Micro/Mini-ATX Photo/Video Budget Build

[mgh-pa]

I'm still up in the air on whether or not I want to purchase the i5 prebuilt system I mentioned in this thread:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2311623&highlight=

Anyways, I'm thinking I may want a desktop that I can actually mount on top of my computer desk without clutter, so aesthetics and size will be important. I want to keep this budget oriented with the ability to upgrade down the line (no later than 6 months) one other home projects are done.

Here we go:

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

Photo editing (RAW and Photo Restoration as well as cataloging), and some video editing (99% GoPro footage), general web usage.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

$600-$825 (future upgrades before the end of the year are doable, but I'm on a tight budget right now)

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

US



5. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.

None

6. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, Klipsch 2.1s, and my WD 2TB External HD

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

No plans to overclock.


8. What resolution, not monitor size, will you be using?


1680 x 1050
9. WHEN do you plan to build it?

Within the month possibly.

X. Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software?

I get an educator discount on Windows, already have Photoshop CS5.5, and will upgrade to the newest Office (again, teacher discount).

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

What sort of upgrades are you planning on doing down the road? IE what do you think you'll be doing with the computer?

My recommendation considering your budget would be to go with Intel's Xeon E3 1230 v2 processor on a B75 or H77 motherboard. I'm using a Gigabyte GA-H77M motherboard (about $100) though if you wanted to go the ITX route they have a great GA-H77N with dual ethernet and integrated wifi. The Xeon offers i7 3770 performance for about $60-$70 less, though it does not have integrated graphics. The advantage of the hyperthreaded i7 and Xeons is they are a bit better for photography work than the non hyperthreaded i5, and in the case of the E3 it's not much more expensive.

The upgrades would depend alot on which route you go with this, because if you were planning on doing gaming down the road you'd probably want to get a good video card now rather than later since the Xeon will require a discrete graphics card. If not then you could get a cheap one now.

If you are planning on gaming on this rig, I'd recommend going the Micro ATX route. Good ITX gaming cases like the BitFenix Prodigy, Silverstone FT03 Mini, will cost you about $100 or even more - though the Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced runs only $40 so you do have some options - while micro ATX cases can be had for $30-$50 though they will take up a little more room on your desk.

Case - Cooler Master Elite 120 - $39.99 AR
PSU - Corsair CX430 Builder Series - $44.99
MB - Gigabyte GA-H77N - $104.99
CPU - Intel Xeon E3 1230 v2 - $239.99
CPU Cooler - CoolerMaster GEminII M4 - $34.99
Memory - G.Skill Ares 1600MHz - $119.99
Hard Drive - WD Caviar Blue 1TB - $72.37
Throw in a cheap graphics card for $30 if you arent gaming or an expensive one if you plan on it. Price is at about $660 without a video card, windows, or a 5.25 bay device (card reader or DVD drive)

The Cooler Master case supports some pretty good size video cards so you could do something like a GTX 660 or HD7870. If you are planning on overclocking and gaming later I would say drop the ITX case and go with a Gigabyte Assassin G.1 for about $50 more or an Asus Maximus V GENE for $85 more, then take a 3770k instead (if you are near a MicroCenter you can get these for the same price as the Xeon there) and add a video card down the road. Probably would want a beefier power supply and of course a Micro ATX case like a Fractal Arc Mini or TJ08-E. A bigger CPU cooler as well....

One other thing, if you store your photos on the external 2TB drive, I'd dump the 1TB I listed and go with a 128GB SSD, Samsung 840 and Crucial M4's are good budget SSD's, usually on sale for about $100. You with the Cooler Master Elite 120 you can add hard drives fairly easily later on as they use a tool-less design.

You said aesthetics are important, the FT03 mini has a very small footprint on a desk and aside from the cables coming out the top/back it's pretty good looking but also very pricy and only takes SFF powersupplies, i noticed mine with Silverstones Modular 480W micro ATX PSU is louder than I'd like. You'd be adding about $90 for the case vs the Elite 120 and $25 for the PSU vs the Corsair CX430. The case does allow for closed loop water coolers but only with thin radiators like the Antec Kuhler 620.

 

[mfenn]

What would have been so wrong with updating one of your five other threads on this topic? It's really annoying to lose context in every new thread and have to ask the same questions over again.

Recommendations for a Photo build...several budget scenarios.
Build check...photo editing rig.
Two Part Question: Build and Advice (Photo Work)
Am I crazy for wanting to go mATX for Photo/Video?
Can a better system be built for this price?

Puma's build looks pretty good to me, assuming that you don't want to throw a monstrous GPU in it down the line. The Ares RAM is a little expensive at $120 though. You can get 16GB of Crucial DDR3 1600 for $105.

