle (Fan on High)
GPU 35
[rthdribl.exe] 1720x982 GPU Fan auto (Fan on Low)
GPU 78
[rthdribl.exe] 1720x982 GPU Fan auto (Fan on High)
GPU 78
These temps seem fine for stock cooling. With a TJMax of 105C, definitely nothing to worry about!. The GPU also appears to have very nice temps for such an enclosed space (its safe max is 97C).
We can see that the 180mm settting really only buys about 2C on cpu temps (and none on GPU) so it would be fine in this setup to keep on low and save the noise.
[: Conclusion :]
The only negatives were the aforementioned non-modular power supply
As a major coincidence the very next day after I put this system together Valve released the "Big Picture Mode" for the Steam beta client (an interface designed for High Definition TVs). Talk about meant to be!
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| Rise... Steam. RIIIIISE! |
It looks beautiful on a 1080p TV (although for fidelity nothing beats a good monitor) and thanks to the Steam Cloud, I can play my steam games interchangeably between the two locations.
The budget wireless keyboard/mouse combo I bought works surprisingly well. Although to be safe I disabled the 2.4GHz radio on the motherboard and am only using 5GHz (to prevent interference).
Now all I need to do is invest in a couple of game controllers (for sports games) and a bag of Doritos. Game on!
