Pentium G3258-based build

[sesselpupser]

Hello.

Long story short, I'd like to build a cheap (sub-£600), compact kinda-HTPC around a Pentium G3258, pretty much just because it's cheap and will allow me to get what should be a serviceable PC running cheaply, with room to upgrade the processor, RAM and graphics card later on. My most basic requirements are:

- No AMD parts.
- It should be able to run DayZ - in a playable manner - at at least 1680x1050 (1920x1200 preferred). I've seen Arma 3 benchmarks that show an overclocked G3258 beating a stock i3, so it could be feasible?
- It should fit under the TV and on the IKEA Expedit we've got underneath, that means it must be no higher than 250mm and no deeper than 390mm, it can be quite wide though.
- Not insanely ugly to look at.

Here's a PC Part Picker build I've put together and I've already gone through to take out as much cost as I can see - it started off at a hair under £600 but it's now comfortably under £500 - but I have some questions:

- In terms of brand reliability and quality, are these parts ok?
- Is there anything glaringly obvious that you'd change?
- Would this selection support an upgrade to an i5 and a GTX 960? I tried changing the parts and no conflicts arose, so I guess it's ok?
- How about airflow and cooling; would I need a CPU cooler? I've read a few people saying the G3258 can go up to about 4.4GHz on the stock cooler... But would it be loud?
- Oh yeah, how about noise? Should I expect it to be loud overall?
- Would it be significantly cheaper if I just went for a full-size ATX board and case and scrapped the pseudo-Steam Machine use I had in mind?
- Is it too ambitious to hope this will run Arma 2?

So what do you reckon? I should point out I have a pretty awesome PC already that my brother and I pretty much share, this is literally just to give him something to play on when I kick him off/a portable PC capable of playing older games/a Steam Machine-like pseudo-console/something we could LAN on should we wish to, etc. Therefore it doesn't need to be particularly future-proof or anything.

 

[suv139]

Why no AMD parts? AMD currently has GPU's that out perform all Nvidia gpus for less besides the GTX 980, the R9 270 is significantly more powerful than a GTX 750 Ti and the Corsair Builder series are on the low spectrum of tier 3 psu's because they only have one Japanese capacitor and the rest are cheap Chinese ones, the Evga B1 series would be a better choice.

 

[sesselpupser]

Why no AMD parts?

Been there, done that, never going back - Performance doesn't matter when certain games just refuse to work and the drivers are awful. Maybe they've improved but I don't want to find out, I've also heard they're pretty loud because they run so hot but I guess that's less of an issue if you get one with a custom cooler. Also ShadowPlay would be a good thing to have, I've got a few Nvidia GameStream-compatible devices at home that wouldn't be able to connect to an AMD card and if we do ever upgrade the graphics card the 750Ti could be rehomed into my main PC as a dedicated PhysX card. Basically, beyond the performance I have no reason to get an AMD card but I've got a few reasons to get an Nvidia one instead.

Edit: another reason to go with Nvidia is that they've got better driver support in SteamOS which is something I want to play with.

As for the PSU recommendation, thanks, I'll read up on it and make a decision. I have a Corsair AX850 in my main PC already which has been flawless since 2011 so they were the first brand I looked at, I forgot they aren't necessarily made by the same factories though...

 

[dice1998]

Your PCPartPicker list seems fine. As someone who has owned two EVGA cards (my 670 FTW and 780), I have had no problems with them but as usual, mileage may vary for everything.

Personally, I wouldn't use an SSD for this type of build due to storage space requirements and would go for a 1TB WD Blue and partition it off. It's a personal preference though. You may be able to run ArmA II but I don't think it would be..playable. I'm not sure though and I may be wrong like usual.