 

[mgh-pa]

What sort of upgrades are you planning on doing down the road? IE what do you think you'll be doing with the computer?

My recommendation considering your budget would be to go with Intel's Xeon E3 1230 v2 processor on a B75 or H77 motherboard. I'm using a Gigabyte GA-H77M motherboard (about $100) though if you wanted to go the ITX route they have a great GA-H77N with dual ethernet and integrated wifi. The Xeon offers i7 3770 performance for about $60-$70 less, though it does not have integrated graphics. The advantage of the hyperthreaded i7 and Xeons is they are a bit better for photography work than the non hyperthreaded i5, and in the case of the E3 it's not much more expensive.

The upgrades would depend alot on which route you go with this, because if you were planning on doing gaming down the road you'd probably want to get a good video card now rather than later since the Xeon will require a discrete graphics card. If not then you could get a cheap one now.

If you are planning on gaming on this rig, I'd recommend going the Micro ATX route. Good ITX gaming cases like the BitFenix Prodigy, Silverstone FT03 Mini, will cost you about $100 or even more - though the Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced runs only $40 so you do have some options - while micro ATX cases can be had for $30-$50 though they will take up a little more room on your desk.

Case - Cooler Master Elite 120 - $39.99 AR
PSU - Corsair CX430 Builder Series - $44.99
MB - Gigabyte GA-H77N - $104.99
CPU - Intel Xeon E3 1230 v2 - $239.99
CPU Cooler - CoolerMaster GEminII M4 - $34.99
Memory - G.Skill Ares 1600MHz - $119.99
Hard Drive - WD Caviar Blue 1TB - $72.37
Throw in a cheap graphics card for $30 if you arent gaming or an expensive one if you plan on it. Price is at about $660 without a video card, windows, or a 5.25 bay device (card reader or DVD drive)

The Cooler Master case supports some pretty good size video cards so you could do something like a GTX 660 or HD7870. If you are planning on overclocking and gaming later I would say drop the ITX case and go with a Gigabyte Assassin G.1 for about $50 more or an Asus Maximus V GENE for $85 more, then take a 3770k instead (if you are near a MicroCenter you can get these for the same price as the Xeon there) and add a video card down the road. Probably would want a beefier power supply and of course a Micro ATX case like a Fractal Arc Mini or TJ08-E. A bigger CPU cooler as well....

One other thing, if you store your photos on the external 2TB drive, I'd dump the 1TB I listed and go with a 128GB SSD, Samsung 840 and Crucial M4's are good budget SSD's, usually on sale for about $100. You with the Cooler Master Elite 120 you can add hard drives fairly easily later on as they use a tool-less design.

You said aesthetics are important, the FT03 mini has a very small footprint on a desk and aside from the cables coming out the top/back it's pretty good looking but also very pricy and only takes SFF powersupplies, i noticed mine with Silverstones Modular 480W micro ATX PSU is louder than I'd like. You'd be adding about $90 for the case vs the Elite 120 and $25 for the PSU vs the Corsair CX430. The case does allow for closed loop water coolers but only with thin radiators like the Antec Kuhler 620.

Thanks, I've seen others recommend Xeons as a budget point compromise between i5 and i7s.

I will never game nor do I have any intentions of gaming on this, so that won't matter. I would like to add a second SSD for OS/Apps, keep one HD for storage internally, and have the option for a Drobo unit added on or even just quickly hooking up my external HD for additional archival work.

So an SSD may be added now, and a much better video card would be the upgrade within 6 months once I get CS6 to take advantage of some of the more Open CL and GL processes I can tend to use (Liquify for one).

I definitely would prefer 16GB to start out with RAM wise, so I may take MFenn's suggestion.

I'm also considering whether it may be best to forgo the Mini format for a Micro case. There looks to be (based on your suggestions) a few that could fit a normal footprint on top of a desk, while still giving me at least 2 bays for SSD/HDD and 1 bay for an optical drive.

 

[mgh-pa]

What would have been so wrong with updating one of your five other threads on this topic? It's really annoying to lose context in every new thread and have to ask the same questions over again.

Recommendations for a Photo build...several budget scenarios.
Build check...photo editing rig.
Two Part Question: Build and Advice (Photo Work)
Am I crazy for wanting to go mATX for Photo/Video?
Can a better system be built for this price?

Puma's build looks pretty good to me, assuming that you don't want to throw a monstrous GPU in it down the line. The Ares RAM is a little expensive at $120 though. You can get 16GB of Crucial DDR3 1600 for $105.

