I am trying to build a mini ITX office Pc, primarily used for accounting and managing documents. The configuration wouldn’t go too far beyond the minimal requirements needed for that type of work. This is what I have so far, and please bare in mind that, where I live, the choices are very slim.
MITXPC MX500 Industrial Fanless Mini-ITX Case w/ WallMount Bracket & VESA Screws
Western Digital 320GB WD Blue 7200
ASUS GT710 2GB DDR5 Intel Core i7 2600 3.80 Ghz.
The intel Core i7 goes for an amazing price, so I would really appreciate a great compatible motherboard to go with it, for durability and stability over a longer period of time if possible.
The rest is no problem to pick, but I am stuck on the motherboard out of obvious concerns. Thank you in advance.
My girlfriends system runs with the Asus P8H61-I R2.0 board. I bought it used 3 years ago and it has been on almost everyday since with not a single issue. Great Linux and Windows 10 support.
The problem with them these days is they are hard to find for a good price. I am sitting on a few 2nd-3rd gen i5s/i7s and finding a board at a good price in my area is almost impossible. I’ve had to resort to Ebay to find them and the last one I bought a couple months back was $79 CAD used, not bad considering the clips are cheap but still somewhat steep for a used and older generation motherboard.
Ali Express has some that are being made very cheap and I’ve heard some good things about them but I really don’t know how they hold up in the long run…
maybe a good option , I have not dealt with the site so buyer beware and all that, but they have a few listing for mini itx mobos that may serve as a good reference point in locating a board.
The i7 2600 is compatible in the ITX boards released for IvyBridge as well as Sandybridge, but finding any these days is like looking for hens teeth. Usually its only the cheaper boards that pop up on ebay, amazon etc.
You might do better to look for complete, or almost complete systems on ebay etc.
I recently sold an entire build with an i7 2600 on a cheap m-itx board with an R7 260X and 8GB and the winning bid was only £100
I do still have one of these boards in my spares box;
One day the machine refused to boot and didn’t give any post codes so I just replaced it with the cheapo board (that got sold in the above build). If you are in the UK I can send it to you for the cost of postage. I have no idea what was wrong with it.
