The Best $3,000 Extreme Mini-ITX Gaming PC Build – April 2025
Go Big, but Build Small!
If you’re looking for a no-holds-barred extreme Mini-ITX Gaming PC Build in a sleek, compact chassis, this is the one for you! Our $3,000 Extreme Mini-ITX Gaming PC Build might be dwarfed by standard towers, but it can easily keep up with them thanks to its truly extreme components. And amazingly, there’s virtually no price premium for getting a system of this caliber down to a portable size, making this PC a pretty good value too.
This Month’s Build, Powered by AMD and Nvidia!
For April 2025, the $3,000 Extreme Mini-ITX Gaming PC Build features the awesomely-powerful AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D 8-core CPU, endowed with 3D V-Cache to provide tremendous gaming performance in an ultra-efficient power envelope. It’s the fastest gaming CPU on the market! And to ensure great 4K performance, this build has the ideal GPU for a compact but extreme gaming PC, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5080 16GB. It offers simply amazing performance while fitting within a reasonable thermal envelope.
To make sure the system never hits a bottleneck, the build has an incredible 64GB of fast DDR5-6000 RAM, along with an ultra-fast 2TB PCIE Gen 5 solid-state drive . It all comes together in the truly groundbreaking Lian Li A4-H20 chassis, which is uniquely designed for ultra-high-end components like the ones we recommend. It can fit the specific RTX 5080 Super model we recommend, plus a 240mm liquid CPU cooler, all while coming in at just 11 liters, making it about 1/5 the size of the typical full tower!
Parting Thoughts
You’ll find our recommendations for the best accessories for this build later in this guide. For all products, we provide links to Amazon or Newegg in the US, and our Amazon links will auto-convert for our readers in Canada, the UK, and parts of the EU, with regional substitutions made automatically where necessary. To support continued development of this guide, please use the affiliate links we provide in the guide.
The DIY Build
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CPU –AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
$479The Guru’s TipAMD’s 7800 X3D was impressive enough, easily beating every other CPU ever released in gaming. And despite it still holding the crown after the release of many other CPUs, AMD went and did it again, giving gamers the 9800X3D with enhanced 3D cache technology, redesigned to allow higher clockspeeds and manual overclocking. This CPU is the ultimate gaming processor, regardless of price.Another great feature of this CPU is its low power use, a far cry from Intel's top-end CPUs, which draw at least 100W more power at load - something you definitely don't want in a small ITX chassis.
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Motherboard –Asus ROG Strix B850-I
$300The Guru’s TipThis is a high-end motherboard for a serious small form factor system! It features 10+2+1 power stages, a future-proof PCIe Gen 5 video card slot (which is what you want for the latest GPUs), dual M.2 slots (both being Gen 5), eight USB ports (two being Type-C), Intel Gigabit LAN, WiFi 7 wireless networking, plus the high-end ALC4080 audio codec and a Savitech SV3H712 Amp.This is the perfect high-end ITX board - in fact, while Asus offers an X870-based ITX board for 50% more, it essentially the same, because the X870 chipset's support for extra ports and slots is unusable on an ITX board!
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Video Card –Asus GeForce RTX 5080 16GB Prime @Newegg
$1400The Guru’s TipThe RTX 5080 offers nearly the same performance as the older RTX 4090, while coming in at a much lower price, and with much lower power draw. And it’s also far ahead of anything AMD offers. It offers all the latest enhancements from Nvidia, including class-leading 4th-Gen Ray Tracing cores and DLSS 4.At just 306mm long, this GPU will easily fit in the case we recommend. Beware... most RTX 5080 models will not!
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Memory –G.Skill 2x32GB Flare X5 DDR5-6000 CL30 EXPO
$190The Guru’s TipTo get the most out of AMD’s latest CPUs, you want fast RAM, and DDR5-6000 is the sweetspot not only in terms of price, but in terms of making the most of the AM5 platform. It allows for the highest overall performance thanks to running in 1:1 sync with the memory controller. And this 64GB Flare X5 kit from G.Skill is specially designed for AM5, thanks to the extraordinary 30-40-40-96 AMD EXPO timings. It offers tremendous capacity and speed in a single package!For an elite ITX rig, you want a 2x32GB kit, since you're limited to two RAM slots - this gives you a total of 64GB of super-fast RAM.