Duly noted and thanks for the RAM suggestion.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Throw in a cheap graphics card for $30 if you arent gaming or an expensive one if you plan on it. Price is at about $660 without a video card, windows, or a 5.25 bay device (card reader or DVD drive)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you get a E3-1245v2. For two reasons. One, if you don't game, you save a graphics card and this can be a big deal in mini-ITX cases. The 1245 is $37 more expensive so its about what a discrete GFX card costs anyway. Two, more cpu performance (even if its only 100MHz extra) is always welcome for photo editing and Ivy Bridge has just got OpenCL 1.2 support.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117284

 

[mgh-pa]

How about this?


Intel Xeon E3-1245 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) -$276.99 AR

SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) -$109.99

COOLER MASTER GeminII M4 RR-GMM4-16PK-R2 - $34.99 IR

GIGABYTE GA-H77N-WIFI LGA 1155 Intel H77 - $101.99 IR

Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) - $104.99 IR

CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 - $44.99IR

BitFenix Prodigy Midnight Black / Black Steel / Plastic Mini-ITX -$89.99 IR

LITE-ON DVD Burner - $17.99

WD Blue 1TB - $72

Windows 8 Pro Student -$79.99

~$940 +/- not including S&H

 

[jaedaliu]

that bitfenix case is pretty big for a mini-itx. It's the mini-itx case that's sized like a micro to mid case because it's designed to support water cooling.

or something like that. Just a small warning if overall footprint is enough of a concern for you.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

How about this?


Intel Xeon E3-1245 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) -$276.99 AR

SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) -$109.99

COOLER MASTER GeminII M4 RR-GMM4-16PK-R2 - $34.99 IR

GIGABYTE GA-H77N-WIFI LGA 1155 Intel H77 - $101.99 IR

Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) - $104.99 IR

CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 - $44.99IR

BitFenix Prodigy Midnight Black / Black Steel / Plastic Mini-ITX -$89.99 IR

LITE-ON DVD Burner - $17.99

WD Blue 1TB - $72

Windows 8 Pro Student -$79.99

~$940 +/- not including S&H

Looks good. The aftermarket cooler is not strictly needed. The included Intel stock cooler should be enough. Just make sure you have some airflow in the case. Also, as jaedaliu pointed out, the Prodigy is more of an mATX case in physical size. If you're OK with mATX case size, you can get a mATX case for much less. For mini-ITX there is also the Cooler Master Elite 120 for $50.

 

[Torn Mind]

I too will mention that the Prodigy is mATX-like in terms of dimensions. Height-wise, it is barely shorter than the PowerSpec TX-606 I have and length-wise, it is only slightly shorter than it.

I went to my local Micro Center to check it out.

 

[dmoney1980]

newegg is running a nice deal on a mITX lian li case today, $30 after $15 rebate

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

that bitfenix case is pretty big for a mini-itx. It's the mini-itx case that's sized like a micro to mid case because it's designed to support water cooling.

or something like that. Just a small warning if overall footprint is enough of a concern for you.

Just thinking what they all said. A couple points for you.

Since you aren't planning on gaming, a low profile case wouldn't be much of a problem for you. You could get away with a low profile cooler like the CM GeminiiM4 and put it in a small itx case. A case like the Prodigy is designed for large video cards and CPU coolers, which you won't need. Something like a Thermaltake SD101 might be better - but I haven't heard much about the PSU that comes with it so I can't necessarily recommend it.

If you do go the traditional tower route, I'd recommend something like the Silverstone TJ08-E with an H77 or B75 micro ATX motherboard. This would give you a few extra options. For one, you could start with 2x8GB memory, and upgrade with an additional 2x8 for 32GB total. You could also have better cooling in a larger case.

I'll throw out a couple builds I did because I was trying to build a similar system.

Last spring I built a computer using an Antec ISK 300-150 case for photo editing. This case is very small and fits easily on a desk. I used an Asus P8Z77-I motherboard (and later the Gigabyte H77N) with 2x8GB G.Skill memory and an sapphire HD6670 LP video card. I had a Scythe Kozuti for a cooler, and an SSD and 500GB 2.5in HDD for storage. The cooling wasn't terribly great for it, but it worked. It also kinda pushed the 150W PSU which I wasn't exactly comfortable with. In addition, it couldn't be upgraded at all, so the system was basically at its limits. I decided to try a different approach and went with a Silverstone SG04 micro ATX case (which I ended up switching to a TJ08-E because it was too tight inside) and a Gigabyte GA-H77M motherboard. I now have 32GB of RAM in that and an Intel Liquid Thermal Power Solution, I went with a Gigabyte GeForce 210 fanless video card. I think I'm happier with the TJ08-E build though I wish it was smaller.

I guess what I'm saying is their are a lot of options so it's sort of hard to pick. Because I don't like slow USB transfers from my T2i, I decided I needed a Card reader so the regular tower build had a lot of advantages. I don't really think the 32GB of ram has improved performance at all vs 16GB when it comes to using lightroom and photoshop. I always second guess myself but if I were to do it over again but I think the slightly larger micro ATX case is always easier to live with. I tinker with computers alot so I always stare at them and think what I could do to improve it. If you find yourself doing that, go the Micro ATX route, if you don't, I'd say stick ITX.

