Help with an ITX build

[Inception9269]

Hopefully by May-ish of next year I'll be having a place of my own, at which time I'll have my main gaming rig in an area of its own. One thing I do want to do is make an ITX / HTPC build of sorts. Reason being I'd still like to be able to use a pc while relaxing on a couch, and also to use to watch movies from and play some games. It wouldn't be focused much on gaming, only light games like emulators that I'd use to play games with friends of mine.

 

I'm not entirely sure on all the components I'd go for. I want it to be cheap-ish so I'd go with AMD for that, however emulating games (mainly ones using Dolphin emulator) can get pretty demanding, so not entirely sure if an AMD build could handle that.

 

The AMD build I put together,

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($99.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock A68M-ITX Mini ITX FM2+ Motherboard  ($63.49 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($63.83 @ B&H)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card  (Purchased For $0.00)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($42.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 350W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $314.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-11 20:12 EST-0500

 

I'm not entirely sure about the cpu. An 860K is a pretty good budget quad core, however I own an AMD A8-5500 cpu (from a store bought desktop I had in 2013, that old pc just sitting in my closet). I'm not sure which would be the better one to use, the 860K or A8 that I have. Which of the two would be stronger? I think the 860k would be, but not sure. If I go with the 5500 that saves me about a $100.

As for the motherboard and ram, I just went with a cheap motherboard, and 1 stick of 8gb ram.

Storage isn't much of a priority, seeing as I'd most likely only store movies and old games on it, so will mainly have an SSD. Not to mention I have several laptop hdds lying around around, I'll probably throw in a 750gb one that I have.

As for the gpu, I already own the 750ti (it being my first gpu, it also just lying around in its box now), this way I can put it to use again.

I am interested in the elite 130 case, it being pretty well reviewed I believe. Another reason I'm going with this ITX case is since it has a 5.25 slot (in my current pc I have a blu-ray drive that would go to waste since in my next build I won't be installing it).

The power supply is just the cheapest, still decent one I saw. It being made by Seasonic which is a good brand, and is bronze certified.

 

*edit: just remembered that after I build my next pc in January I'll be having the ram in my current pc just lying around, so I'll just throw it in there for free 16gb of ram.

 

Thoughts on all this? It will be like 6 months before I'd build this pc, so I am kind of curious to see what AMD has to offer with Zen, if they also have budget components that are around the same price as these.

[Legolessed]

2 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

Hopefully by May-ish of next year I'll be having a place of my own, at which time I'll have my main gaming rig in an area of its own. One thing I do want to do is make an ITX / HTPC build of sorts. Reason being I'd still like to be able to use a pc while relaxing on a couch, and also to use to watch movies from and play some games. It wouldn't be focused much on gaming, only light games like emulators that I'd use to play games with friends of mine.

 

I'm not entirely sure on all the components I'd go for. I want it to be cheap-ish so I'd go with AMD for that, however emulating games (mainly ones using Dolphin emulator) can get pretty demanding, so not entirely sure if an AMD build could handle that.

 

The AMD build I put together,

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($99.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock A68M-ITX Mini ITX FM2+ Motherboard  ($63.49 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair XMS 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($42.99 @ Jet)
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($63.83 @ B&H)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card  (Purchased For $0.00)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($42.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 350W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $357.18
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-11 19:47 EST-0500

 

I'm not entirely sure about the cpu. An 860K is a pretty good budget quad core, however I own an AMD A8-5500 cpu (from a store bought desktop I had in 2013, that old pc just sitting in my closet). I'm not sure which would be the better one to use, the 860K or A8 that I have. Which of the two would be stronger? I think the 860k would be, but not sure. If I go with the 5500 that saves me about a $100.

As for the motherboard and ram, I just went with a cheap motherboard, and 1 stick of 8gb ram.

Storage isn't much of a priority, seeing as I'd most likely only store movies and old games on it.

As for the gpu, I already own the 750ti (it being my first gpu, it also just lying around in its box now), this way I can put it to use again.

I am interested in the elite 130 case, it being pretty well reviewed I believe. Another reason I'm going with this ITX case is since it has a 5.25 slot (in my current pc I have a blu-ray drive that would go to waste since in my next build I won't be installing it).

The power supply is just the cheapest, still decent one I saw. It being made by Seasonic which is a good brand, and is bronze certified.

 

Thoughts on all this? It will be like 6 months before I'd build this pc, so I am kind of curious to see what AMD has to offer with Zen, if they also have budget components that are around the same price as these.

Are you willing to use used parts?

[SLAYR]

3 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

 

I'm not entirely sure about the cpu. An 860K is a pretty good budget quad core, however I own an AMD A8-5500 cpu (from a store bought desktop I had in 2013, that old pc just sitting in my closet). I'm not sure which would be the better one to use, the 860K or A8 that I have. Which of the two would be stronger? I think the 860k would be, but not sure. If I go with the 5500 that saves me about a $100.

860k is way faster, and you can oc it.

 

Rest of it Looks good. 

2 minutes ago, Legolessed said:

Are you willing to use used parts?

Used itx parts are super expensive.

[Inception9269]

8 minutes ago, Legolessed said:

Are you willing to use used parts?

Not entirely sure. There are things I'd rather get new such as the case (seeing as it's not that much anyway) and the ssd (I would never buy a used SSD, who knows if it'd even work or not, or be on deaths door). As for the ram, I just remembered I have like 10gb of ddr3 ram lying around in an old pc of mine, and when it comes to the ram in my current pc I was planning on keeping it and not selling it. So that's like 26gb of ram right there total. I'll just use one of my 8gb sticks from my current pc

 

As for used with the motherboard and cpu, not sure

[it_dont_work]

29 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

As for used with the motherboard and cpu, not sure

Cpus are pretty a pretty safe buy secondhand ime, not much to go wrong with them, the same with ram. Motherboards depends on the age and quality, I usually prefer to buy them new, and the budget boards SH compared to new is usually only 10 or 15 bucks more.

 

@SLAYR  I agree itx parts are weirdly expensive secondhand, but I'm unpopular in my opinion that itx is a fad as well so I'm probably a little biased.

[Legolessed]

46 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

Not entirely sure. There are things I'd rather get new such as the case (seeing as it's not that much anyway) and the ssd (I would never buy a used SSD, who knows if it'd even work or not, or be on deaths door). As for the ram, I just remembered I have like 10gb of ddr3 ram lying around in an old pc of mine, and when it comes to the ram in my current pc I was planning on keeping it and not selling it. So that's like 26gb of ram right there total. I'll just use one of my 8gb sticks from my current pc

 

As for used with the motherboard and cpu, not sure

I built a quad core Xeon 3.4 GHz computer with an r7 250 for $120 used. The whole pc was $120 not just those parts.

[Inception9269]

4 minutes ago, Legolessed said:

I built a quad core Xeon 3.4 GHz computer with an r7 250 for $120 used. The whole pc was $120 not just those parts.

Probably was a case of right place at the right time.

 

I'm the kind of person that really doesn't like getting used of anything.

[Legolessed]

1 hour ago, Inception9269 said:

Probably was a case of right place at the right time.

 

I'm the kind of person that really doesn't like getting used of anything.

i go all used xD. ebay here i come!