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Short version, buddy needed a high end gaming/VM box, so I sold him my big machine for a good price (4790k, 32GB, 780ti, water cooled etc..)

So far I have only had time to play WoW, so that runs like a champ on my iMac 5K, but I am looking at maybe building an ITX system for my Windows needs.

What I have come up with so far:

Corsair 250D Case
Corsair CX600 PSU
Asus Z97i-PLUS MB
i5-4690K
16GB DDR3-1600
Plextor M6e 256GB M.2 SSD
Samsung 840 EVO 1TB SSD (already own this)
CM Nepton 120 or 240M cooler

No idea which video card to get.. I game at 2560x1440, mainly WoW, D3, and Steam stuff.. my old 780ti was a bit of overkill.. I am thinking a nice 960 will suffice (one of the ones from TR's recent review)

Ideas? Hints?

No idea which video card to get.. I game at 2560x1440, mainly WoW, D3, and Steam stuff.. my old 780ti was a bit of overkill.. I am thinking a nice 960 will suffice (one of the ones from TR's recent review)

You could get a 970 instead. If you are planning on playing some of the newer games coming out it would serve better playing them at 2560x1440.

elmopuddy wrote:

Corsair Obsidian 250D Case

I'm going to refer you to an old post in which I calculated volumes and footprints for some popular cases. The CA$99 Silverstone Raven RVZ01 or CA$90 Milo ML07 takes up half as much space as the CA$105 Corsair Obsidian 250D does. Note that the pair of very compact cases from Silverstone require SFX power supplies of the 450 W bronze, 450 W gold or 500 W gold variety. For the Radeon R9-290X, I'd probably pick the PSU with the higher capacity.

elmopuddy wrote:

No idea which video card to get. I game at 2560x1440.

For gaming at WQHD resolution, take a look at a CA$340 Radeon R9-290, a CA$340 Radeon R9-290X or a CA$390 GeForce GTX970.
http://techreport.com/review/27702/nvid ... d-reviewed

Elmopuddy,
I 3rd the GTX 970 for 2560-1440 gaming....if you plan on keeping this system a long time you might even want to consider the GTX 980 with the recommended hardware requirements just keep getting higher and higher.

I have a question for you about your 5K iMac Retina - 32GB- 1 TB SSD - M295X system and wondering if you installed bootcamp on it so you can run windows on it?
The reason I ask is from the little information on the AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4GB GDDR5 graphics card in it,it is based of tonga supposedly like the r9 285 desktop card. I was wondering if you could run GPUZ and post a couple of screenshots? One of the GPUZ identity tab that comes up when you first start GPUZ and then click the sensor tab Check the box on the bottom of that tab to continue recording in the background and then mouse over the right side border line and stretch it across the screen to lengthen the recording tabs so they are 2-3 times as wide as the default sensor tab. Then play a game for 5 minutes or so and then when you quit the game take a screenshot of the enlarged sensor tab so we can see the temps core and memory speeds,power usage and all the other goodies GPUZ lets you see along with if possibly throttles down once it gets hot. I do not know if you know but that Mobile GPU is the fastest AMD makes but there is so little information on the web about it I would love to see how it works...others might as well including yourself. Also according to NotebookCheck it places its performance above a desktop GTX 760 but below a HD 7970 and GTX 680 that is just a slightly slower clocked GTX 770 so a few benchmark runs like 1080p valley benchmarks on the extreme setting, a 3dmark11 default performance run and the new 3dMark default SkyDiver and firestrike benchmarks would be great to see also.
If you had bootcamp and installed windows on that iMAC you could game pretty good at 1080p and 1200p with medium and high settings and 1440p at setting that give you playable framerates. But that High end iMAC could be a secondary gaming rig for you a friend or spouse Inquiring minds want to know??? BTW I just looked up that 5k panel...it is a 16/9 format so you can do windows 1080p 1920/1080 gaming to your hearts desire at high settings and Anti Aliasing with that 4gb Vram buffer or 1440p 2560/1440 gaming at slightly lower setting and minimal AA and it should look pretty darn good @ both resolutions !
Thanks Elmo

elmopuddy wrote:

I game at 2560x1440, mainly WoW, D3, and Steam stuff.. my old 780ti was a bit of overkill

whm1974 wrote:

You could get a 970 instead.

vargis14 wrote:

you might even want to consider the GTX 980

lol

If a 780 Ti was overkill at 2560x1440, your games are not all that demanding. Just get something with 4GB of RAM so you don't have to turn the textures down before the end of the useful life of the card.

