System Builder Marathon, Dec. 2009: $700 Gaming PC

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I agree with many others here. While "gamers" do play games, they also want a system with some longevity. Such a system would probably have a quad core processor and a single video card. One person gave the example of a Phenom II X4 processor with single HD 5770. A great example.

The author points to a Crisis benchmark with a single 5770 as a counter argument. Well that benchmark shows 34 FPS at 1900x1200 resolution in High Detail. Plenty fine in my book! When more power than that is needed, you can drop a second HD 5770 in there when they get cheap.

A "value" system is not a good value if every component needs to be replaced in 1-2 years. I respect that you guys were going for maximum FPS *right now*, but most of us wouldn't want to build such a system.
 

Thanks for keeping the comments going. Components for our next SBM are now in hand.

The SBM is a bit of a competition based on performance in the current bench suite. There are no bonus points given for an upgradeable system. While a PII X4 + 5770 is a nice all-round combo I could easily see readers buying, it will be playable in far less scenarios than a pair of 4850's or 4870's. My goal for the budget "Gaming PC" is to nail 19x12 (or at least 1080P) performance in as many games as possible. With 23-24" LCD's so cheap, it's easily justifiable for a budget gamer to desire native 1080P and the highest of details, and even some AA if possible.

On the gaming front, (as mentioned in the comment you speak of), the settings we use have already been dialed down vs. the SBM's of old, and this was done to allow some playable performance for the budget build which usually contained one GPU. Our high settings in Supreme Commander, WIC, Crysis, and STALKER are all ones that put a hurting on those single GPU's.

BTW, Tom's does not consider 34 ave fps in the Crysis CPU bench to be playable performance. That system would likely see performance sit in the teens in some levels, causing settings to be further lowered. Take a look at the explanation and performance in #'s here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/balanced-gaming-pc,2477-8.html
 

It's hard to keep up in these SBM's where we use one budget CPU each quarter. New processors were released a week or so after our next SBM's order went out. FYI, I went with the Athlon II X3 435.
 
[citation][nom]pauldh[/nom]Thanks for keeping the comments going. Components for our next SBM are now in hand.The SBM is a bit of a competition based on performance in the current bench suite. There are no bonus points given for an upgradeable system. While a PII X4 + 5770 is a nice all-round combo I could easily see readers buying, it will be playable in far less scenarios than a pair of 4850's or 4870's. My goal for the budget "Gaming PC" is to nail 19x12 (or at least 1080P) performance in as many games as possible. With 23-24" LCD's so cheap, it's easily justifiable for a budget gamer to desire native 1080P and the highest of details, and even some AA if possible.On the gaming front, (as mentioned in the comment you speak of), the settings we use have already been dialed down vs. the SBM's of old, and this was done to allow some playable performance for the budget build which usually contained one GPU. Our high settings in Supreme Commander, WIC, Crysis, and STALKER are all ones that put a hurting on those single GPU's. BTW, Tom's does not consider 34 ave fps in the Crysis CPU bench to be playable performance. That system would likely see performance sit in the teens in some levels, causing settings to be further lowered. Take a look at the explanation and performance in #'s here: http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 477-8.html[/citation]


Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I respect that you guys are going for a particular goal of max FPS. And I agree that a single HD 5770 would not meet those goals or match the FPS that you achieved with this rig.

I guess the amount of imbalance in this system (for things beyond gaming) and lack of upgrade path is what's driven many of the comments. Most of us would sacrifice a few FPS for a CPU/GPU/Motherboard combination that offers a combination of greater upgrade path and better all-around computing performance. But that's a different article than this one was ever meant to be, so that's egg on our face for getting worked up about it!

 
I was wondering is this system still worth building. The motherboard and graphics card seem to be discontinued. What would be a good substitute for the two items.
 
Out of curiosity, why this particular mobo/proc combination? A Phenom II x2 and a AMD 770-based mobo would be about the same price and would get you a better-performing processor and a platform with some legs in it (let's face it, LGA775 is all but dead).
 
[citation][nom]shadowryche[/nom]Must be something wrong with my ThermalTake Toughpower 750watt, because even that had trouble running a pair of Radeon 4870 512mb cards in crossfire under heavy load. And I only had two hard drives and one optical drive. The only other expansion card I ran was a Wireless N card.[/citation]

Thermaltake makes good stuff "not saying that it wasn't faulty" Keep in mind that watts isint everything Amperage is really important also the component that they use. Most PUS maker have different line of product its like that for almost everything now . Big companies want to make sure that they offer a product for every aspect of the market. So that being said you might of had a low end of the thermaltake series.
 

Noted.

In the current series (March), budgets were increased to $750/$1500/$3000. The $750 story asks for reader input on a budget for the next quarterly SBM. You may want to join that discussion on Thursday. I'm not against a $500-600 build, although it will hurt gaming abilities in our "high" batch of settings.
 
[citation][nom]shadowryche[/nom]Must be something wrong with my ThermalTake Toughpower 750watt, because even that had trouble running a pair of Radeon 4870 512mb cards in crossfire under heavy load. And I only had two hard drives and one optical drive. The only other expansion card I ran was a Wireless N card.[/citation]

what do you mean by trouble?
 
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