Thoughts on this potential gaming build?

General
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Have built miners and due to that fact I have access already to an RX580 and an 860 watt PSU which is why they are listed at 0 cost. Also have access to a GTX 1070 but I think that is overkill for my needs? If not, let me know your thoughts.

Looking to spend no more than $500 in additional parts to get rolling. Looking for something small form factor to fit in my console/media center. (Any concerns with that vs. full size?) Mostly going to use this for some occasional gaming (Fortnite and things of that nature). Never will be buying the latest and greatest games mostly just playing some fun free games here and there. Primary use (>90%) will be netflix and similar streaming. Will also hook it to my external HDD for the movie collection I have on there. Also have newegg premier so I opted to them for the suppliers on all parts. Will be displaying it on a ~7 year old 32" LCD 1080p TV. Not needing crazy 4k graphics and all that jazz.

Looking for any general comments/concerns and potentially thoughts as to what my bottlenecks would be in the future if I were to try and run this for several years, what are my likely first parts needing upgrade?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor ($179.98 @ Newegg)

Motherboard: ASRock - Z370M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($99.99 @ Newegg)

Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($89.99 @ Newegg)

Storage: Western Digital - Blue 250GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($79.99 @ Newegg)

Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 580 8GB PULSE Video Card ($0.00)

Case: Rosewill - FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($26.99 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: SeaSonic - Platinum 860W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

Total: $476.94

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-03-28 11:10 EDT-0400

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I’m no expert by no means but I’ll give you my personal opinion Dan.

My first general comment, is that you will have absolutely no issues whatsoever streaming on your machine, especially since 90% is going to be netflix at 1080p. A 30$-50$ android TV box or a raspberry pi can stream at that (with some being able to do 4k) so if streaming is your main concern, I seriously doubt you’re going to have any issues for the entire lifespan of your hardware. Free games typically also have pretty low requirements to tailor to as many gamers as possible, so I don’t see that being an issue at all. Also, games will be mainly riding on your GPU so with a RX 580 and possibly a GTX 1070 (totally overkill for your needs) you’re going to have no problem running free games, in fact you’re going to have no problem running AAA titles either.

Honestly I don’t think you’re going to run into any bottlenecks at all for the future based on how you’re going to use your computer; it’ll just depend on your future needs. Do you plan on going into photoshop, or video editing? Do you plan on upgrading your TV to 4k or 8k? Do you plan on running duel 4k monitors? These will put a burden on different parts of your PC so it’s hard to gauge what will truly be a bottleneck. The small form factor is fine as long as you test air circulation where you’re placing the PC and you should probably check the thermals to see if there will be throttling issues due to a lack of circulation in the case or due to a smaller enclosed area. Pretty much the two main downsides to a smaller form factor is the increased heat due to lack of air circulation and it’ll be harder to fit things in because of the smaller space (my friend bought a mid size tower and couldn’t fit the 1070 inside). You’re going to have to make sure those parts fit in that tower case otherwise you’re going to be stuck with a case you can’t use.

The first bottleneck you’re probably going to have is the ram, and I would personally rather an 8gb stick vs 2 x 4gb sticks because that hampers possible upgrades in the future for your PC. A quick check of the motherboard shows it has 4 dimms, so if you have 2 x 4gb sticks it means that if you want to upgrade in the future, you’re either stuck with a 12gb config or a 16gb config as your maximum, unless you want to replace all your sticks at the same time. I know you probably won’t hit 32gb of ram anytime soon, but since you did not buy any ram yet, I personally find it’s better to buy simply 1 stick of 8 gb ram.

250gb of storage is more than enough unless you don’t plan on deleting the games you buy. Games these days can take up to 40gb for cheap AAA titles (like titanfall), so your storage space will fill up fast. Don’t think this will be an issue for you though, and it’s very easy to just add a secondary hard drive in the future.

At this point I think your build is solid, I would just change the ram but that’s just me and based on what you’ve described on what you’re going to do with the PC. I seriously doubt you’re going to need an upgrade at all and it’s more like you’ll most likely have to replace hardware that eventually will fail from natural causes. Also check the if the parts actually fit in the case and check the thermals afterwards.

