Mini-ITX build advice

[nathanddrews]

I'm looking at building a very thin Mini-ITX PC (no dGPU) for three purposes:

1. Light gaming/emulation (NES, PS2, Wii U, some shooters, and esports)
2. Steam streaming (max quality)
3. HEVC/VP9 10-bit decoding and lossless bitstreaming

My considerations right now are:

1. Apollo Lake (soon) - low price, probably fine for #3, but might have issues with #2, but not great for #1
2. Skylake build (now) - high relative price, OK for light gaming, great for emulation and streaming, but questionable on #3
3. Kaby Lake (very soon) - pricing likely the same/higher than Skylake, similar for #1 and #2, fine for #3
4. Bristol Ridge (very soon) - relatively inexpensive, best for local gaming, DX12/Vulkan for emulation, fine for #2 and fine for #3
5. Zen (not so soon) - likely much better than BR for all three, but exact price and performance not available

Should I wait or what?

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

For that, probably Bristol Ridge. See what they have in the 35W TDP space for the A12 (or FX if they're called that) for Socket AM4. You're probably going to need a miniSTX board, not miniITX, though.

 

[cbn]

I'm looking at building a very thin Mini-ITX PC (no dGPU) for three purposes:

1. Light gaming/emulation (NES, PS2, Wii U, some shooters, and esports)
2. Steam streaming (max quality)
3. HEVC/VP9 10-bit decoding and lossless bitstreaming

My considerations right now are:

1. Apollo Lake (soon) - low price, probably fine for #3, but might have issues with #3, but not great for #1
2. Skylake build (now) - high relative price, OK for light gaming, great for emulation and streaming, but questionable on #3
3. Kaby Lake (very soon) - pricing likely the same/higher than Skylake, similar for #1 and #2, fine for #3
4. Bristol Ridge (very soon) - relatively inexpensive, best for local gaming, DX12/Vulkan for emulation, fine for #2 and fine for #3
5. Zen (not so soon) - likely much better than BR for all three, but exact price and performance not available

Should I wait or what?

What case are you planning to use?

 

[daxzy]

If you want to build this year, your two options are Skylake-Iris or Bristol Ridge. We haven't seen any 15W/35W Bristol Ridge benchmarks.

Kaby-Iris is still MIA. Skylake is missing some true HW HVEC/VP9 decode, but all that's gaining you is a couple W efficiency, which isn't a big deal for something plugged into a wall, IMO.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I'm looking at building a very thin Mini-ITX PC (no dGPU) for three purposes:

1. Light gaming/emulation (NES, PS2, Wii U, some shooters, and esports)
2. Steam streaming (max quality)
3. HEVC/VP9 10-bit decoding and lossless bitstreaming

My considerations right now are:

1. Apollo Lake (soon) - low price, probably fine for #3, but might have issues with #2, but not great for #1
2. Skylake build (now) - high relative price, OK for light gaming, great for emulation and streaming, but questionable on #3
3. Kaby Lake (very soon) - pricing likely the same/higher than Skylake, similar for #1 and #2, fine for #3
4. Bristol Ridge (very soon) - relatively inexpensive, best for local gaming, DX12/Vulkan for emulation, fine for #2 and fine for #3
5. Zen (not so soon) - likely much better than BR for all three, but exact price and performance not available

Should I wait or what?

Wait for Kaby Lake and use it in a Mini-STX case.

 

[krumme]

With bristol bridge there is a risk for some games not running well enough because of st perf. Even if it looks surprisingly fast at 15w tdp. And i guess it will be very cheap so very good perf for your money.

Skylake is imo a more safe bet as you get slow but consistent usable gaming experience. That safety is what you pay for.

Imo as said the decoding is a non issue as its a few w.

I would personally take skywell right now. I understand its a difficult choice but thats also because both skywell and bristol ridge is okey solutions.

If you wait a year you will get a zen apu that will be a blast for such a use case but its a loooong wait. Its one year not 6 months.

 

[nathanddrews]

You're probably going to need a miniSTX board, not miniITX, though.

I haven't seen any actual products yet, but photos have already been leaked showing ITX board(s). I guess it wouldn't bother me if it were STX as it should fit without issue (smaller than ITX).

What case are you planning to use?

Don't remember off the top of my head, but it's very small. I was originally going to use this HSF when I was looking at a 7850K install. I can't go any taller than that (also why I can't use a dGPU).

 

[nathanddrews]

Iris graphics is mostly out of the question unless I can find something on Craigslist for really cheap. What I can't play locally on the integrated GPU, I'll stream from my primary gaming rig over Steam. I'm leaning toward AMD mostly due to its GPU strength for the money. For the price of the 5675C alone, I can get a 7860K + ITX mobo from Microcenter and have enough left over for 500GB 850 Evo. The extra 20% GPU performance isn't really worth it for the price, even if I also gain some single-threaded performance.

It kinda sounds like I should wait at least for Kaby and BR SKUs to hit retail.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Kaby Lake, the only one that fills the requirement without an extra discrete GPU.

 

[AtenRa]

I would go for AM4 with BristolRidge and then have the choice to upgrade to ZEN APUs next year.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I would go for AM4 with BristolRidge and then have the choice to upgrade to ZEN APUs next year.

So buy twice, on the hope of an unknown future prospect from. And buying something now that doesnt fill the wish list and got much to be desired? Sounds really smart.

