New Mini ITX Build

[Pacer_456]

Budget (including currency): £800

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Probably valorant, forza, f1, or whatever I feel like; plan it lasting at least 6-8 years.

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/8QRTZw

CPU: i5 12400F

Cooler: Noctua NH-L9x65

Motherboard: ASRock B660M-ITX

Ram: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB

Case: Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX

GPU: Probably a PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 Fighter 10GB 

Total right now is £773 (the pc part picker doesn't have the gpu, I am going to reuse my old EVGA Supernova 650W gold modular psu from my current system and keep the same SSD's and HDDs for now.)

 

I was mostly concerned with thermals with this case and size, I can't really be bothered to do water cooling so I was wondering if there should be any concerns with heat with this setup.

 

Also I was also considering a Ryzen 5 5600x build, seems that itx motherboards are cheaper on AM4 but I wasn't sure because from what I understand the i5 has slightly better thermals and I understand that the 7000 series would use a different chipset, I guess I'd have more options with a B660 motherboard if I need more cpu power in the future. But to be fair, theres always Ryzen 7 and 9 3rd gen on AM4 so is it really worth considering about future generations?

 

Thanks

 

[person123456789]

i would recommend an nr200 with good large cpu cooler and the best gpu you can fit in your budget

 

also get a premium sfx psu

[NaClKnight]

37 minutes ago, Pacer_456 said:

Budget (including currency): £800

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Probably valorant, forza, f1, or whatever I feel like; plan it lasting at least 6-8 years.

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/8QRTZw

CPU: i5 12400F

Cooler: Noctua NH-L9x65

Motherboard: ASRock B660M-ITX

Ram: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB

Case: Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX

GPU: Probably a PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 Fighter 10GB 

Total right now is £773 (the pc part picker doesn't have the gpu, I am going to reuse my old EVGA Supernova 650W gold modular psu from my current system and keep the same SSD's and HDDs for now.)

 

I was mostly concerned with thermals with this case and size, I can't really be bothered to do water cooling so I was wondering if there should be any concerns with heat with this setup.

 

Also I was also considering a Ryzen 5 5600x build, seems that itx motherboards are cheaper on AM4 but I wasn't sure because from what I understand the i5 has slightly better thermals and I understand that the 7000 series would use a different chipset, I guess I'd have more options with a B660 motherboard if I need more cpu power in the future. But to be fair, theres always Ryzen 7 and 9 3rd gen on AM4 so is it really worth considering about future generations?

 

Thanks

 

Neither the 12400 or the AMD 5600(X) are going to require intensive cooling. 

 

the Intel CPU marginally outperforms the AMD one and has the benefit of (at least) one more generation of CPU upgrades fitting on that socket, so that may sway your decision, but neither is a bad choice and both will work excellently for any games in the next 5 years. For future proofing, you can certainly upgrade to a stronger CPU in the same generation, but then you will have to worry about heat management, and in 6-8 years whatever you pick will be long out of date.

 

Suffice it to say that your CPU selection right now is fine,

 

It looks like the case fits a standard ATX PSU which is otherwise a concern for ITX cases so no worries there

 

If you're reusing old SSDs then PCIe 5 won't matter to you since you'll need  new NVMe drives to make use of it anyways.

[person123456789]

49 minutes ago, 8tg said:

I wouldn’t be concerned about thermals in the slightest with a core V1, it’s a fairly large itx case with conventional fan arrangements.

It can fit up to a 140mm tall cooler, which is basically any 92mm tower cooler if needed, but also massive downdraft coolers like the bequiet dark rock TF at 135mm

it can only fit 2 slot gpus

most gpus are like 2.5 slots

[person123456789]

25 minutes ago, 8tg said:

The whole gpu side is vented, provided they get a 2 slot card it’ll work fine.

And the card they’re look at is dimensionally fine for the case.

