Building a micro-ATX Core i7 Gaming PC September 03, 2009 Michael Armour

Core i7 Micro Build: LAN Party Machine

Page:: ( 1 / 6 )

[image]

Motherboard, CPU, Case

Page:: ( 2 / 6 )

[image]

Motherboard: EVGA X58 Micro

The motherboard is the heart of any good system and since the focus of this build is on portability, the micro ATX form factor was a must.

Since performance is equally important here, Intel's X58 chipset was the obvious choice. There are only a handful of micro ATX X58 motherboards out there and they're made by ASUS, DFI, MSI, and EVGA. While all of these manufacturers are pretty reputable in their own right, I chose to go with EVGA's 121-BL-E756-TR X58 Micro as the basis of this build due to their renowned customer support, quality, the success of their other X58 offerings, and frankly, it just looks damn good with its red and black color scheme.

Thanks to EVGA for supplying the review board.

[image]

Case: Thermaltake Lanbox Lite VF6000BWS

Probably an equally important consideration in a micro ATX build is the case. Thermaltake was gracious enough to send their Lanbox Lite to use for this build and the name alone indicates this case was designed for portable performance. The version they sent has the optional side windows—a nice touch of show for the LAN party scene.

Processor: Intel Core i7 920 (D0 stepping)

If you're reading this, chances are you know that the Core i7 920 is the chip to get these days. It overclocks well and is at a good price point for performance. There's really no need to go with Intel's more expensive processors, because the 920 can usually clock to the same speeds without too much effort anyways.

One challenge of the i7s is that they can tend to get a bit hot, though; a problem which is compounded when space is an issue. With that in mind, I made sure to get the most recent D0 stepping, which requires less voltage than its C0 counterpart. For those of you who don't know, you can identify D0 chips by the S-Spec number on the box: SLBEJ.

GPU, RAM, and PSU

Page:: ( 3 / 6 )

RAM: OCZ Reaper HPC 6 GB (3 x 2 GB) DDR3 1866

For this build, OCZ sent their 6 GB triple channel DDR3 1866 kit. These sticks of RAM feature a nickel plated copper heat pipe conduit (hence the HPC label) that dissipates heat from the modules. They're rated at 9-9-9-28 timings and should do well. The model number is OCZ3RPR1866C9LV6GK.

Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower XT 850W Spedo Edition

For a micro ATX build, space and airflow can quickly become issues. This is why a modular power supply such as Thermaltake's Toughpower XT 850W unit is a must. Not only will this supply plenty of power to all the system components with 62 amps on a single 12v rail, but it's modular design will save space, facilitate cable management and be less of an impediment to good air flow.

[image]

Video Card: HIS Radeon HD 4770

If I had more time, I would have tried to round up a multi-GPU set up since the X58 board has both SLI and Crossfire capabilities. However, time and resources were limited so I had to settle for what I had on hand. The 4770 does make a good card for an application like this though, due to its 40-nm process which requires less energy and produces less heat. It's also a shorter card, so fitting it into the Lanbox was not an issue.

Nevertheless, while nobody likes the guy who brings his power hungry machine to a LAN party and throws all the breakers with it, one of the focuses of this build remains performance, and I feel this card is the weakest point of the build so far.

I hope to offer a second part to this article which will feature a few case modifications, an improved CPU cooler, and hopefully a multi-GPU set up to see what sort of impact it has on other temperatures and overall performance, while not getting too power hungry (2x GTX 295s probably aren't too practical here). As another side note, the design of this card is such that it dumps its heat back into the case.

While I think sometimes people bash on such card cooling designs too much, a card with a rear exhaust would definitely be better in this specific application where the case has limited air flow due to its size.

Building the system

Page:: ( 4 / 6 )

I began by attaching the motherboard to the tray. Thermaltake has all of the standoffs pre-installed, which was nice. One of the middle standoffs had a rounded protrusion coming out of it that served as a type of guide post to align the motherboard's screw holes with the other standoffs. Again, another subtle, but nice touch. Once the motherboard was on the tray, I installed the CPU, stock heatsink, RAM, and video card.

[image]

Testing/Performance

Page:: ( 5 / 6 )

Testing was done in Windows 7 (64 bit RC, build 7100). Video Drivers: Catalyst 9.8.
Games: Far Cry 2 DX 10; Company of Heroes
Synthetic Benchmarks: 3dMark06, Super Pi Mod 8M

To get base measurements I set everything to default values in the motherboard's BIOS. I did have to manually adjust the memory speed and timings, however, to fit OCZ's specs. This is not an unexpected step, though, since Intel's X58 spec is just DDR3 1066 and these were 1866 modules. I also made sure the uncore frequency was at least twice the memory speed and I set the CPU VTT to +100mV.

I feel I should mention a word here about the BIOS. For one thing, it was very easy to navigate and had everything you need to easily tune your system. I also noted the menu and setting descriptions. They seemed to be much more informative than all the other motherboards I've worked with before. A small thing, but nice nonetheless.