 

[krumme]

So buy twice, on the hope of an unknown future prospect from. And buying something now that doesnt fill the wish list and got much to be desired? Sounds really smart.

Why so hostile?
It was just an extra plus for the bristol ridge worth taking into consideration imo. No harm done.
Looks like a very fine upgrade path to me.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Why so hostile?
It was just an extra plus for the bristol ridge worth taking into consideration imo. No harm done.
Looks like a very fine upgrade path to me.

Hostile? Why so defensive? Do you think its a good idea to buy a product that doesnt live up to the requirement. Just to replace it again in Q4 2017 or later instead of just buying the right product from the start? And who knows how Zen and a Zen APU will perform.

I call that bad advice. Then the OP could just as well begin with a discrete GPU.

 

[krumme]

Hostile? Why so defensive? Do you think its a good idea to buy a product that doesnt live up to the requirement. Just to replace it again in Q4 2017 or later instead of just buying the right product from the start? And who knows how Zen and a Zen APU will perform.

I call that bad advice. Then the OP could just as well begin with a discrete GPU.

Yes you are hostile to Altenra. No need to the "?" Its obvious.

Instead you might want to argue why the Bristol Ridge doesnt live up to the reqirement?

 

[zentan]

Kaby-lake, could be better suited when considering all the three use cases. Not to mention better performance and better codec support,plus quick sync(if required).
Else if gaming is a bigger priority,then may be BR-APUs. Depends upon the priorities of OP

 

[nathanddrews]

I already know that Godavari will meet my needs for local gaming, game streaming, and emulation, but it's the 10-bit HEVC/VP9 hardware decoding that BR/Zen/Kaby offer that fills in the rest of the puzzle. If the pricing of AM4/BR is similar to AM3/Godavari, then it will probably be my choice. I don't see Kaby Lake being half the price of Skylake anytime soon.

If I buy BR, it will be because it meets my needs, not so that I can upgrade to Zen. That would just be a bonus.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

My only advice for building an ITX rig is to get one of these and bring it with you to Microcenter.

And don't buy anything unless you know it's going to fit.

 

[John Carmack]

I'm waiting for those Apollo Lake benchmarks. Curious to see how this supposedly new and improved core does with emulation up to Dolphin. It's a race between that or maybe a Zen-based APU for my future emulation box. It's a great time for mini PC's.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

I don't expect an Atom-branded CPU to be useful for Dolphin, given its love of single-threaded performance. The preliminary benches seem to show the top Apollo Lake SKU having roughly early Core 2 Quad levels of grunt.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

I don't expect an Atom-branded CPU to be useful for Dolphin, given its love of single-threaded performance. The preliminary benches seem to show the top Apollo Lake SKU having roughly early Core 2 Quad levels of grunt.

I agree,

If you're going to be using Dolphin and PCSX2 use a Celeron, Pentium, or i3. These emulators need the high single thread performance these CPUs offer. You're also going to need a graphics card as onboard works with these emulators but just not nearly as good as a graphics card.

My i3 6100U handles Dolphin with the D3D12 backend fine however, the HD 520 it uses can only render at 1280x720 with no AA, 1920x1080 no AA, or 1280x720 2xAA all depending on the game.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

Double post.

 

[John Carmack]

I agree,

If you're going to be using Dolphin and PCSX2 use a Celeron, Pentium, or i3. These emulators need the high single thread performance these CPUs offer. You're also going to need a graphics card as onboard works with these emulators but just not nearly as good as a graphics card.

My i3 6100U handles Dolphin with the D3D12 backend fine however, the HD 520 it uses can only render at 1280x720 with no AA, 1920x1080 no AA, or 1280x720 2xAA all depending on the game.

I know PCSX2 is a hog because my Skylake i5 can't even run games at a steady 60 fps without random slowdowns but I thought GCN/Wii games weren't as demanding and might get by on Atom cores.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

I know PCSX2 is a hog because my Skylake i5 can't even run games at a steady 60 fps without random slowdowns but I thought GCN/Wii games weren't as demanding and might get by on Atom cores.

Dolphin can be just as demanding if not more so than PCSX2. Gekko (GC CPU) is a more powerful CPU than the Emotion Engine (not counting VUs) and as a result can require more power to emulate. Any PS2 games that make heavy use of the EE's vector units will usually require more power though. In addition, the Wii's CPU (Broadway) requires even more power to emulate than both the GC and PS2 due to it being a faster clocked Gekko (729MHz vs 486MHz).

 

[John Carmack]

Dolphin can be just as demanding if not more so than PCSX2. Gekko (GC CPU) is a more powerful CPU than the Emotion Engine (not counting VUs) and as a result can require more power to emulate. Any PS2 games that make heavy use of the EE's vector units will usually require more power though. In addition, the Wii's CPU (Broadway) requires even more power to emulate than both the GC and PS2 due to it being a faster clocked Gekko (729MHz vs 486MHz).

I saw those Youtube videos of some lighter Wii games running on previous generation Atoms and hope the new ones can put in a good showing.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

I saw those Youtube videos of some lighter Wii games running on previous generation Atoms and hope the new ones can put in a good showing.

Majority of the games they won't. In fact they'll probably be GPU limited first. My Intel HD 520 is barely enough for 1.5x IR.