 

The V1 and the other larger itx cases out there, phanteks evolv ITX, fractal design nano S, torrent mini, etc are really easy to work in. You only really start running into serious limitations with thermals, airflow and part dimensions as you go smaller than what’s basically an matx case design but missing some slots.

The V1 is basically the V21 but with only 2 slots, however it adds a vented side panel rather than acrylic which is arguably a massive improvement over the V21 despite the smaller overall interior size.

Same thing with a lot of other conventional itx towers/boxes, add two slots to the torrent nano and you have the hypothetical torrent mini (fractal design pls make this) which is then basically just a 4 slot version of the torrent compact which is a short version of the torrent.

ITX limitations start taking effect when you move into cases where you have to decide between things like a long psu or a long gpu, thermal limitations come into play, irregular orientations, proprietary or near proprietary parts (looking at you Inwin A1)

My ITX system is in a rajintek Metis, and this is far from as small as you can go, but this case makes you decide between using a longer than 170mm gpu or using a longer than 170mm psu with cables.

If you want a dual fan gpu in this case you need a short (I think this used to be called flex atx) power supply, or an SFX power supply.

But then your Heatsink size is nearly unlimited, that’s a 165mm dark rock pro 4 in this thing which fits just fine. However there’s a catch, the intake is the rear of the case and the exhaust is the psu out of the bottom. It’s an odd orientation and despite the components in here it limits what you can use by thermal output, the i7 7700T in there is fine for dumping exhaust in the rm1000x, thermally the psu handles that without issue. But put a 7700K in there and really push it to what the motherboard and cooler can handle, and you’ve made more heat than you should dump into the psu, even if it’s a really good psu.

And then the gpu just has to fend for itself up there in its toaster oven (though the later revision of this case has vents up there to make that less of a problem).

 

tldr, the V1 is easy to work in and doesn’t limit part choices much at all, only concerns are cpu cooler height and gpu width. OP could toss a 5950x or 12900k in that case and have it run fine because the cooler options allow for some solid coolers to be installed, like the above mentioned dark rock TF which is great for systems like this, especially overclocking as the downdraft cooler keeps the vrms cool.

Your gpu is only limited by physical dimensions and only by a bit of length and the 2 slot limit, but it’s also breathing fresh air from basically right outside the case so thermals are unaffected.

n200 is objectivly better because of 280mm radiator support and gpu deshrouding support

gpu deshrouding can improve thermals by a lot

also, in the v1 you are still limited by gpu thickness even though op is looking for a 2 slot gpu as you might be able to get better designed gpu

[person123456789]

31 minutes ago, 8tg said:

ITX limitations start taking effect when you move into cases where you have to decide between things like a long psu or a long gpu, thermal limitations come into play, irregular orientations, proprietary or near proprietary parts

due to poorly designed cases

well designed 10L cases sometimes dont even have those limitations

[venomtail]

Dear god, please not the Core V1 case. It's bigger than most mini ITX cases and has less room than those said mini ITX cases. Worst of both worlds. I know many hold these cases dear to their hearts but it's time to move on to newer, better designed cases.

 

Consider something like this instead. Smaller and more space for everything. If your budget is bigger you could even fit a 3 fan card and an AIO. £30 over budget because RGB but I think it's worth it. If not you can swap motherboard to B660GTN and non RGB White/other RAM sticks:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  (£173.99 @ Box Limited) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i-17xx chromax.black 33.84 CFM CPU Cooler  (£49.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte B660I AORUS Pro DDR4 Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard  (£189.99 @ Technextday) 
Memory: Kingston FURY Beast RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  (£67.99 @ AWD-IT) 
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN570 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (£71.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB Fighter Video Card  (Purchased For £0.00) 
Case: SSUPD Meshlicious (PCIe 4.0) Mini ITX Tower Case  (£159.00 @ Computer Orbit) 
Power Supply: Lian Li SP 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply  (£119.87 @ More Computers) 
Total: £832.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-08-02 09:14 BST+0100