Upgrading - Unusual mobo size

KAGY

My little 10 year old machine finally can't keep up with the memory requirements of modern browsers so it's time to rip out its guts.
It's one of these - which is a nice case even now.

I've replaced the PSU (Evo Labs E-M400 r mATX 400w PSU; needed to mod the case, so it's now horizontal), hard drive, and I'm happy with the monitors, mouse etc. So I'll just like to replace the mobo, CPU, and memory
There's also a PCI-e graphics card (probably ATI Radeon HD 3400 series) that's working fine.
I'll only be using it for light office work, basic photo editing, a little bit of programming and maybe as a remote HTPC front end. I'll be running Linux


As you can see the mother board is a non standard, 265mmx170mm).
Is the mini ITX the only one that will fit or Is there any other option available?
I'd appreciate any general recommendations so I can narrow down my research a bit. Of course, specific recommendations also welcome, I'd hope to keep it between €100-150.

K.O.Kiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_form_factor

Mini-ITX is probably the only commonly available form factor that'll fit.

MarkAnthony

You wont need the seperate GPU anymore either, just use the integrated GPU on the CPU.

KAGY

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Mini-ITX is probably the only commonly available form factor that'll fit.

Thought so, just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I found other form factors that could fit but they had the ports on the long side.

MarkAnthony wrote: »

You wont need the seperate GPU anymore either, just use the integrated GPU on the CPU.

Thanks, Ill see what the difference in price between a mobo without integrated graphics / cheaper CPU and an APU is.

MarkAnthony

KAGY wrote: »

Thanks, Ill see what the difference in price between a mobo without integrated graphics / cheaper CPU and an APU is.

They're not integrated on to the mobo anymore, it's part of the CPU. Only the Xeons IIRC don't have iGPUs anymore. I'd avoid AMD to be quite honest.

KAGY

Firstly, just to confirm, are cooling fans socket dependent, meaning I couldn't use the large heat sink that's in the case?

Anyway, here's my priliminary research. Any thoughts, comments or critisisms? Any other sites I should visit?

Cheapest (Amazon)
Ballistix Sport 4GB Single DDR3 (PC3-12800) £15.98

AMD APU Athlon 5350 Quad Core Processor (Socket AM1, £31.06

MSI AM1I AMD Mini ITX Motherboard () £26.99(only 2 SATA :-/ )


Total £74 around €100 inc del


Cheapest in Overclockers
HyperX Fury 4GB PC3 10666 £15
Pentium K G3258 3.2GHz Dual Core £60
ASUS H81I link £59
Total £134 ~ 170 + del

Elara
ASUS AM1I-A €47.50 (probably much the same as the MSI above)
ATHLON 5150 1.6 GHZ €44
Crucial 4GB PC3-12800 €18
€110 plus delivery


Amazon.de
ASRock H81M-ITX Mainboard €65
Intel Celeron G1840 Processor € 37
about 125 when you throw in memory and delivery

MarkAnthony

Fans are socket dependant.

AMD chips have the potential to generate huge amounts of heat. I was a complete AMD fanboy but their current gen is out matched in every department by Intel. My HTPC celeron happily uses the fan that came in the box with the CPU. One thing on AMD's side is the wraith cooler is meant to be very quiet but I think it's only supplied on the upper end.

KAGY

MarkAnthony wrote:

AMD chips have the potential to generate huge amounts of heat. I was a complete AMD fanboy but their current gen is out matched in every department by Intel. My HTPC celeron happily uses the fan that came in the box with the CPU. One thing on AMD's side is the wraith cooler is meant to be very quiet but I think it's only supplied on the upper end.

Thanks, that's just the info I was hoping to get. Last build I did budget AMD bet budget Intel hands down, and celeron was a no no. But that wasn't today nor yesterday ðŸ˜႒

MarkAnthony

KAGY wrote: »

Thanks, that's just the info I was hoping to get. Last build I did budget AMD bet budget Intel hands down, and celeron was a no no. But that wasn't today nor yesterday ðŸ˜႒

Intel have got particularly boring but that's only as they have no competition. They have a great line up of CPUs from (literally) pocket money to over a grand's worth of ridiculousness. All very power efficient and cool.

Celeron is fine for a HTPC, you might want to consider an i3 though for photo editing.

These sorts of prices second hand, but the mobo's might be a pita to get.

TerrorFirmer

Those AM1 quad's are ultra low end, they're not really designed for anything other than casual use and media. They are pretty power efficient though and you wouldn't have to worry about heat but a g3258 would be way, way faster though. If you're doing photo editing stick with Intel. Even the G1840 is a much better buy - faster and the socket is upgradable down the line. If you go AM1 you're stuck with a slow CPU and no upgrade options.

Last build I did budget AMD bet budget Intel hands down

That all changed in 2006 and AMD have been tailing ever since.

KAGY

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Those AM1 quad's are ultra low end, they're not really designed for anything other than casual use and media. They are pretty power efficient though and you wouldn't have to worry about heat but a g3258 would be way, way faster though. If you're doing photo editing stick with Intel. Even the G1840 is a much better buy - faster and the socket is upgradable down the line. If you go AM1 you're stuck with a slow CPU and no upgrade options.

I'll probably go with the G1840 on a Gigabyte GA-H81N-D2H, currently about €103 for both on Amazon.de
I'll stick the codes into camelcamelcamel and see how the prices are moving or keep an eye out for a second hand i3/i5.

Thanks all for your help