In 2008, I built my first "real" gaming PC. I followed the release of the Wolfdale series Intel processors, and settled on an E8400. Other parts in the build included a very sturdy Lian-Li alluminum case, the EVGA nForce 780i SLI motherboard, and two EVGA 9600 GT graphics cards running in SLI.

It ran pretty well for its time. I spent many an hour playing WoW, my first dozen or so playthroughs of the first Mass Effect, amongst other titles from that era. Circumstances in my life prevented me from having much room for a desktop after 2010, and I got used to gaming on more portable devices or on gaming consoles.

With the release of Dell/Alienware's Steam Machines, I realized the specs of many budget builds nowadays outshine the laptops I had been trying to game on (Lenovo T400, Lenovo T430 with discrete GPU), and in some cases even outperform my aging beast of a machine.

Though the Steam Machines look pretty well put-together, I thought I would see how easy it would be to build a small system that could beat it, my old machines, and give me the opportunity to revisit some of my old(er) favorite titles.

Here is the first build I threw together:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor	$49.00 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock H97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard	$59.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory	$44.98 @ OutletPC
Video Card	MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card	$89.99 @ Newegg
Case	Silverstone Sugo SG13B Mini ITX Tower Case	$39.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	$21.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$365.94
	Mail-in rebates	-$60.00
	Total	$305.94
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 14:17 EST-0500

I have seen examples of builds with this processor and motherboard combination pushing the clockspeed as high as 4.5Ghz.

It's my understanding that the 750ti scales better with lower-performing processors than ATI cards do, which is why I chose NVIDIA again this time around. In addition, I plan on testing this system running games on both Steam for Windows and Steam for Linux/SteamOS.

To give myself some more room and better cooling in the case, I opted for a couple of upgrades - a closed-loop watercooling kit for the processor, and a SFX form factor PSU:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor	$49.00 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler	Corsair H50 57.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$49.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	ASRock H97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard	$59.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory	$44.98 @ OutletPC
Video Card	MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card	$89.99 @ Newegg
Case	Silverstone Sugo SG13B Mini ITX Tower Case	$39.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Silverstone 300W 80+ Bronze Certified SFX Power Supply	$48.99 @ SuperBiiz
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$432.93
	Mail-in rebates	-$50.00
	Total	$382.93
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 14:20 EST-0500

Once I have received the parts, I plan to re-grease the 750ti with Arctic MX-4, and document the overall build process. I'm looking forward to seeing how much power can be packed into a small footprint on such a tight budget.

After the build is complete, I hope to start testing games to see just what can run on this combination at 1080p and maintain a consistent 60FPS, with what graphics settings. Please feel free to provide feedback in the Disqus forums on these pages, or email me at dyindude@dyindude.net.