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[coleipoo]

Great idea, having the Best Build a community feature. I hope you guys are ready to wade through the suggestions.

 

[rolli59]

Great idea but would building gaming builds not be based on monitor resolution?

 

[fyasko]

intel fandBOIs REJOICE! AMD all the way.

 

[arges86]

awesome idea

a community based effort should produce some interesting results. Power to the masses.

 

[milledakilla]

$1,000 is not a "budget" machine.

Make this a $500 challenge. That is a more realistic budget. I think you can build a gaming rig, that will play most games at ~near~ max frame rates with the knowledge available on this website alone.

$1,000 is just to high. With that kind of money you basically can get 1-2 tiers just below bleeding edge. If I gave my 10 year old daughter a $1,000 she could build a gaming PC too! $500 though and you really have to put some serious thought in how you want to go about building the system and what parts to invest into and where to sacrifice.

 

[robwright]

While I agree that $1,000 is a little too high for "budget" systems, I'll throw this point out: who among us in the enthusiast crowd would actually build a $500 system? You know, besides 10-year-old kids. Serious question, not rhetorical BS. I just see so many people these days discarding any systems or builds that come under $800 to $1,000, with the assumption that such a machine won't be potent enough to run the latest games and whatnot.

 

[gm0n3y]

Do the builds require a monitor?

 

[robwright]

And BTW, great stuff Chris! Glad this idea came to fruition.

 

[milledakilla]

robwright,

You make a fair point regarding the enthusiast builder. But what about the new to the arena builder? The first time builder? The kid who has $500 but knows a Dell just isn't going to cut it for him. I built my first PC with the information I found on this website 5 years ago. Since then I have built at least a dozen for friends, family and myself.

I guess what I am trying to say is that the information for a truly budget game system is readily available in the monthly buying guides. It is true that the longevity of the budget system could come into question. However, a builder with a little bit of forward thinking could construct a budget rig with future upgrades in mind.

The larger point being can the rig play the games of today? I think that this is totally plausible. Yes, you might have to invest more into the system down the road in order to keep pace with new tech, but that is simply easier to do once you are already operating a machine.

Wouldn't it be the "new" builder who would be most interested in getting the most out of thier money in a "budget" build?

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]robwright[/nom]And BTW, great stuff Chris! Glad this idea came to fruition.[/citation]

Many thanks Rob. Hope all's well with you, man!

 

[Guest]

I wonder why is there a division between AMD and Intel based systems. Is this really that important what powers an office PC? Or should we add categories for graphic cards(AMD vs Nvidia) or other parts manufacturers as well...
My only guess is that Gaming, Office and the rest besides High-End would be AMD dominated and TH's always been that little bit pro-Intel biased. Especially since that categories appeared only recently.

 

[egowhip69]

[citation][nom]milledakilla[/nom]robwright,You make a fair point regarding the enthusiast builder. But what about the new to the arena builder? The first time builder? The kid who has $500 but knows a Dell just isn't going to cut it for him. [/citation]

I totally agree, and mention that this is also NOT only the first time builders that go this route. Even those of us that game, and like playing with the best have limited budgets. (Food for the family for a couple months or that sparkly new i7 980?)

When performing a major overhaul or rebuild, I try to spend less then this. The key is to build a decent base system that has components that can be upgraded, doubled up, or fairly cheaply replaced as you get cash later down the line.

And for that, THANKS AMD! *evil muttering about Intel and them changing sockets on me every cpu refresh*

 

[Enkidu98]

I'd certainly be able to report some findings if I had a nice computer.. Say like the one they are giving away for commenting on forums.

Its all in the name of research and disseminating useful information! YEAH! That's it!

 

[marraco]

Is very hard to assimilate this information when the charts are not sorted by performance.

 

[rockyjohn]

For the gaming PCs I would like to see at least 3 levels instead of two - such as budget, mainstream, and high-end. Actually I would prefer a fourth level, something like this:
Budget - under $600
Maintream - up to $1200
Power user - up to $1800
Dream machine - up to $3600

In workstation, I would like to see 2 or 3 levels, perhaps basic, professional, and power user. I don't know enough about workstations to suggest appropriate budget ranges. It might also be helpful to identify specific applications.

 

[Misdissident]

Many times someone who would desire a "gaming" PC would be turned off by the idea of obscene prices. Most (casual) people that I talk to assume that all gaming PCs are well over 1000 dollars, which we all know is not the case. I feel that someone who solely wants to game could either deal with a 300 dollar gaming console or a 500 dollar PC; this is especially relevant nowadays (maybe a bit more so a year back before the memory price hike) now that you can actually build a PC that can play games very well with a 500~600 dollar PC. Likewise, as generally the case that would apply now to me - do I spend 1000 dollars on a PC or do I save that for the impending costs of overpriced textbooks? 1000 bucks is often way to much for such a person (for a single electronic device at least), but 500 bucks can actually be swallowed by such a person most likely if they are enthused about building a new PC

 

[TheRockMonsi]

I tried out for the budget intel and microATX builds; I don't think I did too bad 😉

 

[foscooter]

I like this. I once suggested that they make a "Toms Hardware Recommended Buy" List, but this is pretty close.

Kinda.

 

[theoutbound]

I love this idea. It's always exciting to see other peoples builds and the reasoning for the components they chose.

 

[Proximon]

No monitors, but these things need to be spelled out in the threads for everyone, and they are not. The mods need to include:

-No monitors, keyboards, mice, or operating system required.

-Overclocking or not.

-Newegg only?

-Do rebates count?

 

[pgr007]

HI
I am wirting for the first time in this site, sorry if I am posting this in worng place.
I want to know how the performance changes if I use SolidStateMemory as my internal boot Hard drive(I mean install OS and other programs in SSD and run them)
My intrest is to buy Athlon ii x3 440 processor for gaming
so will there be any difference in the games performance when I use SSD memory as the data read access is fast.
if so which SSD should I buy under 200$.


Thanks in advance
Ashok