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Solid-State Drive –Corsair MP700 Elite 2TB
$180The Guru’s TipCorsair leverages the PCIe Gen 5 interface to propel the MP700 Elite 2TB past its similarly-priced competitors. It can hit 10,000MB/sec sequential read and 8,500MB/sec sequential write speeds.While you don't really need a drive this fast for gaming, we figure that with a premium ITX build, you'd only want the best!
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Case –LIAN LI A4-H2O X4 Black
$155The Guru’s TipLian Li has taken its design expertise and one-upped the entire Small Form Factor case industry with the A4-H20. It teamed up with the ITX design specialists at Dan Cases to create the A4-H20, which as the name suggests, supports liquid cooling despite coming in at an impossibly-small 11 liters. It uses a sandwich-style layout, putting the GPU behind the motherboard, while making room at the top of the case for a liquid cooler up to 240mm in size to exhaust all the system’s hot air. And take note: the X4 edition of this case includes a high-quality PCIe Gen 4-capable riser cable to ensure full bandwidth to the latest video cards!This case can fit video cards up to 322mm long. The model we recommend fits easily into that limit.
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Power Supply –Corsair SF750 (2024)
$180The Guru’s TipOffering a tremendous 750W of power output and Platinum-rated efficiency in an ultra-compact package, Corsair’s SF750 sets the standard for ultra-premium SFX power supplies, and this latest iteration adds PCIe 5.0 support, meaning it has cable support for all the latest GPUs!This unit will have no trouble supporting this system, which will draw about 500W at full load.
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CPU Cooler –Thermalright Aqua Elite 240
$45The Guru’s TipFor excellent performance on a budget, we recommend you go for the Aqua Elite 240. It uses two high-performance 120mm fans and a whisper-quiet pump to keep your CPU cool! Priced below many air coolers, this model offers tremendous value per dollar, plus great looks to enhance your system.Trust us when we say very few coolers will fit in this build. The key is that the pump needs to be no taller than 55mm, with a total radiator/fan thickness of under 53mm. This model's pump comes in at 54mm tall, and a combined 52mm thick, for a perfect fit!
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Operating System –Windows 11 Home (USB) @Newegg
$139The Guru’s TipWindows 11 built on everything people loved about Windows 10, and then took it to 11! It adds significant under-the-hood changes to make it faster and more secure, and of course, the interface is sleek too! Note that we’re linking to Newegg, because Amazon long ago stopped selling this physical USB version of Windows, which is the most convenient one to use.Win11 is definitely the OS you want on a PC running the latest CPU architectures!
Optional Products
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The Ultimate Gaming Keyboard –SteelSeries Apex Pro Gen 3
$240 The Guru’s TipThis keyboard is almost infinitely configurable!
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The Ultralight Gaming Mouse –Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro Wireless
$110 The Guru’s TipWhile there are plenty of ultra-light mice out there, Razer delivers the goods when it comes to performance like no other manufacturer can!
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The 34" Ultra-wide OLED –Alienware AW3423DWF
$781 The Guru’s TipIf you want a monitor to show off the power of your new extreme PC, this is the one!
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The Deluxe PC Headset –SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 Wireless
$160 The Guru’s TipArctis simply owns the market for high-end, performance-oriented gaming headsets.
Total Cost: $3068
The DIY Build
- CPU – AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D ($479)
- Motherboard – Asus ROG Strix B850-I ($300)
- Video Card – Asus GeForce RTX 5080 16GB Prime @Newegg ($1400)
- Memory – G.Skill 2x32GB Flare X5 DDR5-6000 CL30 EXPO ($190)
- Solid-State Drive – Corsair MP700 Elite 2TB ($180)
- Case – LIAN LI A4-H2O X4 Black ($155)
- Power Supply – Corsair SF750 (2024) ($180)
- CPU Cooler – Thermalright Aqua Elite 240 ($45)
- Operating System – Windows 11 Home (USB) @Newegg ($139)
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