Question I'm considering these parts for a build. Advice welcome

Mike RB

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I've been out of the PC building game for a good many years now, having been using cheap laptops in recent years.

I'm using Lightroom now a lot and my laptop just doesn't perform well enough. So, I'm looking at a cheap PC build. Before I hit the button, I'd appreciate feedback on if this is a reasonable build.


  • Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX Cube Case with Fan
  • Asus H81I-PLUS Motherboard
  • Intel Pentium G3258 CPU
  • Corsair Builder Series CXM 500W Modular 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX/EPS PSU
  • HyperX FURY Series 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 1600MHz
I'm looking for a cheap build. I have a 120GB SSD that I'd want as a boot drive and also a 500GB 2.5" HDD that I'd use for storage.

Am I missing anything? I believe the board takes 1600MHz RAM. Would I be better getting 1866Mhz RAM which is more future proof? I understand it will just clock at 1600Mhz in this board. Tell me if I'm wrong.

I can use the on board CPU graphics. Is that right? I'd be looking to add a video card but not immediately.

I assume this will perform a lot better than my B960 CPU in the laptop I'm currently using.
 
The B960 is a 2.2Ghz Sandy Bridge chip which is a good processor so I wouldn't expect too much more from a Haswell Pentium. Double the speed, maybe a bit more if you overclock it.

Mini-ITX isn't particularly cheap. The MicroATX H81M-Plus is a good £15-20 cheaper and with such a large case already a MicroATX equivalent wouldn't make the computer any larger. Although I'd incline to lean towards B85 rather than H81 as H81 has a couple of limitations like only two memory slots.

You're also nearly doubling the price of the PSU by going modular and I wouldn't personally spend that sort of money in a cheap build. Look to spend about £30-35, EVGA's 500W unit is popular.

The CPU does have onboard graphics, although H81 will limit it to two outputs at a time rather than the usual three.

This is the last platform to use DDR3 (well, there may be a few lower end Skylake boards supporting it) so there's not much use in buying for use in future systems.

Skylake is also rumoured to launch next month, so if you're not in any hurry you could consider waiting.
 
That's very useful, thanks. Lightroom really seems to struggle on this laptop. I'm running Windows 8.1 12GB RAM and an SSD. The sliders don't move smoothly, I have to wait while the image updates. The machine is generally slow too even web browsing where it frequently hangs briefly when scrolling webpages. Should Lightroom perform ok with a B960? My understanding is that Lightroom is more CPU driven then graphics. (I'm using built in Intel HD graphics).

I appreciate what you are saying about the PSU. I'll certainly look at the EVGA 500W. The case..The core V1 is one of the smallest cases I could find without being too restrictive. Space is an issue you see, but will have another look at MATX cases.
 
I'm not a photo person so I don't know much about Lightroom's requirements but if it is the CPU it may not be fast enough. For £40 it's worth a go though as you can directly swap it out for an i5/i7 quad if need be.

The Core v1 is 23L. That's a bog standard medium tower size. If you go and look at Dell, Lenovo, HP etc. then the largest case they do in their standard machines will typically be 23-25L. It's medium sized at best, although it is a different shape, shorter but wider, so it may fit in a specific place better.

What sort of restrictions are you worried about and what sort of graphics card would you be looking to add (in particular whether it's available with a single slot cooler and whether it's available for a half height bracket)?
 
Possible cooling options and the size of the video card I could fit in it are my concerns. I'm looking at an Nvidia GTX 750Ti. Seems reasonable performance to price.

I'll have a rethink on cases. I think because the Mini ITX cases are cube shaped (thus not as tall) they appear smaller. But yes, looking at a few cases, they are quite wide compared to a Micro ATX tower. Food for thought.

I'm tempted to reload the laptop and see if it improves if the B960 is a reasonable CPU. Its pretty streamlined and fully up to date regarding drivers etc.
 
If you're running Lightroom 6+ then I wouldn't necessarily put it down to your laptop as others have complained it's running sluggish on their systems too. It may be worthwhile sticking with what you have for now and as Endless has said waiting for Skylake or for Adobe to get a patch out.

On the other hand, if you're running an earlier version then it may just be time for something new.
 
Possible cooling options and the size of the video card I could fit in it are my concerns. I'm looking at an Nvidia GTX 750Ti. Seems reasonable performance to price.

I wouldn't worry about cooling unless it needs to be dead silent. Any case that takes a 750ti should happily handle it.

750ti is just on the point where single slot coolers, low profile cards and powerful graphics cards meet. If that's the maximum performance you'd want then it's well worth looking at low profile and single slot cases, if it's the minimum stick with two slot Mini-ITX (aka DTX) and larger cases

I'll have a rethink on cases. I think because the Mini ITX cases are cube shaped (thus not as tall) they appear smaller. But yes, looking at a few cases, they are quite wide compared to a Micro ATX tower. Food for thought.

Yeah, perceived size doesn't always correlate with physical size. It's definitely worth considering what shape would most benefit you. Big footprint, short height. Square footprint and tall, long and narrow footprint and tall.

I came across the Sharkoon CA-M earlier, 17L and fits a MicroATX motherboard. There's a review here. One of the user reviews on scan of the silver version mentioned they had a G3258 and GTX 750ti happily running in it and Amazon have it for £32 so it's similar to the Core V1.

I'm tempted to reload the laptop and see if it improves if the B960 is a reasonable CPU. Its pretty streamlined and fully up to date regarding drivers etc.

Presumably in 2011 it came with Windows 7 so it's likely eligible for the Free Windows 10 upgrade which you could try.
 
If you're running Lightroom 6+ then I wouldn't necessarily put it down to your laptop as others have complained it's running sluggish on their systems too. It may be worthwhile sticking with what you have for now and as Endless has said waiting for Skylake or for Adobe to get a patch out.

On the other hand, if you're running an earlier version then it may just be time for something new.

It is the latest version of Lightroom, yes. I'm thinking of holding on for a while to see what happens. I'll stick Windows 10 on this and go from there.

Thanks both for your replies.
 
Presumably in 2011 it came with Windows 7 so it's likely eligible for the Free Windows 10 upgrade which you could try.

It actually shipped with Windows 8. However, because of the Toshiba junk, I installed a retail copy of Windows 8 on it and removed the recovery load. I'm thinking this may be a cause of the performance issues. I'm considering reinstalling the recovery load as a test.
 
It actually shipped with Windows 8. However, because of the Toshiba junk, I installed a retail copy of Windows 8 on it and removed the recovery load. I'm thinking this may be a cause of the performance issues. I'm considering reinstalling the recovery load as a test.

I wouldn't have thought that would make your system run slower tbh, a vanilla installation of Windows should be absolutely flying. Have you checked device Manager to see if you've missed any drivers?
 
1. consider a 265 its faster and cheaper than a 750ti
2. that psu is a bit sketchy.. but modularity is very good in that small of a system
 

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