Also, I know you have newegg premier, but newegg always tend to partner up with ebay for sales like the recent 15% off coupon so perhaps if you want to save a bit more just wait for the next ebay flash sale. It’s a great time to buy PC parts then.

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@nuttun thanks for the reply!

I had read somewhere that having 2 x 4gb was better than 1 x 8gb for RAM which is why I was leaning that direction. Perhaps for my uses that isn’t something that would come into play though? If however I could get by with 1 x 8 gb for now and then leave myself expansion room to duplicate that with another 3 8’s as/if needed down the line that would be a bit cheaper up front which is nice so I will read into that. Definitely feels like I am building some overkill here but I am looking to sell my PS3 and my current lame desktop to move into one unit that will fill both needs for the next several years hopefully with just swapping out a few parts as needed/if needed.

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PSU is very overkill. You’re never going to use that much wattage. The most you’ll need is 450-500w.

Fair warning: the case is also pretty large. It’s not really SFF even though they advertise it as ‘mini’. If you want a media center style PC you’re looking at a Fractal Node 202 or Silverstone ML08 or RVZ02 style case that will fit everything you want inside an xbox-one-sized case. Unless you have a massive cabinet of some kind I doubt you’ll be able to stuff a 23 liter case inside a media center with enough room for adequate air flow.

Go with 1 x 8GB stick of RAM. You likely aren’t going to need more than 8. If you need more, upgrade later.

Stick with 250GB minimum for SSD size. Most people tend to run out of room on 120GB drives nowadays. Only you know how much space you’ll use though so it’s entirely up to you.

In all honesty, the CPU and motherboard are very overkill as well if you’re just playing indie games and watching netflix. I would downsize the CPU and motherboard to a cheaper, quieter, cooler model like an i3 quad core and shift your budget over to a decent SFF case that you can use as a media center PC.

Just my two cents.

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Appreciate the input @jj1. I actually have a custom built shelf that I call a “media center”. It would be tight and I’d worry a bit with a regular sized tower, but with this “mini” one I am sure there will be ample room. Have taken the measurements already. Front and back are wide open and I keep it a ways from the wall so a lot of airflow behind.

PSU and GPU are just what I have laying around so I’m fairly stuck on those. My thinking on going overkill on the CPU/MOBO are that I have the money and would rather pay a couple hundred extra now to just know I’ll be set at least for a few years and they will match the overkill that my PSU and GPU already are a bit. I am quite comfortable with putting $500 in now to add the parts that I need. I don’t want to start too small and then find that I want to try some newer game later this year and find out my setup can’t handle it well. A bit more reading on it and I will indeed opt for the 1x 8GB so I appreciate that suggestion from bot of you.

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Hey no problem, glad I can give you some of my thoughts!

Honestly if you’re going to stay status quo for the next few years it won’t do much, but it will matter for reselling in the future or if you change directions on what you want to do. For example, you want to start doing some heavy development work (video editing, programming, future apps that require heavy ram perhaps) that requires a lot of ram? You’re going to have to almost guaranteed to ditch the 2 x 4gb since 16gb would typically be the minimum specs for development work nowadays, so a few years down the line ram may even have a bigger role to play. Another important thing to note is that it is much easier to resell an 8gb ram stick vs 2 x 4gb ram sticks, since 8gb is the gold standard for what typical pc builders look for in terms of ram. But yeah, your future pc will absolutely demolish your PS3 and most likely your old desktop.

Literally just re-read your reply to JJ so I think my paragraph above isn’t all the useful anymore. Totally agree with your mindset of better future proofing your PC now, than to upgrade it down the line again because your parts became obsolete too quickly. Honestly you’re going to have great performance with your PC (it’ll be able to play AAA titles with ease), just make sure to check the temperature inside if it is placed in an enclosed area to make sure nothing overheats and you’re good to go! Good luck on your build!

