Help choosing case/motherboard/cooling for small-ish build

NacMacFeegle · January 31, 2023

Budget (including currency): around $1400 (less is good, more is OK)

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Primary use will be World of Tanks, but also a wide variety of other games, and may also be used for graphic design or other productivity.

Other details:

Parts I've ordered:

AMD Ryzen 5 7600x ($250)

MSI Mech 2X OC Radeon RX 6700XT ($350)

G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory ($137)

Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($129)

Backstory and where I need help:

I'm currently building a desktop PC for a friend, primarily for gaming. I've a decent amount of experience building and repairing PCs, though it's been several years since I've put one together from scratch. For this one the requirements are that it be as quiet, dark, small, and cool as possible without sacrificing performance, and falling around the $1400 price point. I've put together several builds so far on PCpartpicker, but none has been exactly what I'm looking for. I'm happy with the CPU and GPU I've selected, and I'm pretty confident in the RAM and SSD.

Where I'm looking for help is in the case, motherboard, and cooling. I was considering the Fractal Design Meshify C Mini, but it's taller/longer than I'd like. The 8.5-inch width is fine, but I'd like to shave a few inches off the height and length, so ideally I guess 14" or less on the H/L. This wouldn't be a problem if I was looking at mini-ITX boards, but I hate paying the higher prices that mini-ITX boards seem to entail. However, I haven't been able to find a Micro ATX case that's as small as I'd like.

Regarding cooling, I'm finding picking the right cooler to be a bit of a challenge, partly because I haven't settled on a case, and also I can't quite decide between air and water cooling. I can see advantages to both, though I'm leaning towards the Noctua NH-L9A-AM5.

Any input\ would be greatly appreciated. This project has been delayed too long due to my indecision lol!

RONOTHAN## · January 31, 2023

35 minutes ago, NacMacFeegle said:

Budget (including currency): around $1400 (less is good, more is OK)

Just for reference, is this budget $1400 for everything else, or is it $1400 for everything including what you've already ordered. I'm gonna assume $1400 for everything, erring on the side of less, but if I've got the room to work lmk.

For the motherboard, since you really want small, ITX really does seem like the way to go for this. I get not wanting to pay extra for an mITX board, but at the same time the cheapest mITX board I'd really want to buy is the B650M Aorus Elite AX since the really low end boards are having issues getting DDR5 6000 to work, while the B650I Edge is only $60 more and a pretty good board. You could then get a pretty good ITX case for about $150, and in total you're only really paying a $100 premium for an ITX system. Plus, if you put everything together, you do end up with a system right at that $1400 price point

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/vCfvyK

NacMacFeegle · February 1, 2023

1 hour ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Just for reference, is this budget $1400 for everything else, or is it $1400 for everything including what you've already ordered. I'm gonna assume $1400 for everything, erring on the side of less, but if I've got the room to work lmk.

For the motherboard, since you really want small, ITX really does seem like the way to go for this. I get not wanting to pay extra for an mITX board, but at the same time the cheapest mITX board I'd really want to buy is the B650M Aorus Elite AX since the really low end boards are having issues getting DDR5 6000 to work, while the B650I Edge is only $60 more and a pretty good board. You could then get a pretty good ITX case for about $150, and in total you're only really paying a $100 premium for an ITX system. Plus, if you put everything together, you do end up with a system right at that $1400 price point

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/vCfvyK

Thanks, I think you're right that ITX is the way to go. The $1400 was for everything, but it's a very loose ballpark figure so I have some wiggle room.

NacMacFeegle · February 1, 2023

After talking to the person I'm building this machine for and taking at a look at the place where it's going to sit, I discovered space isn't as much of a constraint as I was initially led to believe. With that in mind think I'll go for a larger Micro ATX build that should run cooler and quieter than a Mini ITX rig: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/dnC8gb

I picked the Fractal Design Meshify 2 Mini because it has the right dimensions. Otherwise I'd probably go with the Fractal Torrent Compact or the Lian Li Liancool 216.

Question: For cooling, is the Noctua D15 overkill for the Ryzen 5 7600X? I'm thinking that a bigger, more powerful cooler will keep CPU temps down while running at lower RPMs, thus producing less noise. Also, should I get a couple extra case fans to augment the 2 included with the Meshify 2 Mini case?