MicroATX Gaming Build

[jebk]

Budget (including currency): £8-900

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Non-twitch but pretty intensive CPU wise games (4X etc).

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): 

I'm finally starting to feel the age of my venerable 4790k, even the 3070 it's had in since launch has started to be unable to prop it up.

I'm planning on moving to a small mITX build (modcase Evo mATX - 3.5 slot, 340mm gpu support with an SFX PSU -  is on the printer at the moment) and will be keeping:
NH-D15 & 3070 (at least till this gen GPUs sort their availability, eyeing a 9070 XT)

 

The rest of the plan is

R7 9700X
Asrock B850M Pro RS Wifi

2x16 Corsair vengeance kit (DDR5-6000 30-36-36-76).
Corsair SF750

 

I have looked at an intel platform, since that probably suits the workloads more, but can't find a decent microatx board at anything like a sensible price point.

 

What i'm interested in opinions on is to what degree it's worth pushing the boat out for say a 9800X3D. Clearly I run quite long upgrade cycles, but if it also then means upping the MB (maybe to the B850M Steel Legion) it's getting on to quite a lot more cash.

[SorryBella]

3 hours ago, jebk said:

What i'm interested in opinions on is to what degree it's worth pushing the boat out for say a 9800X3D

depends on which specific CPU intensive titles. Some can scale the cache like Civilization series which means itll be worthwhile, some cannot do that at all and thus would only perform slightly better than 9700X.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D 4.7 GHz 8-Core Processor  (£487.98 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Motherboard: ASRock B850M Pro-A Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard  (£130.85 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (£98.54 @ Amazon UK) 
Power Supply: Cooler Master V750 SFX GOLD 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply  (£113.39 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £830.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-03-03 03:02 GMT+0000

[jebk]

Thanks. I've pushed the boat out slightly on a 9070xt (fomo is real) so have gone with a 9700x. I don't expect it'll last as long as the 4790k but with zen 6 and maybe 7 as a path it should still give me long term options 

[Ha-Satan]

Does that case use a PCIe riser cable? I can't tell from the pictures. I think you might actually have some clearance issues with the NH-D15 and that motherboard if you aren't using a riser, and potentially also with the power supply depending on the size of PSU you use.

 

The basic problem is that that board has the first PCIe slot in the "high" position, i.e. in line with the middle row of standoff holes. This won't necessarily stop you from fitting all the components, but it makes it so that there will be like 2mm of clearance between the bottom of the cooler and the GPU backplate, which can make removing the GPU and/or the CPU cooler really, really difficult (I know this from the experience of using an NH-D15 on a micro-ATX board with the "high" PCIe slot in a compact case.)

 

From the pictures it looks like the GPU could also have clearance issues with long PSUs or other stuff like fans depending on how you lay the case out.

[jebk]

On 3/6/2025 at 6:00 PM, Ha-Satan said:

Does that case use a PCIe riser cable? I can't tell from the pictures. I think you might actually have some clearance issues with the NH-D15 and that motherboard if you aren't using a riser, and potentially also with the power supply depending on the size of PSU you use.

 

The basic problem is that that board has the first PCIe slot in the "high" position, i.e. in line with the middle row of standoff holes. This won't necessarily stop you from fitting all the components, but it makes it so that there will be like 2mm of clearance between the bottom of the cooler and the GPU backplate, which can make removing the GPU and/or the CPU cooler really, really difficult (I know this from the experience of using an NH-D15 on a micro-ATX board with the "high" PCIe slot in a compact case.)

 

From the pictures it looks like the GPU could also have clearance issues with long PSUs or other stuff like fans depending on how you lay the case out.

The case explicitly supports the NHd15 in both the mATX and ITX2 configs (i'm using the mATX one).
I actually ended up ordering a different board (B650M Gaming) for exactly that reason - when I went through to check what was in the current case I remembered what a pain it was to install the 3070.

It's an SFX psu, so should have about 20mm clearance for the GPU. I'll post some inside pics as I go, since they really could do with some on the modcase site.

[jebk]

Figured I should share some photos of the finished build (pre cable management!) need to see if I can source some shorter PCIE power cables.