Holiday 2012 Small Form Factor Buyer's Guide
by Zach Throckmorton on December 5, 2012 1:55 AM ESTIntel SFF gaming system
The de facto king of the gaming CPUs remains the Intel Core i5-3570K, a quad-core SKU with a base frequency of 3.4GHz that can turbo to 3.8GHz, and features an unlocked multiplier for easy overclocking. Though the K-series chip is easy to overclock and doesn't produce much additional heat (vs. stock) when modestly overclocked, you'll want to exercise caution overclocking in a mini-ITX box.
To facilitate conservative overclocks of the i5-3570K, ASRock's Z77E-ITX motherboard gets our recommendation for a relatively inexpensive Z77 ITX board that nevertheless performs well. It's also laid out in a manner that facilitates easier cable management than many other Z77 boards when placed in our recommended case, the BitFenix Prodigy. The Prodigy is an interesting case, from its appearance to its internal layout. AnandTech reviewed this unique case recently, and it earned our Editor's Choice. Bluntly, ITX systems are not always a joy to assemble because of the cramped spaces entailed, but I've enjoyed every Prodigy system I've put together.
The AMD Radeon HD 7850 1GB yields arguably the best performance for a GPU under $200. Priced roughly the same as the NVIDIA GTX 650 Ti (both can be found around $150 on sale and/or after rebate), the 7850 outperforms the 650 Ti in nearly every metric. You can read more about what to expect from a Radeon HD 7850 1GB card in Ryan's review. Note that in order to accommodate this GPU, you will need to remove the modular drive cage from the Prodigy.
Rounding out the build, we're recommending an 8GB kit of DDR3-1600Mhz (the extremely overclockable Samsung 8GB kit with modest official specs), a standard 1TB hard drive, and like the small form factor file server, a small, modular power supply—the Silverstone ST50F-P.
| Component | Product | Price | Rebate |
| Case | BitFenix Prodigy | $70 | |
| Power supply | Silverstone ST50F-P | $77 | |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-3570K | $215 | |
| Motherboard | ASRock Z77E-ITX | $150 | |
| RAM | Samsung 8GB DDR3-1600MHz | $35 | |
| Graphics card | XFX Core Edition Radeon HD 7850 1GB | $175 | -$20 |
| Hard drive | Seagate ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM | $70 | |
| Optical drive | Samsung SH-224BB | $16 | |
| Operating system | Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium OEM | $92 | |
| Total: | $900 | $880 |
Though this small form factor gaming rig will produce spectacular frame rates in most games, it does so at a price. If you primarily play less demanding games, or play at resolutions lower than 1080p, you can save a lot of money by going with the AMD APU small form factor gaming build we'll detail next.
AMD SFF gaming system
I recently posted an AMD Trinity APU buyer's guide, in which I highlighted the A10-5800K's gaming abilities. Briefly, Crysis: Warhead, Metro 2033, DiRT 3, Total War: Shogun 2, Portal 2, Battlefield 3, Starcraft 2, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Civilization V, World of Warcraft, Left 4 Dead, Diablo 3, Aliens vs. Predator, and Minecraft are all very playable (at least 50-60fps) at 720p resolution and moderate details. Gaming at higher resolutions like 1680x1050 changes consideration of the A10-5800K as a "good enough" gaming processor. Metro 2033 and Aliens vs. Predator in particular start to struggle, and maintaining average frame rates higher than 40fps requires lowering quality settings in most of the remaining titles listed above. You can read more about the top of the line AMD APU's gaming performance in Anand's review.
Unfortunately there are very few Socket FM2 motherboards available in American retail channels that use the ITX form factor. Of the two I've tried, I prefer the MSI FM2-A75IA-E53 because its SATA ports, USB 3.0 front panel header, and 24 pin power connector are all adjacent to each other, which makes stringing cables throughout a small ITX case that much easier.
Housing the A10 APU and its MSI FM2 motherboard is the Cooler Master Elite 120. Dustin reviewed this case and I agree with his main conclusions: its thermals are somewhat limited and it's better suited to more modest systems. As we've outlined below, there's no discrete GPU in this build, so that concern is simply irrelevant. If you decide to run Hybrid Crossfire aka Dual Graphics at some point in the future, the GPUs recommended for pairing with the A10-5800K are physically small and have relatively low TDPs, so the Elite 120's limited thermals should remain a non-issue. Best of all, this is a lot of case for not much money given its $50 MSRP.