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Just wanted to update the thread for anyone who may stumble upon it down the road. I hate when I find threads that apply to me and the OP never came back to update with how things worked out.

I went with the build nearly exactly as in my OP except for that I started out trying an AMD MSI RX470 8GB and that worked out swell. I do have 480’s, 580’s and 1070’s to upgrade to if/when the need arises but they haven’t yet. One thing I added was a 1.5TB hard drive that I had kicking around from college. It was an external WD my book that I pulled out of it’s case to toss into the computer. Stores a bunch of movies/tv shows but still has extra space for when I burn through my 250GB SSD.

I actually had everything in my cart when I posted and so even though I planned to go 1 x 8GB RAM, I accidentally bought the original 2 x 4 GB and didn’t feel like returning it so I am running that for now. Again no issues for now and I will just bite the bullet and pay the costs to upgrade to 1 x 16gb or 2 x 8gb if/when that day ever comes as well.

I have played H1Z1 and Fortnite so far both on max settings without any issue, lag or concern. Also it has been used for Netflix and random online streaming quite frequently. The computer fits perfectly into my media center and I couldn’t be happier thus far.

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Congrats on the build! Really happy everything worked out in the end (except for the ram, but who knows, maybe ram prices will drop in a few years time so it won’t make much of a difference)

Have fun!

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New build specs and information bumped in OP above. Build from 4 years ago has been great and still runs today (info in OP). Let me know if anyone has thoughts or low hanging fruit to upgrade on the new one, if not I guess maybe I will bump again in 4 years with the next one!

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Looks good to me, I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble running anything that you listed. These days with high end computer builds, a lot of your options will run most things just fine as long as you stick to higher end-ish hardware.

Personally I built my current desktop 9 years ago, and since then I’ve only upgraded to a bigger SSD and a newer video card. Otherwise the computer runs everything just fine, including new video games (ran Elden Ring just fine), boots up almost instantly, etc. Granted I future proofed it as much as I could at the time, but I still have no need to replace it. Depending on what you plan to use this for in a few years from now, you could likely continue using this for longer than the 4 years you’re getting out of your current desktop.

Personally I would spend the few bucks on a dedicated CPU cooler rather than using the one that comes with the CPU. They’re inexpensive and a lot more effective. This is the one I currently use, and it’s so quiet you can barely tell that my computer is on: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005O65JXI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Just using that as an example though - it’s not the right cooler for your chip socket/case size, see what PC Part Picker says is compatible.

When you’re using a case that small, airflow becomes a lot more important since you’re going to have a lot less open air in the case with everything crammed in there. It looks like your previous build is a similar sized case, so I’m sure you’re used to it. However if you plan on putting a higher demand on this desktop than your old one, that’s going to come with higher temperatures as well.

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Is your max budget $1200?

For the GPU you might actually get more value out of a 3060TI. Reason I say this is because having 12GB of VRAM is a little pointless unless you’re planning on playing games at more than 1080p resolution. Chances are you’ll never make full use of the available VRAM beyond 8GB. 8GB is still the sweet spot for 99% of games out there at 1080p resolutions. Again, if you can budget for it I would definitely consider the 3060TI for the 10-15% raw performance increase over the regular 3060 for a strictly 1080p build.

I also think 16GB of RAM is enough for what you’re trying to do, but given the costs of RAM coming down quite a bit I guess you could just go with the 32GB.

Anyway, I think your build looks solid overall. It’s good to check out reviews & benchmarks for whatever tasks you are planning to do as all the hardware have strengths/weaknesses. I think the Intel chips are great for gaming but a lot of people seem to be liking the AMD ones these days as well as they have improved a lot so might be worth a look also.

I have personally used both and have found Intel better overall for gaming but the AMD chip was better at everything else (i.e. video editing, software/applications, non-gaming tasks). However I think both are great at everything but each has a slight edge in certain categories due to how they are designed.

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Appreciate the thorough replies I’ll look into these suggestions and will definitely follow up once I have something built and running in the next couple weeks hopefully!