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Cheap as chips ITX rig for church

danners430
By danners430
in New Builds and Planning
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Hi guys,

I'm planning a build for our church, which is planning on installing an AV setup. I don't know what it's going to include, but most likely multiple large monitors mounted on walls displaying the same image, plus one for the operator in extended desktop mode. The church is currently arguing the case for a laptop like nothing else, and I'm trying my best to steer them away from that option, as I have a few components lying around at home which could be reused to get a better performing PC for the same price.

 

Speaking of price: My budget is probably up to around £450 (UK), although we want to make it as cheap as possible.

 

Usage: Playing of videos, displaying pictures, playing music and using programmes such as PowerPoint and EZ-Worship. In other words, not very intense!

 

The only condition is that it is Mini ITX! Please!

 

I have a partlist already created, using barebones cheap parts.

 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/RD9dhM

 

Breakdown of parts:

 

I wanted a relatively modern processor, in this case a 4th gen i3, which would allow us to very easily upgrade in the future, for example to an i5 for more of those GHz if we needed them (one advantage a laptop would very rarely have). As we would never be overclocking this thing, a standard motherboard would do fine.

 

The 6GB RAM is completely overkill, I know, but it's old stuff ripped out of a Dell PC. It's DDR3-1333, so not too shabby. It's lying around in its box, collecting dust, so I might as well...

 

The GPU is also out of said Dell. I'm not 100% sure about this driving the multitude of displays in this setup, so let me know!

 

The PSU is the last component out of the Dell. It works fine, and for such a low load scenario, I doubt we'd have any trouble with it.

 

The HDD: I went for reliability here. I only have experience with WD, so feel free to recommend other brands to me, I've probably never used them, but I'm open! Strangely, the 1TB Caviar Blue was just a couple of quid more expensive than the 500GB Black & Blue drives, so I though: hey, why not. can't hurt. Has more cache anyway, which is always VERY useful!

 

I went for Windows 7, as I'd upgrade to 10 anyway, and it was the cheapest option.

 

The rest of the parts I'm open to. The monitor is the operator monitor, no specs required, I don't even care if it's 30HZ with a 50ms response time!

 

I would appreciate your input, so i have some ammunition to attack the "laptop warriors" at the church, so I can persuade them that a desktop offers the same flexibility, and much more upgrade options in the future!

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theres a alot of cheaper KB and Mouse

100984d1431451978-slow-clap.gif

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snip

i will suggest steer clear of the Dell OEM PSU

 

first that is a instant fire risk!!! 

 

imagine the whole church burned down all because of the cheap PSU

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i will suggest steer clear of the Dell OEM PSU

 

first that is a instant fire risk!!! 

 

imagine the whole church burned down all because of the cheap PSU

i've actually seen dell and HP OEM PSUs do really well.

its not that because they're not a known brand (like seasonic) that they'll catch fire instantly. that'd kinda... ruin dell's reputation in the buisiness world.

 

on topic: do away with that GT420, you dont need it. even if you have it, its sitting useless there.

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 I just got a new gaming pc and I cant speak highly enough of the i3 4170                       

read the desc

 

it just for power point and video for church uses

 

 

i've actually seen dell and HP OEM PSUs do really well.

its not that because they're not a known brand (like seasonic) that they'll catch fire instantly. that'd kinda... ruin dell's reputation in the buisiness world.

 

on topic: do away with that GT420, you dont need it. even if you have it, its sitting useless there.

well one thing dell is famous for is making non-atx type PSUs

 

i tore apart one dell and i see the mobo plugs are not the 24 pin but rather 8 pin 6 pin weird config

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read the desc

 

it just for power point and video for church uses

 

 

well one thing dell is famous for is making non-atx type PSUs

 

i tore apart one dell and i see the mobo plugs are not the 24 pin but rather 8 pin 6 pin weird config

well... most OEMs do these days.

 

HP seems to be using mostly 6-pin with a 5-pin control header. (thats where the wire is you need to ground to turn on the psu for example)

HP also is really into toolless power supplies... which i'm honestly a big fan of. i can swap out one of the toolless psus in under a minute from closed case to closed case.

 

dell... kinda engineered the 12-pin power supplies other manufacturers like acer also use.

--

that said, more workstation grade, or older boxes usually have the normal 24-pin, as well as the other bunch of connectors.

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well... most OEMs do these days.

 

HP seems to be using mostly 6-pin with a 5-pin control header. (thats where the wire is you need to ground to turn on the psu for example)

HP also is really into toolless power supplies... which i'm honestly a big fan of. i can swap out one of the toolless psus in under a minute from closed case to closed case.

 

dell... kinda engineered the 12-pin power supplies other manufacturers like acer also use.

--

that said, more workstation grade, or older boxes usually have the normal 24-pin, as well as the other bunch of connectors.

well true the older HP still use the 24 pin

 

but i still cringing at the idea of using Dell OEM "300W"

 

the 12 volts rails are rate to be lower and the wattage is also taken from the 5 volts

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well true the older HP still use the 24 pin

 

but i still cringing at the idea of using Dell OEM "300W"

 

the 12 volts rails are rate to be lower and the wattage is also taken from the 5 volts

he's building a 100 watt system, cant really be that harsh on the "300" watts.

 

dell PSUs arent nearly decent quality, but they can handle a basic system :P

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he's building a 100 watt system, cant really be that harsh on the "300" watts.