AMD APUs benefit from faster DDR3, so we're recommending a kit of DDR3-1866MHz here. Take care to not buy a kit that has unnecessarily heatspreaders, as space is at a premium in this ITX build. As stated earlier, hard drive prices are highly variable right now, so keep your eyes on prices. We're recommending a standard 1TB 7200 RPM drive here, which should accommodate even larger gaming libraries. Finally, powering everything we have a standard budget PSU, Antec's Neo Eco 400C. If the Neo Eco 400C isn't priced well in your area of the world, you can always consider the Corsair Builder Series 430W, Antec Earthwatts 380W, or even the Seasonic 300W.
| Component | Product | Price |
| Case | Cooler Master Elite 120 | $40 |
| Power supply | Antec Neo Eco 400C | $40 |
| CPU | AMD A10-5800K APU | $130 |
| Motherboard | MSI FM2-A75IA-E53 | $90 |
| RAM | GEIL Evo Leggara 8GB DDR3-1866MHz | $43 |
| Hard drive | Seagate ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM | $70 |
| Optical drive | Samsung SH-224BB | $16 |
| Operating system | Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium OEM | $92 |
| Total: | $521 |
We have a few concluding remarks on the final page.
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jackstar7 - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
I still build the occasional Shuttle and going Open Box from Newegg makes them often an excellent deal. Given that power needs have dropped significantly over the years, a Shuttle can stay cool and quiet these days and deliver a very solid experience.While folks might want to have their hands in all of the parts of a build, there's still value in what Shuttle brings to the desk. My most recent build included a 3770S and serves its owner very well so far. I also have a very minimalist Shuttle running with a 2400S for my HTPC and it runs more quietly than my PS3.
marvdmartian - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
Hopefully their power supply problems have been solved by now? Last time I bought a Shuttle SFF system (~5 years ago), it ran fine for the first 2 years, then fried a power supply, which eventually led to a fried motherboard (lasted ~2 weeks, then died). Being a micro-BTX system, it was easier (and cheaper) to simply replace it with a standard micro-ATX case & motherboard.jackstar7 - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
They started using rated 80+ PSUs that have shown me no trouble at all. Even the ones from a few years back rarely gave me any trouble at all and I was packing the things with high-power GPUs and OC-ing my CPU.I use a full tower for myself these days, but I still keep an eye on Shuttle because there are times when it's just a plain good deal.
roland12321 - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
I can't believe he's hammering at Shuttle there... I bought a Shuttle back in 2004 and only stopped working last year, because I accidentally damaged the motherboard because I had to replace its bios battery. Even that system was an AMD (single core, though), also using an 80mm fan and it worked fine. The only things I replaced over the years was a hard disk and a video card. Mind you, the power supply of the old Shuttle was only 250W. Maybe people were overloading their power supply without realising it, causing it to pop.As a matter of fact, because it ran so well, earlier this year I bought a new Shuttle SH67H3 and it still runs like a dream! I can't overclock my CPU (which is logical) but I have zero complaints. My next PC will also definitely be a Shuttle! It's powering the i5-2500 with a HD 7850 without any issues at all.
Also, Shuttle make their own motherboards, and are WAAYYYY ahead of any other competitor on the small form factor field. Have a look at their website, all their products are quite impressive. And I agree with jackstar7, Shuttle PCs don't make any noise. I accidentally turned it off once because I didn't hear it being on. Maybe the reviewer was running his fans at 100%?
Imo Shuttle deserves more respect...
max347 - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
I think page 2 should read 4TB instead of 4GB (last paragraph)sligett - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
"the plural of anecdote is not data."Well said.
Mumrik - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
Best sentence in the entire article.tjcinnamon - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
I have a Synology NAS and one thing I like is that it sleeps until it's hit with a request for data. Can a fileserver be set to sleep after a set amount of activity but then awake on data request (not WOL because it's a data request).Thanks,
JOe K.
bobbozzo - Friday, December 7, 2012 - link
Probably not, but you can tell the OS to put the disks to sleep after a inactivity timeout.Guspaz - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
In my Shuttle SZ77R5, I've got an i7-3770k, a GeForce GTX 670, 16GB of RAM, two SSDs (with room for a third in mSATA format), and a BluRay burner. There is also room for an mPCIe wifi adapter if I should feel so inclined. Alternatively, I could have gone with one mSATA SSD and two 3.5" HDDs for bulk storage, but I have a big file server and so don't need bulk storage in my desktop.It's hard to imagine what else you might need in a typical gaming PC. I guess there could be people who have need of more than one optical drive, or more than three hard disks, or some monster dual GPU graphics card, but those people would be few and far between.
There is one critical flaw in the system, though. The BIOS (even the latest update claiming to fix the problem) can't read the temperature properly from IvyBridge CPUs, and as such, will let the thing fry before spinning up the CPU fan. Your options are either to permanently run it on jet-engine-loud mode, or to do what I did and use something like SpeedFan to do a custom fan profile.
Having to use SpeedFan isn't a problem for me, but someone less technically inclined may not be able to solve the problem like this, and would consider it a fatal flaw.