 

[mgh-pa]

Thanks, everyone. I put together a build this morning with the COOLER MASTER RC-120A, and pretty much what I listed above for ~$820.

I did get offered by my brother an i3-3220 for free. I'm thinking about it.

Thoughts?

 

[college_student]

For future reference, why did some of you suggest the Xeon over a 3770K?
For e.g., I live near a Microcenter where the 3770K ends up being the same price if not cheaper (w/ Mobo bundles) than the Xeons. And in benchmarks it seems to do better.

Thanks,
-DV

 

[Insert_Nickname]

For future reference, why did some of you suggest the Xeon over a 3770K?

Well, the 1245v2 is $277, the 3770K is $330 at newegg. Seems a fair deal, for only a 100MHz slower. They are essentially equal and the OP is not going to overclock anyway.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Well, since collegestudent lives near a Microcenter, it makes sense for him to get the i7. However, in some cases (for people without a Microcenter available) it makes more sense to go with the Xeon (need threads but not overclocking or clockspeed).

 

[mfenn]

Thanks, everyone. I put together a build this morning with the COOLER MASTER RC-120A, and pretty much what I listed above for ~$820.

I did get offered by my brother an i3-3220 for free. I'm thinking about it.

Thoughts?

Free is good, but an i3 is completely unsuited for video editing. I'd pass.

As for the case, it should be fine if you are looking for something smaller than the Prodigy. It's not the highest quality case in the world, but it looks reasonable and will fit your parts.

 

[mgh-pa]

Free is good, but an i3 is completely unsuited for video editing. I'd pass.

As for the case, it should be fine if you are looking for something smaller than the Prodigy. It's not the highest quality case in the world, but it looks reasonable and will fit your parts.

Thanks, I had already decided to pass on the offer. It's just not worth the savings for what I want it for.

As for the case, I'm still undecided. I really like the options in the Prodigy, but and the fact that it comes in white (my wife is really what's driving the aesthetic component since our whole office has a white desk and cabinets), but it does seem a little large for on desk usage.

 

[mgh-pa]

Just an update. I've purchased two M4 128GB SSDs and a 2TB WD Caviar Green from the guy in the build I mentioned in my first post (got it all for $240 shipped).

I've since been thinking. I can't decide between the Mini ITX build I quoted above, and the Mirco ATX build below:

I'm saving some money going the Micro route, but more importantly, I'm opening up the possibility of adding 32GB of RAM down the road if I go this route. The savings between this and my mini-ITX build is small, so I'm not sure if the extra RAM benefit is worth it.

I'm also not sure about the power supply.

Thoughts?

 

[Essence_of_War]

Pretty sure photoshop will be willing to eat every ounce of RAM you can throw at it.

Unless you have a specific need for the small footprint, I'd go mATX.

 

[mgh-pa]

Thanks. What are your thoughts on the power supply and motherboard?

 

[Essence_of_War]

I'm not exactly a MoBo expert, but it looks like the MoBo has the features you want at a good price.

One thing that jumped out to me is having 2x SSDs w/ only 1x SATA 6 Gb/s connector. I don't THINK the SSDs saturate SATA 3Gb/s but maybe someone else can chime in?

Eyeballing it looks like you only need about 200 W of PSU, even if you have 32 GB of RAM. Are you planning on adding a video card? If not, that seems like it might be overkill.

 

[mfenn]

Pretty sure photoshop will be willing to eat every ounce of RAM you can throw at it.

Unless you have a specific need for the small footprint, I'd go mATX.

Agree.

Thanks. What are your thoughts on the power supply and motherboard?

The MicroATX build looks good generally, but I'd probably swap the board to an H77 like this MSI H77MA-G43 ($80 AR) so that you can have both SSDs on SATA 6Gb/s.

 

[mgh-pa]

Thanks. I'll switch that out.

Secondly, and this is purely aesthetics, but I'm going with this case:

http://www.amazon.com/Silverstone-Te...hite+micro+ATX

Most DVD/Optical drives (5.25s anyways) seem to just be a black bezel. There are a few odd balls here and there, but does anyone have a recommendation for a white bezel burner and the best place to purchase?

 

[jaedaliu]

Most DVD/Optical drives (5.25s anyways) seem to just be a black bezel. There are a few odd balls here and there, but does anyone have a recommendation for a white bezel burner and the best place to purchase?

It used to be a thing where some drives came with swappable face plates.

I'm sure newegg or your local microcenter/fry's has them listed with color information.