 

dell PSUs arent nearly decent quality, but they can handle a basic system :P

it may look like 100 watts but dont forget the GT420 draws 50-60 watts at load and the RAM a few watts

 

PCPartPicker don't include custom parts wattage

 

so it may be above 150 watts and closer to 170-180 watts

 

 

http://www.startech.com/300-Watt-ATX12V-201-Dell-PC-Replacement-Power-Supply~ATXPW300DELL

 

http://www.atxpowersupplies.com/300-watt-power-supply.htm

 

 

some OEM replacement only supply up to 168 watts on the 12 volts rails

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it may look like 100 watts but dont forget the GT420 draws 50-60 watts at load and the RAM a few watts

 

PCPartPicker don't include custom parts wattage

 

so it may be above 150 watts and closer to 170-180 watts

before mentioned the guy to get that GT420 out the system, its sitting ducks there...

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before mentioned the guy to get that GT420 out the system, its sitting ducks there...

he did mentioned it need to display to a few monitors and TVs

 

the GT420 supports 3 displays and add more with a hub

 

 

also i updated my previous post about those 300 watts PSU

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he did mentioned it need to display to a few monitors and TVs

 

the GT420 supports 3 displays and add more with a hub

 

 

also i updated my previous post about those 300 watts PSU

well.. they're all "cloned" displays, so just splitters off of the on-board DVI connector should be fine.

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well.. they're all "cloned" displays, so just splitters off of the on-board DVI connector should be fine.

oh damn didnt see the board I/O lolz

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Instead of doing a diy, get a prebuilt like from dell. They have those mini itx types and if anything there is support and warranty.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£88.92 @ Aria PC)

Motherboard: MSI H97I AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (£79.39 @ CCL Computers)

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£31.75 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.98 @ Scan.co.uk)

Case: Zalman M1 Mini ITX Tower Case (£30.98 @ Novatech)

Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Scan.co.uk)

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£9.38 @ CCL Computers)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 OEM (64-bit) (£107.82 @ CCL Computers)

Total: £426.21

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-25 14:46 BST+0100

Intel Xeon E5 1650 v3 @ 3.5GHz 6C:12T / CM212 Evo / Asus X99 Deluxe / 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 3000 Trident-Z / Samsung 850 Pro 256GB / Intel 335 240GB / WD Red 2 & 3TB / Antec 850w / RTX 2070 / Win10 Pro x64

HP Envy X360 15: Intel Core i5 8250U @ 1.6GHz 4C:8T / 8GB DDR4 / Intel UHD620 + Nvidia GeForce MX150 4GB / Intel 120GB SSD / Win10 Pro x64

 

HP Envy x360 BP series Intel 8th gen

AMD ThreadRipper 2!

5820K & 6800K 3-way SLI mobo support list

 

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Get a better PSU

Good luck, Have fun, Build PC, and have a last gen console for use once a year. I should answer most of the time between 9 to 3 PST

NightHawk 3.0: R7 5700x @, B550A vision D, H105, 2x32gb Oloy 3600, Sapphire RX 6700XT  Nitro+, Corsair RM750X, 500 gb 850 evo, 2tb rocket and 5tb Toshiba x300, 2x 6TB WD Black W10 all in a 750D airflow.
GF PC: (nighthawk 2.0): R7 2700x, B450m vision D, 4x8gb Geli 2933, Strix GTX970, CX650M RGB, Obsidian 350D

Skunkworks: R5 3500U, 16gb, 500gb Adata XPG 6000 lite, Vega 8. HP probook G455R G6 Ubuntu 20. LTS

Condor (MC server): 6600K, z170m plus, 16gb corsair vengeance LPX, samsung 750 evo, EVGA BR 450.

Spirt  (NAS) ASUS Z9PR-D12, 2x E5 2620V2, 8x4gb, 24 3tb HDD. F80 800gb cache, trueNAS, 2x12disk raid Z3 stripped

PSU Tier List      Motherboard Tier List     SSD Tier List     How to get PC parts cheap    HP probook 445R G6 review

 

"Stupidity is like trying to find a limit of a constant. You are never truly smart in something, just less stupid."

Camera Gear: X-S10, 16-80 F4, 60D, 24-105 F4, 50mm F1.4, Helios44-m, 2 Cos-11D lavs

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One argument against notebooks is the tendency to overheat. Especially as they get older and start collecting dust.

 

I would suggest some changes in the build.

 

Go with an ssd instead of hdd. There should not be a need to store many large files on the unit. The faster boot is nice, but the principal benefit is smoother playback.

 

People should use USB sticks or CD/DVD for their projects. Go with an internal optical drive.

 

Go with a wireless mouse and keyboard.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£88.92 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus H81I-PLUS Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£49.99 @ Novatech)
Storage: Sandisk Z400s 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£35.99 @ Novatech)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  (£38.51 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer  (£9.38 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit)  (£67.95 @ Ebuyer)
Monitor: AOC E970SWN 60Hz 18.5" Monitor  (£59.44 @ Ebuyer)
Keyboard: A4Tech 7300N Wireless Ergonomic Keyboard w/Optical Mouse  (£24.88 @ Amazon UK)
Other: Dell stock 300W PSU (Purchased For £0.00)
Other: NVIDIA GT 420 stock (Purchased For £0.00)
Other: 6GB stock Dell Memory (Purchased For £0.00)
Total: £375.06
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-26 04:27 BST+0100

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency. Not quality.

 

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