Mini Itx Streaming Box

[ltguy]

Something for the bedroom to stream youtube, twitch, etc. Its overkill but I like to buy parts I can use again in other builds if my needs change.

 

case - Istarusa S-0112-DT with 120watt ac adapter (was $35 on sale so thats how i picked it)

 

motherboard - Gigabyte Z87N-WIFI 

 

cpu - i3 4130

 

ram - 4gb gskill ddr3 1600mhz (stole from another build i wasnt using)

 

cpu cooler - Rosewill RCX-Z775-LP (fits like a glove ... 10 bucks.. highly recommend)

 

hard drive - toshiba q series pro 120gb ( last second best buy purchase because it didnt like the ssd i already had, very strange caused bsods and no drive found errors yet works fine in another machine)

 

Its very cramped and not much room for cable management. Added a little 40mm fan to cool the voltage regulator board since its the only thing that gets hot. Probably should have bought a thin mini itx board but wheres the fun in that. Sodims... no thank you.

 

 

[DoubleY]

An i3 is in now way an overkill CPU for livestreaming

 

There are livestreamers with 2 Xeon E5 something or another costing nearly $2500 each  for JUST a streaming box

[SAV1OUR]

thats pretty cool

[ltguy]

An i3 is in now way an overkill CPU for livestreaming

 

There are livestreamers with 2 Xeon E5 something or another costing nearly $2500 each

I'm just using it to watch streams, not broadcast them. I kinda made that confusing, my bad.

[DoubleY]

I'm just using it to watch streams, not broadcast them. I kinda made that confusing, my bad.

Ahhh that makes a little more sense now

[UselessBread]

You could also use that box for steam in home streaming later on!

[paulsterio]

You could have gotten away with a Celeron, to be honest, but I completely understand your reasoning for wanting headroom nice small build!

[Ivyk]

Damn that looks tight.

[Giancarlo124]

pretty nice little pc, good work.

[ltguy]

You could have gotten away with a Celeron, to be honest, but I completely understand your reasoning for wanting headroom nice small build!

I recently had some time with a pentium g3220 and it seemed a little rough around the edges for streaming 1080p, so i went with the i3.

[ltguy]

Damn that looks tight.

I agree, i'm thinking about getting the pico psu 160 (http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-160-XT) to replace the voltage regulator board it came with. The pico doesnt have the giant 24 pin cable and removing the circuit board in the front should give more some more room to tuck away cables.

[WAI]

the new i3's are great. i can't wait to have my build up and running. should be fun 

[erty176]

Those cables seem really close to the fan in that cooler...

[thunder9231]

I personally wouldn't have gone with a Z87 board with an i3 if it's soul purpose is to be a media PC. I would have gone with somewhere along the lines of an H87 or H85. Some H series boards do have built in Wi-Fi.

 

Good, small build though!

[paulsterio]

I recently had some time with a pentium g3220 and it seemed a little rough around the edges for streaming 1080p, so i went with the i3.

 

Yeah, probably due to the graphics more so than the CPU to be perfectly honest. I used my Celeron to stream with a dedicated graphics card and it's more than fine. 

 

That makes sense though, because the major difference stepping up to an i3 is the integrated graphics, apart from that, you just get higher clock speeds and HT, neither of which should make a big impact on receiving and decoding streamed content anyway, HT maybe a little, but still, not worth the price premium in any way (an i3 is like double the price of a Celeron yeah?), so it's probably that iGPU. 

[Almercenary]

Looks pretty cool, really compact.  Could you get some more photos? Im intrigued. 

[ltguy]

Yeah, probably due to the graphics more so than the CPU to be perfectly honest. I used my Celeron to stream with a dedicated graphics card and it's more than fine. 

 

That makes sense though, because the major difference stepping up to an i3 is the integrated graphics, apart from that, you just get higher clock speeds and HT, neither of which should make a big impact on receiving and decoding streamed content anyway, HT maybe a little, but still, not worth the price premium in any way (an i3 is like double the price of a Celeron yeah?), so it's probably that iGPU. 

Exactly, and I knew i was using a case that didnt have an expansion slot for a dedicated graphics card so i got the i3. I was actually going to get the high end i3 with hd 4600 graphics, but after looking at the benchmark and specs its just a hair better and would have been $40 more.

[ltguy]

I personally wouldn't have gone with a Z87 board with an i3 if it's soul purpose is to be a media PC. I would have gone with somewhere along the lines of an H87 or H85. Some H series boards do have built in Wi-Fi.

 

Good, small build though!

Thanks!           I agree but i know me. Nothing i buy ever has  a "sole" purpse. This thing will likely one day be in a steam box build with a 4770k and a high end graphics card.