May be a little long for most. And pics tomorrow and wednesday when parts come in.
It all started in 2016. I started lurking around [H] Hot Deals and just happened to stumble across an amazing opportunity at Best Buy. The 1080 was new and they mistakenly put the 1070 price on it ($449 at the time). I was still stuck on GTX 670’s. I could be set for years on the gpu side of things. I HAD to get this card. Rushed down to Best Buy just minutes before GMs started getting calls about the error. SCORE!! (I really hope that guy didn’t lose his job though)
Fast forward to today. Just like many of us in this small community, I had the itch to upgrade. Like a junky, I needed some new parts but my rig is still a beast. I start lurking forums again. “Ryzen 1700 $159.99”…FML. What the hell am I supposed to do with this thing now. I guess I could use a 1080p gaming/Plex rig and that shouldn’t be too expensive right? The journey to a budget SFF begins.
Reading the interwebs im realizing going small isn’t cheap and it has to start with the case. Indie case makers are pumping out some beautiful designs. Dan, Saber, NFC, N1, the ghost etc. But these are pretty expensive and not readily available to the masses. I see some have gone overseas to find something comparable but even those are close to the same price and who knows when they’ll ship. Then there’s Geeek. Never heard of em until someone mentioned something on reddit. Nice, simple cases with a clean design. Even with ridiculously fast 3 day shipping from Taiwan, you’re looking at around $80 with a psu cover. Its go time!
Now is where the patience had to come into play. Im not spending $1k on a plex rig that I might game on. Over the next 2 months, here is a list of what I managed to find using forums, reddit and ebay deals (they had one every 2 weeks it seemed!!)
CASE - Geeek A30 +PSU Shroud $78.23
CPU – Ryzen 1700 $159.99
RAM – 16GB G.Skill DDR4 3000 $65 Facebook Marketplace (New)
MOBO – ASRock AB350 GamingITX $89.99
PSU (used) – Athena Power FlexATX 350w $33.15 eBay
GPU (used) – EVGA 1060 6GB $171.75 eBay
M.2 – Toshiba XG5 256GB $60 eBay
HDD – (2) HGST HGST Travelstar 7K1000 $80 eBay
Total = $738.11
Sure, theres a few issues with this. I cant check to make sure these items aren’t DOA since I don’t have all the main parts. Luckily, the deals for the cpu and motherboard were from newegg so ill have the warranty. The 1060 was probably more than I needed but again, ebay had a sale knocking the price down to what I probably would have paid for a 1050ti. DDR4? Hell, I just got lucky checking facebook marketplace. It shipped today so we’ll see if I get a box of rocks or not (im covered by paypal if so) The PSU? Going this cheap, I can live if it were to fail on me. M.2? Probably not the best but it gets around 2GB/1GB and its cheaper than a comparable Samsung. Each item purchase I can verify if you need proof. IT CAN BE DONE!
Some items are still coming in and maybe I’ll post pics tomorrow but for those in the market for parts, planning and patience. Use these forums. Check em like Wilford Brimley checks his blood sugar!
It all started in 2016. I started lurking around [H] Hot Deals and just happened to stumble across an amazing opportunity at Best Buy. The 1080 was new and they mistakenly put the 1070 price on it ($449 at the time). I was still stuck on GTX 670’s. I could be set for years on the gpu side of things. I HAD to get this card. Rushed down to Best Buy just minutes before GMs started getting calls about the error. SCORE!! (I really hope that guy didn’t lose his job though)
Fast forward to today. Just like many of us in this small community, I had the itch to upgrade. Like a junky, I needed some new parts but my rig is still a beast. I start lurking forums again. “Ryzen 1700 $159.99”…FML. What the hell am I supposed to do with this thing now. I guess I could use a 1080p gaming/Plex rig and that shouldn’t be too expensive right? The journey to a budget SFF begins.
Reading the interwebs im realizing going small isn’t cheap and it has to start with the case. Indie case makers are pumping out some beautiful designs. Dan, Saber, NFC, N1, the ghost etc. But these are pretty expensive and not readily available to the masses. I see some have gone overseas to find something comparable but even those are close to the same price and who knows when they’ll ship. Then there’s Geeek. Never heard of em until someone mentioned something on reddit. Nice, simple cases with a clean design. Even with ridiculously fast 3 day shipping from Taiwan, you’re looking at around $80 with a psu cover. Its go time!
Now is where the patience had to come into play. Im not spending $1k on a plex rig that I might game on. Over the next 2 months, here is a list of what I managed to find using forums, reddit and ebay deals (they had one every 2 weeks it seemed!!)
CASE - Geeek A30 +PSU Shroud $78.23
CPU – Ryzen 1700 $159.99
RAM – 16GB G.Skill DDR4 3000 $65 Facebook Marketplace (New)
MOBO – ASRock AB350 GamingITX $89.99
PSU (used) – Athena Power FlexATX 350w $33.15 eBay
GPU (used) – EVGA 1060 6GB $171.75 eBay
M.2 – Toshiba XG5 256GB $60 eBay
HDD – (2) HGST HGST Travelstar 7K1000 $80 eBay
Total = $738.11
Sure, theres a few issues with this. I cant check to make sure these items aren’t DOA since I don’t have all the main parts. Luckily, the deals for the cpu and motherboard were from newegg so ill have the warranty. The 1060 was probably more than I needed but again, ebay had a sale knocking the price down to what I probably would have paid for a 1050ti. DDR4? Hell, I just got lucky checking facebook marketplace. It shipped today so we’ll see if I get a box of rocks or not (im covered by paypal if so) The PSU? Going this cheap, I can live if it were to fail on me. M.2? Probably not the best but it gets around 2GB/1GB and its cheaper than a comparable Samsung. Each item purchase I can verify if you need proof. IT CAN BE DONE!
Some items are still coming in and maybe I’ll post pics tomorrow but for those in the market for parts, planning and patience. Use these forums. Check em like Wilford Brimley checks his blood sugar!