Part 1: Building A Balanced Gaming PC

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Wow, this is an amazingly in depth review! I kinda feel that its sponsered by Asus or Corsair, but I guess you kept with the same brand for the sake of controls etc.

Thankyou!
 
Very helpful stuff.

I'd like to see some discussion on the availability of sub $400 (at times as low as $280) 28" monitors. At this price range, does it make more sense to spend more on the LCD even if less is spent initially on graphics? I would think the benefit of 28" vs. 22" is so great that the extra money could be taken from, say, a 9550 + 4890 combo and getting a 8400/6300 + 4850 instead, with the right motherboard a second 4850 later will pass a 4890 anyway.
 
I like the balance charts. It's a good way to characterize the data. This article is well constructed and well thought-out.

That being said - is there a way we can compile this data and compute an "optimized" system for the given hardware available? Finding the true, calculated sweet spot for performance/$ would be so nice to have on hand every quarter or twice a year. I'll have to think about this one for a while. There may be some concessions to make, and it might not even work out. But it would be so cool.
 
I feel like the person that did this review got it finished alittle bit late. I can only assume he did all the testing some months back and has only just finished writing up his results. But its sad to not see the new P55/i5 Systems, AMD Athlon II Quad Cores, or the Radeon 5000 series.

Good review, but hopefully it can be updated soon with some of the newer equipment thats out, to turn it into a fantastic guide for people.
 
Great job, this is the information people need to be seeing; the way people provide benchmarks these days hardly tells the story to most of the readers. It's definitely important to point out the disparities in ones CPU choice, rather than just assuming everyone uses the i7 all the sites choose. 😉

Looking forward to part 2.
 
It took me roughly an hour and a half to read this article at work. Wow these are the types of tests and in depth articles that I’ve been waiting for. Its been about a month to two months since we’ve had such a deep study. The System Builder Marathon reviews and tests were great. The best GPU’s per price/performance are lacking and basic comparisons while this article shows us the true value and capabilities of certain GPU’s and CPU’s.

Im however perplexed that the once good 4850 which is compared to my 9800GTX+ is deemed a weaker GPU now. I thought the Far Cry 2 tests shown in previous TOMs comparisons garnerd higher frame rates? I know that the systems were comparable.... Anyway keep up the good work and this is a Quality comparison/chart/review.
 
This is a great review that people who are building pc's actual need to see.

I was quite surprised by the power of the HD4890. It thumped the GTX285 and more powerful cards when using a dual core CPU. Even in Crysis which always seemed like it favoured Nvidia cards in past reviews. It is probably that the previous reviews all used overclocked quad cores and/or the ATI drivers have really improved.

It also seems as though the Nvidia cards need a more powerful CPU in order to get equivalent performance to the ATI cards.
 
Thank you Paul and team for sacrificing many weeks on this project. Its great to have something to point at and say this is why you shouldn't do that. It will be great to be able do direct price/performance comparison for the same results of a less expensive OC'd system and stock system.

Can't wait for the rest!!!!!

Also, whats the chance of getting a how to run you're own benchmarks article so we can test our systems against yours using the same method?
 
This is good, this must be the first time in computer history things are beeing done right. And this is sure the best way i ever seen a review done, in my 18 yrs as an entusiastic computer builder. Looking forward to all the updates to come.

 
In this article http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2464-5.html THG writes that 4850 in CF should beat 4890 GPU. It would be very interesting to see 4850 in CF in Part2 of this article. And one more advise to author of this article, tests will be more thruly acceptable when your point of view of charts will be from 0 (zero). Couse when looking at World in Conflict 1280x1204 4aa 16af it seems like 4890 card four times faster than 4850. But it's only about 25 pecent faster.
 
let see how well is the AMD x2, x3, x4 do. because they will bring the price down. also i am planing my new build (planing my upgrade or going back to AMD)
 
Really nice!!!
Line charts are very useful.
Few ideas:
- Name of the Graphic Cards name could have been added at the right end of the lines.
- Precise value could have been added next to data points. (But this may have overloaded the graphs) Or could have made them appear on mouse cursor over data points ;-).
- Demanding games like Supreme Commander and Dawn of war 2 would have been good to see in these benchmarks.

Keep doing some good guides like this one. Thanks! 🙂
 
Mighty interesting, puts everything in perceptive (at least for me).
I planned on buying the i5 720/HD4890 combination but this article definitely changed my mind.

Hats off, one of the best reviews ever!

Would love the see 860/5870 😉
 
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