I put together a tiny gaming PC build without compromising on performance
Going smaller doesn't necessarily make your PC weaker
One of the joys of PC gaming is shared with friends or a significant other. After years of encouraging her partner to take up gaming, she finally agreed to purchase a PC, but only if it fit on her small desk. This meant an SFF case and the inherent compromises that come with it. The reporter set out to build a 1440p gaming PC within a $1000 budget, despite the usual limits in SFF builds.
Choosing components for an SFF build requires more consideration than in larger cases. The graphics card length, cooling solution, and power supply unit (PSU) are particularly important. The reporter opted for the V500 Mini Portable, a lesser-known case from Alamengda, which accommodates both mATX and ITX motherboards, supports GPUs up to 320mm long, and fits standard ATX power supplies. The case measures less than 13 liters and comes with mounting points for top, rear, and bottom fans.
The reporter chose a used Ryzen 5 5600 CPU, which is suitable for 1440p gaming, and found it for around $100 on eBay. Cooling was achieved with the inexpensive Thermalright AXP-90 X53 low-profile cooler, which is 53mm tall. The motherboard selected was the MSI B550M PRO-VDH WiFi, priced under $90. With GPUs and RAM being scarce and expensive, the reporter went with a pre-owned RTX 3080 10GB graphics card for around $250, which provides performance comparable to an RTX 4070.
A 32GB kit of DDR4-3600 memory was purchased for around $75, and a 1TB Gen4 NVMe SSD for $150 was chosen for storage. Power was supplied by the MSI MAG A750GL PCIE5, a 750W Gold-rated, modular power supply. Case fans were provided by a 3-pack of Thermalright TL-C12C X3. By carefully selecting components, the total budget for this tiny gaming PC was around $850, leaving some room for unexpected expenses.
The RTX 3080 and Ryzen 5 5600 combination promises powerful performance for 1440p gaming at 60+ FPS, even with DLSS upscaling and frame generation. The 32GB RAM ensures that the build is ready for modern titles, and while ray tracing is not a primary concern, the system performs well under $900. The compact size of the build should not take up much space on the partner's desk while delivering solid performance for various gaming, productivity, and creative tasks.
The reporter concludes that building a tiny 1440p gaming PC within a $1000 budget is entirely feasible.
Written by urgent.news from XDA Developers's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
