PC Build Guide 2025

Another day, another PC. This time for an ITX build.

Main resources:

• The List

Procedure:

1. Buy a case, based on requirements (e.g. form factor, existing components)

I recently bought a new RTX5070Ti GPU, so there was a spare GTX1660Ti GPU lazing around. Figured I could assemble a small PC for gaming at friends'.

This of course translates to the two main requirements:

• Case that can fit the GPU
• ITX motherboard

Went with the Dream Case D26 because I didn't really care for case quality, just a simple housing for easy transportation. Plus the non-Taobao cases look to be discontinued (with unmaintained websites), probably because they were part of some crowdsourced fundraising campaign.

Went with whatever was available from local IT store, in particular Bizgram at Sim Lim (Dynacore is also a popular option). The 15th gen Intel cores also comes with a new naming scheme and suffixes.

Requirements:

• No need CPU overclocking
• Reasonably higher base clock rate
• Integrated graphics needed (if no discrete GPU)

Intel Core U5 235 seems very suitable to my needs. And looks like I can roll with the stock CPU cooler for funsies.

Same as with CPU. Listed MBs available locally, and highlighting columns that are of interest to me.

Read this nice article on B860 vs Z890. See this for Z690, B860, Z890 chipset comparison. But in general, compared to Z890 chipsets, B860 chipsets:

• Cannot overclock CPU + less DMI4 lanes (4 vs 8)
• Less chipset PCIe lanes (34 vs 48)
• No PCIe lane splitting
• Second M.2 slot brought out from chipset, instead of direct from CPU
• No RAID arrays
• Maximum 1x Thunderbolt 4

Gallery

Feels like maybe I can live without high bandwidth between CPU-chipset, and have wanted to try out ASUS motherboard, so the B890I it shall be.

Total TDP is 65W CPU and 120W GPU, plus an overhead of ~100W for peripherals and we have a total of ~300W requirement. Requested connectors include:

• Standard MB 24-pin ATX and CPU 8-pin EPS
• GPU 8-pin PCIe
  • According to Wikipedia, there are 3 power +12V pins.
  • Given rated current per pin of 7A-ish, a minimum 18AWG cable is required.
  • Rated power of 252W, with 150W specified under PCI-SIG CEM specification

Adding a x1.4 safety factor yields 420W.

Unfortunately Flex ATX PSUs are hard to come by, but managed to scrape out a Silverstone FX600 via Newegg (last stock...?) for $387 incl. shipping... pricey...

RAM + SSD, and we are done!