Living room game pc (small form factor)

[Kagthul]

What about the noise? Do these mini ITX with air cooling make a lot of noise? I don't mind a little noise, but such things can get annoying when too loud.

Depends entirely on the type of CPU cooler you get, and the quality of the included case fans. I replaced the 120mm fans on my Hadron Air with Noctua fans because they were quieter, but the stock fans werent really loud - i just sit like 2ft from the computer. The cooler i linked in my original build (Zalman CNPS Quiet) is very, very quiet. It only becomes audible when the CPU is under full load and even then it is only a pleasant whir.

The GPU fans on my GTX 970 almost never even spin up and when they do they are not audible over the rest of the fans. At loudest, i get a pleasant humm.

[Deleted]

Well I don't mind some noise as long as it's not annoying while playing (when you usually have your volume up). Unless its really noticeable it doesn't have to be silent, so I guess no issues there.
I'm really fond of the builds I've seen here and I'm sure I'll go with the mini ITX. Now for the hardest part, convincing the girlfriend to buy it sooner rather than later .

Thanks for the help guys, you inspired me!

[Wildtree]

I favor a laptop for the living room, most definitely.
Small, elegant, and doesn't take away from the character the room should maintain, to be a living room.
And in case of some social event like a party etc. It's easy to be taken away temporarily.

[Deleted]

While I certainly agree, the point is to create something that looks nice in the living room (thinks PS/Xbox).
I'm not too fond of laptops for gaming, I once did that and it didn't last very long until hardware caught up, and there was nothing to upgrade. My desktop is going 5 years now and not showing any signs or needed renewal, if it did I'd just upgrade the gpu.
Oh and my girl hates the constant cables from a laptop, so they got kind of banned from the living room

[Remilia]

Maybe one of those steam machines?
Not sure how modular it is though.

[Deleted]

Maybe one of those steam machines?
Not sure how modular it is though.

That's what was on my mind too, but after some research there are quite some limitations over a full pc.
Also because the steamOS was linux based there were some issues iirc. I think I'll keep the flexibility of a pc over a steam os though.

[Kagthul]

That's what was on my mind too, but after some research there are quite some limitations over a full pc.
Also because the steamOS was linux based there were some issues iirc. I think I'll keep the flexibility of a pc over a steam os though.

You can easily install Windows on all of those Steam Machines (in fact, the current ones dont even ship with SteamOS because it isnt "finished" yet and ship with Windows instead).

I still dont think they are all that great - they tend to be, like any storebought PC, underpowered for the price.

[Deleted]

You can easily install Windows on all of those Steam Machines (in fact, the current ones dont even ship with SteamOS because it isnt "finished" yet and ship with Windows instead).

I still dont think they are all that great - they tend to be, like any storebought PC, underpowered for the price.

Oh I didn't know that. Seems I might be researching in that direction as well then. On the other side, the flexibility in hardware upgrades might not be very good with those steam machines.
Stuff to think about until I get my budget together for the mITX setup.