System Builder Marathon: $1,250 Enthusiast PC

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[citation][nom]sighQ2[/nom]Gee, Crashman - you only have one voice too - and to slobber your comments as infinite wisdom is disgusting - put an non-oclok Phenom in and see what happens - my guess? ONLY slightly slower in the bench esp on crysis. [/citation]

Dude, we tried a Phenom in a past system builder marathon. it got absolutely raped compared to a similarly priced C2D, especially when overclocked.

I like AMD and I gave them a shot, and to their credit the Phenom did fairly well in some multithreaded apps, but in most apps it was simply embarrased. And when the C2D was overclocked the Phenom didn't have a chance.

Maybe the Phenom II will do better, but in the meantime you're looking like an insane fanboy going after Crashman like that. He's right, plain and simple. Even a reasonable AMD fan should be able to see that.
 
[citation][nom]cleeve[/nom]Dude, we tried a Phenom in a past system builder marathon. it got absolutely raped compared to a similarly priced C2D, especially when overclocked.I like AMD and I gave them a shot, and to their credit the Phenom did fairly well in some multithreaded apps, but in most apps it was simply embarrased. And when the C2D was overclocked the Phenom didn't have a chance.Maybe the Phenom II will do better, but in the meantime you're looking like an insane fanboy going after Crashman like that. He's right, plain and simple. Even a reasonable AMD fan should be able to see that.[/citation]

I agree with Cleeve.

I am an AMD fan. Every PC I have built myself has been AMD-centered. They used to be a better performer CPU, but now they are clearly not even in the non-OC'ed tests.

I stick with AMD now simply because of price difference.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Yorkfield 2.5GHz - $244.99
AMD Phenom 9850 Black Edition 2.5 GHz - $169.00

To me, the $75 is better spent in a higher-end, more stable PSU or more RAM or better motherboard with more features.

Does Intel overclock better? Doesn't matter to me. I'm not looking to squeak out every last clock cycle I can before lockup occurs. If I do simple tweaks and get 10% performance increase, I'm happy. If not, I can deal with it.

Nonetheless, I am hoping the PhenomII delivers on the anticipation of it being the processor to bring AMD back. But if and until that happens, Intel is clearly the better processor performance-wise.

As well, it was indeed sad someone flamed Crashman like that. He shows valid results from documented testing. sighQ2 showed nothing.

That in itself says it all to me.
 
I would like to see a system built for multitasking; It is quite hard to find a PC that can run 2 MMO clients (Such as Eve-Online, and/or LOTRO), TeamSpeak/Ventrilo, MSN, Windows Media Player, and a couple of browsers on a dual screen setup, and still run smoothly.
 
[citation][nom]zodiacfml[/nom]saw it. yeah the xigmatek should be nice.thermalright's best ultra has 4 degree advantage over the xigmatek on a quadcore though priced $60 versus $42.[/citation]

Ah, but Thermalright doesn't include fans with their high-end coolers - so add on another $10-$20, depending on the fan.
 
[citation][nom]vaker5[/nom]I would be happy to have the 650$ system, I'm still rockin' my beat up dimension 2400.[/citation]

OMG what video card do you have in it? I ask because I know the Dimension 2400 doesn't even have a pci x16 or AGP slot in it...?
 
How good is the Zalman CNPS9700 compared to the Xigmatek’s HDT-S1283 or the Artic 7 used in the $625 build? Please disregard pricing as I already have the Zalman cooler and could use it in the new build. Do you think the Zalman cooler could have got the E5200 or E8500 further?
 
The article mentions two different motherboards were used for the $1500 build and the new $1250 build.

DFI LANPARTY DK X38-T2R
DFI LANPARTY DK X38-T2RB

I’m curious why they changed models since the article didn’t really specify if one was better than the other. The only reason I ask is because Newegg is sold out of the T2R and I wanted to know if it was worth waiting for a restock if there is a significant difference between the two.

 
[citation][nom]DOPfc[/nom]I’m curious why they changed models since the article didn’t really specify if one was better than the other. [/citation]

Neither is 'better', it appears to be the exact same board with diffrent cooling options.

The T2RB has the cooling surfaces linked with a heatpipe, while the T2R has separate heatsinks for each of the chips to be cooled, and a large chipset cooler that is designed to allow for a fan if you desire. There's a note about that in the review.
 
Hi Cleeve, why did you use 32bit vista in this build, why not 64bit? Is 64bit having problems? I would think using 64bit version to be better because it would be able to address full 4GB memory.
 
We're sticking to Vista 32 bit for the next while for a few reasons; Vista-64 doesn't offer a lot of speed increases primarily, and secondarily our benchmark suite needs to be revamped for 64-bit software, which we're in the process of making happen.
 
Why not make 2 625/1250/whatever builds - one as intel other as amd? I think pretty much everyone at this point knows that all else being equal, intel is faster. however, I think most of us ALSO know that intel costs more so a "same" build for intel is more expensive. Actually having a true comparison of the two at a price spending point would be worthwhile. If you save money on the mobo and processor, more/better video, ram, or whatever might make it so that an amd system runs faster....

just my $0.005 worth...
 
What I would like to see is some information regarding the noise levels of the various builds. I do not want to feel like I am sitting in an airplane whilst using my PC
 
I believe that typically electronics, when scaled performance VS cost have a logrhythmic curve. That is at the low end, spending a little more yields noticeable improvement. And at the high end, spending a little more $ gets you almost 0 improvement. I have always aimed for the middle of this curve regardless of the actual capabilities of my machine in the end. If I believe the performance is still scaling up with the cost I will investigate more to see if I will benefit from moving up that scale. I would like to see you guys build such a system. Call it the 'best bang for the buck' overall system, no specific preset cost limit. It would be awesomely ideal if you could show test results of the end result with the diff. price points and parts possibilities i.e. complete system with a 4850 at XXX $ and all the same parts but a better video card, delta $ yields delta performance. It could get expensive pretty quick, but maybe you guys have a lot of not too out of date parts on hand already ?
 
I love these builds! I used this and the 625 build to make my own "bang for the buck machine" (thank you cyber monday sales). It would be great to see some comparison between the 625 and the 1250 build. Would moving the E8500 to the 625 build yeild a higher performance? Jus a little analysis like that would go a long way in picking parts to max out price/performance! Thanks TH!
 
Great build! I was in the process of picking out parts to make my own computer when i ran across this article...liked what i saw on the benchmarks and decided to make one of my own! I ordered everything the same except for the hard drive. I went with a seagate 1tb (for an extra 20 bucks who wouldn't!?) I haven't even overclocked mine yet and its still pretty fast. Now the only issue I'm having is it's only showing 2 gigs of ram when there are 4. I've moved the 2 sticks around and checked them one at a time and they are both good but on pcpitstop its still just showing 2 gigs. Is there something I'm forgetting to do besides just putting the ram in its slot? Any help would be appreciated!
 
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