G3258 Portable Gaming pUter

http://pcpartpicker.com/b/Bqpbt6

The objective of this build was to get a gaming computer that could be ultra portable and keep it under a budget of $800. I've been looking at these 20th Anniversary Pentiums for a while and decided to give it a try.

MOBO: MSI Z87I AC this motherboard is still the 1150 platform, so it is easily upgradable if the owner doesn't want to stick with the Pentium, plus it fit into the case and has built in WIFI. 

Case: I used the Lian Li PC-TU100B, but I could've gone with a Corsair 250D and saved a decent amount of cash that way. However, the Lian Li has a carrying handle and that's just freaking cool when  you want to take it places.

CPU: Intel Pentium 20th Anniversary Edition "G3258" because it overclocks like a beast. This one was easily set to 4.4Ghz.

CPU COOLER: Corsair H55 AIO water cooler. I've used this in my other build and it helped tremendously with my AMD 760k. Afterwards, I'm not sure that it was necessary because the Intel chip stays fairly cool with the 22nm build process and only having 2 cores, its only a 53w TDP

RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR3-1333Mhz because it was cheap.

GPU: I went with a GTX760 although a 750ti probably would've worked ok. 

PSU: Silverstone SFX 450w non-modular 80+Gold, it fits and it works really well.

HDD: Hitachi Travelstar 1TB 7200RPM 2.5" laptop hard drive. It fit into the case well and it has plenty of storage. 

 Overall, I'm pleased with the build. It plays games very well with the exception of heavier cpu games like BF4 and then I can just turn some of the settings down. I'd like to see an SSD in there soon, then add another 4GB of RAM, and after all that if its worth it bump up to an i5, but this was a great entry level gaming computer. 

Benchmarks

BioShock Infinite Benchmark (UltraDX11_DDOF settings at 1080p) Overall Scores: Avg FPS 69.33, Min FPS 13.21, Max FPS 187.41

3DMark11 Results (Run All Tests Basic Edition) Overall Scores: Fire Strike 4760, Cloud Gate 11172, Ice Storm 98623

Unigine Valley Benchmark (DX11 1920x1080 4xAA) Avg FPS 26.1, Score 657, Min FPS 6.8, Max FPS 62.2

Unigine Heaven Benchmark (DX11 1920x1080 4xAA) Avg FPS 45.1, Score 1886, Min FPS 11.4, Max FPS 92.8

where are the pics? sounds like an awesome build. why not 760 mini? ssd will offer a noticeable improvement.

This would be a great build for a weekend warrior.

 

Why not fx 6300, 350d, ssd, and hd 7950? Seems like a more bang for buck.

The AM3 platform does not come in mITX form factor. This was to be a portable gaming computer. Yes I could have built a more powerful computer for the same price, but not in this form factor. 

If you click on the PCPartpicker link, I have uploaded pictures there. I'm on my chromebook right now and I'm having trouble trying to post them into the forum. And the reason I went with the regular instead of the mini was the price, the mini version was another $40 above the regular sized one. 

Agreed  I have the corsair 70c case. Use the handles for lan parties. 60lbs isnt a big deal to me but I see your point.

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