ITX build

[swiftowner]

Brother-in-law is wanting to build a small compact PC.

Budget: wants to be under $400, not firm on that.

I have an OS licence to throw his way. He has monitor, keyboard, mouse.

He will travel by airplane, so size matters... (I can ask how he plans on taking it with him. Anyone with advice on that, feel free to input).

Power consumption is important because he lives in a place where electricity is expensive. (Edit:given he is casual, it may not be that important)

Would like to get him a SSD, probably ~250GB considering not much difference in price and less need for secondary storage. (He does have a 500GB drive if needed).

He's a casual gamer, though he's looking at this build for the new Star Wars battlefront game.

I'm going to look into this as well in my free time, but I don't have much of it. Thanks all.

[Kagthul]

400$ and wants acceptable performance in SW: Battlefront.. in mITX? And wants to waste valuable budget on an SSD?

that's going to be a stretch. Ill see what i can do.

- - - Updated - - -

This is the best i could do that will provide even remotely decent performance in SW: BF and mITX.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Jzqg99
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Jzqg99/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($119.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H170M-ITX/DL Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard ($92.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($44.09 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked+ ACX 2.0 Video Card ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Silverstone Sugo SG13B Mini ITX Tower Case ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($53.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $535.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-18 00:22 EST-0500

If he can drop in his old HDD instead of buying a new one, thatd save him ~40$.

- - - Updated - - -

A tiny bit cheaper, but locks you into Socket 1150 and DDR3...

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7BwZpg
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7BwZpg/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($99.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($33.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($44.09 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked+ ACX 2.0 Video Card ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Silverstone Sugo SG13B Mini ITX Tower Case ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($53.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $472.03
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-18 00:29 EST-0500

[Deleted]

You won't build anything good under 400$. Besides that, the more compact you want it the price only goes up. If your brother in law travels a lot then i would suggest a build in a Silverstone raven or something similar. To give you an idea, would be something like an xbox look/size. But you are looking around 600$ or more especially with an ssd.

[swiftowner]

Thanks, will take those into consideration. I'll talk to him and see if he can go higher on his budget.

EDIT: looks like he's firm on ~$400 budget. He's not planning on using it very often. He's basically looking for a console replacement.