Melvar wrote:

At 2560x1440, your games are not all that demanding. Just get something with 4GB of RAM.

CA$330 GeForce GTX 960 with 4 GiB of memory is only $10 less expensive than the much faster Radeon R9-290X with 4 GiB of memory in the NCIX weekly deal that I linked above.

@Vargis: I am installing Bootcamp right now, with 8.1 Pro.. I'll post some screenies tonight if I have time.
@JAE: cheapest 290X I see on that link is $399, I think I will stick with a cooler running Nvidia card though. Those are neat cases you linked, not sure about cooling performance though.

My previous system was housed in a Corsair 750D, and CPU was cooled by a Seidon 280, so my plan is to shrink that system to 1/3. I even like the 380T case ( I am a sucker for yellow, color of my motorcycle too!).

Bootcamp may be just fine for my gaming needs, we'll see, I appreciate all the advice, I am still looking at all my options.

Anyone have experience booting off an M.2 PCIe card?

I want to echo the sentiment re: the 250D. It isn't "compact" at all. It's ginormous for an ITX case.

You could put everything on your list in a Silverstone SG05, throw in a GeForce 960, and call it a day. You could even get away with the stock Intel HSF, and the version of the SG05 bundled with the 450W PSU (the 80plus bronze non-modular one).

For reference, I'm running:

SG05 w/ ST45SF PSU (the 80plus bronze model)
Asus Z97i-plus
i7-4790k with a Xigmatek Janus heatsink (have also used stock Intel heatsink and a Zalman CNPS8900 quiet)
16GB DDR3-1600
512GB Crucial M550 m.2 SSD
1TB HDD (Western Digital, I think? I can't recall the brand I bought)
DVD-RW

And I've used three different video cards in it: an EVGA GeForce 560Ti, Galax' GeForce 970 ITX card and a reference R9 270.

The one thing I'd suggest for a video card would be to wait until the rest of the GeForce 900 cards launch, and the Radeon 300 series is out. There's probably going to be some price changes when the dust has settled, so the 960 may wind up being cheaper, or there may be a better card for the same price as a 960 right now. In the interim, I can also can vouch for the HD 4600 graphics as long as you don't mind running in 1280x720.

Well bootcamp is all well and good, but scaling in Win 8.1 sucks!

At full resolution, well 4k, move scaling slider one notch, reboot.. only some windows affected, font size and scaling is different depending on window.

Also, I have 2 27" monitors hooked up.. drag a window from iMac to external, boom, scaling goes nuts.

For reference, under OSX, all the above issues do not exist.

I'll still try and run those benchmarks for y'all, but looks like I'll be building a Wintel box. I found an old P180 case which I think I'll re-use, it lacks front USB 3.0 ports, but fine besides that.

I would echo the sentiment about choosing a Silverstone ML07 or SG05 case (again, both of those cases require SFX PSUs) or the Cooler Master Elite 130 which takes standard ATX PSUs. As JAE shows in his excellent list, the 250D is the same volume as the mATX Silverstone TJ08...what's the point of getting a mITX case that large?

Silverstone cases generally have very good cooling performance (better than Corsair in most cases). The drawback: Silverstone cases are harder to build in than Corsair. Mostly because Silverstone cases are much more compact than Corsair cases.

Yeah the 250D is large, but easy to build, and it can fit a 240mm radiator.. I'm going to local computer parts store after lunch, I want to see some of these cases in person.

DPete27 wrote:

I would echo the sentiment about choosing a Silverstone ML07 or SG05 case (again, both of those cases require SFX PSUs) or the Cooler Master Elite 130 which takes standard ATX PSUs. As JAE shows in his excellent list, the 250D is the same volume as the mATX Silverstone TJ08...what's the point of getting a mITX case that large?

Silverstone cases generally have very good cooling performance (better than Corsair in most cases). The drawback: Silverstone cases are harder to build in than Corsair. Mostly because Silverstone cases are much more compact than Corsair cases.