Mini-ITX nVidia Build

Well, now that we have some more information on SteamOS, and we know it won't have support for AMD video cards right out of the gate, we might as well be fair and make an nVidia mini build. This one will be about the same cost, with the exception of the case and the PSU, since they're cheaper than the other ones I recommended. Let's get started.

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 760k
We'll go with the Athlon 760k again because it's a good overall CPU, and will do just fine for gaming. Not much more you can say that hasn't been said before.

GPU: MSI GTX 660 2GB
We'll go with the GTX 660 for this build. It gives us slightly better performance than the R7 260X, but at the cost of being $45 more. The 660 is the minimum nVidia card you need in order to play Battlefield 4 at recommended settings, so it'll do us just fine here.

RAM: G.SKILL Ares 8GB 1600MHz
G.SKILL RAM is really good, and the Ares series has a nice aesthetic to it. It's cheap right now on Newegg, and it's got a good speed and latency to it, as we should expect from modern DDR3 RAM.

Mobo: ASUS A88XM-A
For the mobo, we'll use an mATX mobo in order to make use of the space inside this case. We don't really need to use a micro ITX board if we aren't using a micro ITX case, so points off me for that last build. This mobo will give us nice expandability, good specs, but no WIFI, which most mITX boards have. If you wanna spend a bit more money for WIFI, go with an mITX board.

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB
We'll go with this 1TB Seagate again. It covers the recommended specs for SteamOS, and that's what we want.

PSU: Corsair CX430
We're not going modular here. Sorry. But, we save a few bucks, and that's a good thing. This is more than enough power for this build.

Case: XION XON-560
This Xion case is surprisingly good for the money. The thing that's crazy about this is that you can mount a buttload of fans on it. One in the front, one in the back, and up to FOUR on the side. Or one really big one. But that's still pretty awesome.

Total Price:  $525 according to PCPartPicker

The reason the cost is so much lower than the AMD build is this: We're using a cheaper motherboard, cheaper case, cheaper RAM, and cheaper PSU. If you were to put the same components with the AMD GPU, it would be below $500. If you wanted, you could upgrade the AMD GPU to a R9 270 and get better performance. But, this was just to make sure the SteamOS will run with it, which is probably won't with the AMD build.

This rig is really good, though. It will be able to run Battlefield 4 well, as well as many games that will probably be native with SteamOS, like Half-life, Left 4 Dead, and even the higher end games such as ArmA and Red Orchestra 2, which I hope will be native.

Let me know what you think.

Happy gaming.

Game recommendation: Bioshock
The original Bioshock was one of the reasons people called 2007 the best year in gaming. An insanely atmospheric and interesting game, it gave us mechanics that are interesting, a story line that drew you in, and amazing graphics for the time. The water... oh man, the water. Buy this, it's $5 until tomorrow. And buying from my gamefanshop helps me and that helps you.