Advice: Windows 7-based Small or Compact PC for Gaming/Media

for what it's worth, the "digital storm eclipse" appears to be a mini-ITX PC built around http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163252&cm_re=rvz01-_-11-163-252-_-Product, whose default color is black. (it uses anhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=sfx+psu&N=-1&isNodeId=1y) mini-ITX is quite a bit bigger than the "brix" and there are quite a few case options... i'm pretty sure the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163252&cm_re=rvz01-_-11-163-252-_-Product has a laptop motherboard (with an integrated 760m) and will have vastly inferior gaming performance. intel graphics is a bad plan if you want to play games now or in the future. i don't have any experience with any of these products, but if you are willing to go up to mini-ITX as a motherboard size, you have many options for build your own. depending on what features you actually want you might be able to some money, or at least not have a bright red case. for the $950 digital storm eclipse, they are using the minimum rated power supply (400w) for the gtx 960, which is something to think about.

I think in this form factor you are probably stuck with integrated graphics. If I were actually building a gaming-dedicated machine I wouldn't choose this, but I just use a general-purpose 3 year old mac mini (in os x and windows 7) with intel integrated graphics for gaming, so I can report on my experience. In contrast to what to what people who don't have direct experience with integrated graphics say, in my experience it is basically fine for things that are not the newest, things that are not graphically too ambitious or 3d-heavy, and/or things roughly targeting hardware from previous gen consoles or (even better) hoping to have an ipad version. Banished will be completely fine, for example, as will most/all indie games. Roughly current-gen stuff like divinity original sin, banner saga, dragonfall, wasteland 2, xcom, all run great, and I expect things of this genre will continue to do so on even my aging mac mini for a while. Previous-gen 3d stuff (which is actually nearly contemporary with this graphics card) also runs great in my experience, e.g. games like dishonored, deus ex:hr, skyrim, borderlands 2, the batman games. Bioshock infinite was fine, could've been better, but perfectly playable (that's the most recent 3d-heavy game I've played I think). So it really depends on what you want to play. If your target is things like witcher 3 or far cry n, or AAA games also targeting current-gen console hardware, possibly don't bother with integrated graphics. Something like homeworld remastered, it's harder to say pre release, but I expect it will probably run at somewhat minimal settings (this is what reports for elite: dangerous are like for intels for example). If you really want to play that game it may at least be worth waiting for the release to pull the trigger on committing to integrated graphics.

Just for reference: the specific hardware I'm talking about in that post is an intel hd4000 on a 2012 mac mini, which is several generations behind in terms of integrated graphics.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Rdd3vK based on a case I sort of admired from afar for a while. I have not built this and you'd want to double check everything. The Intel IGP will play older indie games OK (and homeworld most likely) but you'll need an actual video card for AAA games (and you have the budget for it).

The third-generation (Broadwell) http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/review-intels-broadwell-mini-pc-is-a-next-generation-ultrabook-in-a-box/ should be available later this month, with an HD 6000 GPU. Based on benchmarks, this is a step up from HD 5000; I'm not sure how it compares to the Iris Pro 5200. The NUC seems like it might be good for you since it's available bare-bones (so you can pick your components and OS, and upgrade them easily in the future) and Ars likes its quality and performance over the other mini-PCs they've reviewed. It's not a 3D gaming-oriented box like the Digital Storm that you linked, though.

One thing that I didn't put in my very brief post above: I think the NUC-size devices are cool but really limiting which is why I built out a mini-ITX machine. I feel like that's still a pretty small size but you can built an actual computer at that size, rather than something that sacrifices significant levels of graphical performance and flexibility for scale.

How insistent are you that the machine be weensy? I mean, if this is a living room box, then you'll probably be using a wireless keyboard+touchpad (we use a logitech k400) and controller to interact with it, so you can shove the box somewhere unobtrusive and run a longer hdmi cable to the tv/receiver and, if needed, a usb cable with the dongles at the end. I only ask because facing otherwise similar constraints, I recently built a machine into a Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 case because reviews suggested that all of the gaming bricks are pretty loud. It's kinda stupid big but, being a featureless black monolith, mostly just disappears. At some point I'll get some longer cables and put it behind a chair or something and it will be functionally gone. And I've been really happy with it because it's quiiiiieeeet. Notably quieter than our gen2 PS3. Quieter than the heater vents a room away. Even after gaming for mumblety hours, it's really quiet.

My build was: Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 i3-4160 Nvidia 750Ti Whatever 200+GB SSD was cheapest that week (PNY 240GB) + 1TB hard drive Whatever highly-rated motherboard was cheapest that week (ASRock H97M Pro 4) Rosewill 450W PSU Whatever 2 dimms of 4GB RAM were cheapest that week Cooler Master Hyper 212 cpu cooler Everything runs stock. It's not quite silent, but quieter than the PS3 under load. I don't have a kill-a-watt to hook it up to, but calculators say it comes in at 175-200 watts under load, or about the same as the gen2 PS3. The 750Ti limits things, and on some newer games I've backed things down to 1280x720 but with the eye candy still set pretty high. I'm pretty intolerant of low frame rates, though, so YMMV. If a die shrink brings the power consumption on something like the 970 down, I'll swap one of those in.

But some of the hardware/cases available right now also supports mobile nVidia and Radeon boards. Possibly even more important than the particular graphics cards is that it sounds like these options will let you later upgrade the graphics board independently. Based on my mac mini experience, for a gaming machine I'd definitely choose upgradable (anything) >> integrated, even if I do still think a contemporary integrated card will be fine for most purposes at the time of purchase. (I.e. if I could I would probably upgrade my graphics card soon.) Also, dual booting an apple is a decent option, I've found that this works well for gaming. The only slight annoyance is that windows 7 is nearly impossible to buy except for oem, so it's permanently tied to the particular hardware, and if the dual-boot thing is a stopgap you'll find yourself needing to buy another license later.