Need help for a small PC build

[Snowy]

Hi
My wife and I were talking about Hogwarts Legacy last night when she said (to my astonishment), "maybe you should build me a gaming computer". Wow. Okay. Absolutely!
She likes the idea of having the computer in our living room, tucked away in our entertainment console. This necessitates the build should be relatively small. The current cabinent that's available is about 13" deep, and 15" wide. It currently has a shelf in the middle so the height right now is about 10", but could go up to 17" if I remove the shelf and have something stand vertically.

I'd like to reuse components I already have if possible, but otherwise I need help selecting components that will
A) be relatively inexpensive
B) fit within a small form factor
C) relatively cool / not power hungry

Here's what I currently have from a previous build:

Case:
PSU:
Mobo: ASUS Prime X370-PRO AM4
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X
GPU:
SDD: (I have a spare around here somewhere)
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 2666

As you can see, I need most components

I would consider an upgrade to the CPU if I can keep the motherboard.

Lastly, this will be plugged into our 55" LG C2 OLED 4K TV.
Since my wife isn't an avid gamer (seriously, she will probably only play Harry Potter and maybe Portal or some other Co-OP game) I'm thinking something built around 1080p should be fine and we can use FSR / RSR to make up the difference.

Thank you for your help!
Snowy

 

[Grimlakin]

The issue is you got her hooked on a current AAA game.

She's going to FEEL that difference. Make sure that SSD is a NVME 3.0 drive. I would absolutely do a more current CPU but keep the MB. The X370 should support a 3x series CPU pretty easily from AMD.

I would also up your ram to 32gb.

For video cards... if you're limiting to 1080p with upscaling for everything else.. I would lean to something like a 4060 or even a 4070, considering memory use of current games... I would go for a 16gb card regardless of model. Though supposedly with texture compression you might easily get away with less on an Nvidia card. (Something they introduced with Maxwell.)

PSU will be to suite your graphics card.

Are you in DFW? I have a 3900x sitting in an old MB doing nothing.

 

[David_Schroth]

That's a full ATX board.. so will you have a full ATX case? If you need it to look HTPC like, Silverstone had a nice looking one at Computex, but will need a little room on the sides for airflow beyond its stated dimensions.

If you're looking at going a lot smaller, I've seen the Cooler Master NR1 is running $40 after rebate on the case side, but you'd need an ITX board to make that happen.

I just built a box for the wife using the NZXT H1 (got for $200 on sale - included PSU, case, AIO) and I was fairly impressed with it. ITX board also needed here but it should fit a 2-2.5ish slot GPU.

On the GPU front, it's really a budget thing (but, also a size thing once you figure out your case). So many of the current gen cards are huge, especially those that can run at 4k - do you have an estimated budget for it?