Lately this year I'll upgrade my beloved i7 2600K (this CPU has a fun story of its own(*)), which served me greatly in a Coolermaster Mastercase Maker 5 with a MasterLiquid Pro 240 with a daily overclock of 4.5 GHz, paired with 2x8 GB 1866 MHz G.Skill Ares and a SLI of Asus 970 Strix OC, among other things.
This intrroduction to state that I DO love my 2600K and I don't have the heart to toss it away.
So I thought it deserves a second life and what a better use than to replace my old Acer Aspire 6930G with Core 2 Duo T9400, GeForce 9600m GT, upgraded RAM to 2x4 GB and a Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB as primary drive, with Windows 10 Home as OS, that I use as my working PC?
I work at an accountant's office so my work is mainly remotely connect to the server for data entry, web browsing, paperwork, pdf, excel, word and the likes. I do tend to stress my laptop leaving multiple tabs opened in Chrome and/or multitasking with my daily softwares. Plus, at the end of the day, I bring it home where I use it for light tasks, using my aforementioned rig mostly for gaming/when I need a more confortable monitor/keyboard/mouse (I'm quite a feticist of these ones, I tried a lot of them before stabilizing on current ones).
Now, when the time comes, I'd like to build a SFF office PC around my 2600K. I already ordered an Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe from eBay, it will be delivered next week according to tracking. My 2 banks of G.Skill Ares are low profile, so they'll add perfectly to the goal. What I'm wondering about is the case.
I looked to a lot of cases and I'm more confused than ever. Right now I'm inclined to a couple of solution.
The first one is an HTPC type, the kind of SilverStone ML06-E or the (smaller and quieter) Streacom FC8 Alpha/Evo.
The other one is a cubic type, the likes of Lian-Li PC-Q10WX or Thermaltake Core V1.
What I'm looking for:
Mandatory
- a sober look. This will be primarily an office PC, I don't need/want flashy LEDs, fans or designs.
- smallest case possible. Again, being mainly my office PC, it will sit on my desk so, the smaller, the better.
Strongly seeked
- Optical Disk Drive. At work we still use them (sigh ?) plus, it could eventually become an HTPC at home. A slot-in ODD seems the perfect way to go.
Nice addiction
- Support for a GPU. Even a low profile one. Or a single slot. Or both. Eventually, the HD3000 won't be enough anymore, even for basic usage/HTPC'ing. Plus, I won't mind being able to connect it to my 1080p TV at home and play some not-so-freshly-released games. The ideal would be something like the MSI 1050 TI LP, or a 1650 TI, should someone product a LP/single slot one. This is actually more than a "Nice addiction" but less than a "Strongly seeked".
- Room for a decent CPU cooling for mild OC'ing. Right now I'm looking at Cryorig C7 CU, the copper one.
As maybe you could have guessed from my post, I won't mind spending a few extra bucks into this project so, until it's in a reasonable range, price isn't a major concern. Availability is though, considering I live in Europe, and in Italy, specifically.
(*) Ask me about the fun story! ?
This intrroduction to state that I DO love my 2600K and I don't have the heart to toss it away.
So I thought it deserves a second life and what a better use than to replace my old Acer Aspire 6930G with Core 2 Duo T9400, GeForce 9600m GT, upgraded RAM to 2x4 GB and a Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB as primary drive, with Windows 10 Home as OS, that I use as my working PC?
I work at an accountant's office so my work is mainly remotely connect to the server for data entry, web browsing, paperwork, pdf, excel, word and the likes. I do tend to stress my laptop leaving multiple tabs opened in Chrome and/or multitasking with my daily softwares. Plus, at the end of the day, I bring it home where I use it for light tasks, using my aforementioned rig mostly for gaming/when I need a more confortable monitor/keyboard/mouse (I'm quite a feticist of these ones, I tried a lot of them before stabilizing on current ones).
Now, when the time comes, I'd like to build a SFF office PC around my 2600K. I already ordered an Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe from eBay, it will be delivered next week according to tracking. My 2 banks of G.Skill Ares are low profile, so they'll add perfectly to the goal. What I'm wondering about is the case.
I looked to a lot of cases and I'm more confused than ever. Right now I'm inclined to a couple of solution.
The first one is an HTPC type, the kind of SilverStone ML06-E or the (smaller and quieter) Streacom FC8 Alpha/Evo.
The other one is a cubic type, the likes of Lian-Li PC-Q10WX or Thermaltake Core V1.
What I'm looking for:
Mandatory
- a sober look. This will be primarily an office PC, I don't need/want flashy LEDs, fans or designs.
- smallest case possible. Again, being mainly my office PC, it will sit on my desk so, the smaller, the better.
Strongly seeked
- Optical Disk Drive. At work we still use them (sigh ?) plus, it could eventually become an HTPC at home. A slot-in ODD seems the perfect way to go.
Nice addiction
- Support for a GPU. Even a low profile one. Or a single slot. Or both. Eventually, the HD3000 won't be enough anymore, even for basic usage/HTPC'ing. Plus, I won't mind being able to connect it to my 1080p TV at home and play some not-so-freshly-released games. The ideal would be something like the MSI 1050 TI LP, or a 1650 TI, should someone product a LP/single slot one. This is actually more than a "Nice addiction" but less than a "Strongly seeked".
- Room for a decent CPU cooling for mild OC'ing. Right now I'm looking at Cryorig C7 CU, the copper one.
As maybe you could have guessed from my post, I won't mind spending a few extra bucks into this project so, until it's in a reasonable range, price isn't a major concern. Availability is though, considering I live in Europe, and in Italy, specifically.
(*) Ask me about the fun story! ?
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