Bitfenix Prodigy, tiny but powerful!

[Rob]

I have been building computers for a while now and it' always shocks me when someone chooses a huge case and just plans on running a couple of hard drives, a decent graphics card and a decent Processor. Now a days we have CPUs that don't run anywhere near as hot, we have GPUs with extremely good thermal solutions that also don't run as hot. We have Mini-ITX motherboards capable of anything an ATX board can achieve. So why not use all this to our advantage! Make a gaming computer just as badass as any other gaming computer just much smaller! That's a win win, I mean unless you want a giant computer... Right?

The Case is the obvious place to start when making a smaller computer so I'll go through the one I've chosen and why I chose it. The Bitfenix Prodigy! A tiny case capable of everything we need including some of the longest graphics cards currently on the market, I can't begin to explain how exited I was to find out about this case being a bit of a 'LAN Party' fan I often take my computer round to a friends house and this thing is perfect! handle shaped supports on top and bottom although made out of plastic are extremely tough. Out of all the cases I've seen this has to be one of my favourites and at £69.25 I find this very well priced!

Next we need a motherboard, I have chosen an Asus P8H77-I. This Mini-ITX motherboard has support for Intel's 2nd and 3rd generation socket 1155 chips and has support for PCI-express 3.0 16x this allows us to use a full size graphics card which we will. As well as the motherboard we'll need a processor I'm going to go with an Intel i5 3570k this processor is quad core and relatively fast which will allow us to play our games fluently and while doing other things not feel that the computer is lacking speed. The motherboard will set you back £68 and the processor will cost a further £163.94.

I don't think I really need to go into why I chose 8gb of DDR3 memory but my reason for it is that RAMs cheap now, 8gb is definitely enough to get you through pretty much anything and definitely enough to get you through any games! I chose G-Skill 8GBXL Ripjaws X which cost around £30.

A 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive. I mean, you may need more storage space, you may not need anywhere near that much. I personally would have a solid state drive to boot from as well but I'll let you decide on that. Either way this hard drive will set you back £76.

To power this Rig I have chosen a Corsair CX500v2 Power Supply. This power supply will allow for some expansion and won't stress the power supply to an unhealthy level. These power supply's are very reliable and quite quiet so for £48.74 it's definitely a good buy.

At last, no gaming computer is complete without a graphics card! Something quiet, yet powerful. An Asus GTX 670 Direct CU ii this card performs really well and creates very little noise it's able to play the majority of games in ultra over 45FPS and has an incredible overclocking potential! This card will rob you £308.

As you've Probably guessed this isn't exactly Value oriented but it for the power you get this system isn't exactly out of place at:

£777.27

Parts:

Bitfenix Prodigy - £69.25

Asus P8H77-I Motherboard - £68

Intel i5 3570k - £163.94

G-Skill 8GBXL Ripjaws X - £32.32

1TB Western Digital Caviar Black - £76.02

Corsair CX500v2 Power Supply - £48.74

Asus Nvidia GeForce 2GB GTX 670 DirectCU II Graphics Card - £309

This is my first post so sorry if it's hard to read, anyway I'm just really trying to show that size isn't everything! Hope this helps.

Robert.

[alsimoso]

nice build, show us some pictures when its done

only thing that might be worth adding is an ssd, but it can do just fine without it

[Rob]

exactly my thinking! :) just thought to save a bit of cash a good old mechanical would do the trick haha.