Ok, on to benchmarking. I chose the tests I did mainly for their ease of use and availability. Far Cry 2 is obviously a newer game and it provides a nice enough challenge for modern hardware. CoH is older and represents what you can expect from similar games. As far as the synthetics go, I'm mainly concerned with real world performance, but these are widely used and can provide a point of reference.

Stock Performance

3DMark06: 14,012 3DMarks

Far Cry 2 (1680x1050, 2x AA, DX10, “Very High” settings, Ranch small demo): Avg. FPS: 47.40; Max FPS: 75.03; Min FPS: 31.07
Company of Heroes (1680x1050, all settings maxed, in-game benchmark): Avg. FPS: 92; Max FPS: 170; Min FPS: 47

Super Pi 8M: 2m 37.594s

Overclocking

After I got these base results, I set out to overclock the micro build and see what improvements I could squeeze out of the tiny box. Since the Core i7 920 is known to be decent overclocker (especially the D0 variants) I was excited to see what the EVGA X58 micro could do with it.

Given the small size case and stock cooler, I knew heat would be my main consideration and would set the OC ceiling much faster than the hardware would. This was verified when I effortlessly dialed in a 3.66 Ghz clock—a full gigahertz over stock speed which represents a 37.5% increase. To do so, I set the voltage to a mild 1.2625v in the BIOS and the CPU VTT to +125mv to accommodate for the higher uncore frequency. RAM was on a 2:10 ratio which had it running close to its 1866 specs (~1830). Uncore multiplier was set to 21x.

The system booted up into Windows without a hitch. Before jumping right into any benchmarks, I wanted to ensure stability and see how temperatures were affected by the overclock. As it idled, it didn't appear to be too much higher than stock temps (~55° C), which I thought was encouraging. Upon starting a Prime 95 64-bit stress test, however, EVGA's E-LEET overclocking and monitoring utility immediately informed me that the CPU temp had jumped to the mid 70s and the individual cores were reporting temps in the mid 90s. Now I know Core i7s take a lot of heat, but seeing core temps approach the boiling point of water was a bit unnerving for me. I decided to shut the test down after the first two loops.

Knowing that the other benchmarks wouldn't max out all of the cores at the same time, I decided to go ahead and run the overclock through my tests. Sure enough, core temps stayed at more “acceptable” levels (~70-80s). I should also mention that, for this last test, I increased the 4770s clocks to their CCC Overdrive limits (830 core, 850 memory). Coupled with the increase in CPU frequency, here's what my efforts netted:

Overclocked Performance

3DMark06: 15,598 (11.32% increase)

Far Cry 2 (1680x1050, 2x AA, DX10, “Very High” settings, Ranch small demo): Avg. FPS: 50 (5.5% increase); Max FPS: 75.27 (no real increase); Min FPS: 37 (19% increase).

What Far Cry 2 is showing is most likely a GPU bottleneck. The increases were probably mostly attributed to the increase in the 4770’s clocks as opposed to the CPU. Still, both the stock and overclocked results are pretty good for this fairly demanding AAA shooter. A $100 graphics card serves up very playable frame rates at 1680x1050 resolution and it even has some eye candy turned on. The minimum FPS jump with the overclocked setting is worth noting as 37 FPS is noticeably smoother than 31.

Company of Heroes (1680x1050, all settings maxed, in-game benchmark): Avg. FPS: 107.2 (16.52% increase); Max FPS: 186 (9.4% increase); Min FPS: 53.5 (13.83% increase)

CoH is showing some real gains from the CPU and GPU overclock. The point is mostly moot, though, since any thing over the monitor’s 60 Hz refresh rate is “lost”. Had I tested on a 120 Hz, 1080P LCD TV, however, the story would be different.

Super Pi 8M: 2m 06.282s (20% faster).

This is all about the CPU. We can see that the overclock has helped the CPU crunch 8M of Pi 31 seconds faster than stock speeds—not too shabby.

Final Thoughts

Page:: ( 6 / 6 )

For common builders, the story with components like RAM and power supplies is often a “no news is good news” type of deal. These components never caused me a moment's headache and ran as expected. Thermaltake's PSU delivered reliable power for my overclock and came in a modular design to cut down on a mess of cables—a total necessity in a small space like a micro ATX build. And if its FanDelayCool feature is well suited to any application, it's this one. The scope of this article was to see if high end desktop performance could be packed into a portable, LAN party-ready size. It wasn't to split hairs with the memory's latency and frequency limits, nor was it to hook up the PSU to expensive testing equipment and ogle at oscilloscopes. The fact of the matter is that the machine performed without a hiccup.

The real star of the show has to go to EVGA's X58 micro board, though. This was the foundation which anchored everything else. It packs about as many features you can in such a size, it performed well, it helped the 920 achieve an impressive overclock on a minimal voltage increase, and it looks good to boot. I hope to see what else this board is capable of when I get some better cooling for the processor and a do a few minor case mods which should help out with air flow. For now, it's safe to say EVGA has a winner on its hands and it has no problem delivering the kind of performance you'd expect from a high end X58 motherboard.

So what's the verdict? Well, I think it's safe to say that if I showed up at a LAN party with this bad boy, I'd be the one having the last laughs.