Mini ITX Build

spideog7

So I had a nice Ultrabook (even installed a nice little SSD) that got swiped along with my girlfriends old HP laptop and my Android tablet . Wasn't able to replace them right away so got by with an old Dimension 1100 (2.8GHz Pentium 4) running Lubuntu for the past few months and it actually works fine for most things except streaming (although painfully slow). So this has taught me that I don't really need anything that powerful to do most of what I want.

I'd like something quiet and low power as I may choose to leave it running 24/7 with some server tasks and it sits in the bedroom. It's mostly for browsing, streaming video and TV and a little bit of Office and Photoshop stuff.

1.Budget: [$300]

2.Main purpose of the computer?: [Basic Office Stuff/Browsing/DVD/Online streaming/GIMP]

3.Do you need a copy of windows?: [No, actually prefer Ubuntu but girlfriend doesn't like OpenOffice]

4.Can you use any part from an old computer?: [2x 2.5" HDD, Slim DVD from laptop, potentially 65W brick - 18.5V 3.5A]

5.Do you need a monitor: [Nope]

6.Do you need any peripherals: [Nope]

7.Are you willing to try overclocking: [Meh]

8.How can you pay?: [N/A]

9.When are you purchasing?: [1-2 weeks]

10.If you need help building where are you situated: [N/A]

I initially thought about going fanless for this but figured that maybe that wasn't necessary and might limit the power I could put into it.

CPU: Intel G550 $60 on Newegg or $50 on Ebay

Motherboard: Asus P8H77-I $100 on Newegg

RAM: Crucial 2x4GB $30 on Newegg if I buy it by Monday

Case: Antec ISK 300-150 (150W PSU) $85 at Amazon
Not sure on this but having troubling finding a decent case. Also considered using a PicoPSU if I find a nice case with no PSU in it.

All in that's $275 which will no doubt hit $300 when I get all the other bits; cables, thermal paste etc.

I've heard of some people using an external video card instead of the integrated graphics, is that necessary for non-gaming, just watching DVD, MKV or Flash!

My other though was to go with a D525 Atom machine that might be able to get away with passive cooling.

Monotype

There's a few other options as well, like the AMD Zacate systems, which seems actually like a better alternative to the D525.

Another one is AMD's new socket FM2, but there's few ITX boards yet. This would be if you were looking for powerful graphics.

The G550 will handle HD videos without problem.