System Builder Marathon, June 2010: $1,000 Enthusiast PC

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Nice build, interesting choice with the X3, was wondering why you did not leave it as a x3 after the dismal Overclock after the core was unlocked, Who knows, maybe you could have got 4ghz o the three good cores (done that with builds several times), that would have made the OC $1000 system interesting.

Can see where you have gone with this and has opened up food for thought so thanks..


Confirmed to me that 1055t and single 5870/5850 budget depending is most balanced and issue free AMD system you can go for and should be the only choice for mid range AMD buyers!
 
IMO a pure gaming machine on a not-so-tight-shoestring should get a PHIIX6 (the 2.8 one) and a 5850/dual 5770's. Would have been considerably faster than this one. Massive CPU bottlenecl. Remember the Tom's review which showed an i7 930 with a 5850 beating an Athlon X3 with dual 5870's?
 
I did not like this build.

1. Even with the L3, I think based on the earlier Tom's article about the X3 440 for gaming, any success enjoyed by the 720BE in this high-end Crossfire configuration would be entirely contingent on the CPU unlocking, and then overclocking well. The former happened, the latter not so well; in any case results attributable to luck. I would have liked to have seen an Athlon II X4 instead, for a similar price. Someone who went this way and didn't get the unlock would be sorely disappointed.

2. Ok, a SSD wasn't in the budget, but a WD Blue? Only $6-$7 more buys a WD Black, Seagate 7200.12, or Samsung F3.

3. I will hold my tongue about the choice of the pair of HD5830 cards, provided ANOTHER manufacturer's pair can be tested in this machine. Never mind the budget, this is about finding out if the Gigabyte cards were the problem. No possible conclusion can be drawn about the merit of this choice until we know if someone else's HD5830s would work properly. Was it just bad cards? Bad drivers? An issue with the MSI mobo? There are too many variables here to know, but it looks like Gigabyte served up some EPIC with this FAIL.
 
Has anybody even tried to look at other motherboards with newer technologies?
(EX:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157198&Tpk=asrock%20870)
 
Wouldn't it be better to put in a single 5870 for $ 400 instead of 2X 5830 and then when the system would become not capable of handling newer games then we could add in another 5870 down the line... for much cheaper than current $ 400.....

Wouldn't that increase the "LONGEVITY" of the System....???
 
great article.but It's unfair to compare these two systems.With a$500 difference (not to mention the architectural difference in CPUs) what did you expect???!!!!.But, frankly,I didn't expect the performance gap to be that small in games (between the $1000 overclock & $1500 stock).
 
[citation][nom]rana_kirti[/nom]Wouldn't it be better to put in a single 5870 for $ 400 instead of 2X 5830 and then when the system would become not capable of handling newer games then we could add in another 5870 down the line... for much cheaper than current $ 400.....Wouldn't that increase the "LONGEVITY" of the System....???[/citation]


5830s would fare much better & tehy'r comparing the system to the last one to see whether the $500 had an effect on gaming performance
 
[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Two GPUs = zero girlfriends.[/citation]

Only if you're spending so much time on games such that you never get out to meet girls. Quite a few of us enthusiasts have some pretty neat hardware and still manage to date and get married to real women. However, the HW budget generally seems to dry up quite a bit when that happens...
 
I would have liked to see what the processor overclocked to leaving the "bad" core unused. AMD and Intel test their processors at higher clock speeds than stock, for obvious reasons, and this processor very possibly is the limiting factor for overclocks if it's been disabled.

Also, if the price changes between when you bought it, and the day the review comes out, I think it's more meaningful to use the CURRENT price. Certainly, the purchase price is relevant when explaining the choices, but, if I am looking to buy right now, it's not important. The price I can buy it at is.

Strangely, the author used the higher cost due to a package deal being discontinued, but then didn't take into account the cards fell $20 each. Why?
 
I think the components chosen in this build were pretty solid as a gaming machine. Two 5830's show that great gaming performance can be had with a lower-end processor such as the X3 730.

HOWEVER, it is my personal opinion, and the opinion of what seems like a few others, that many builders would have rather gone with a more balanced system. For the budget of this system I definitely would not gone with an i7, but an i5 or PII X4 would definitely be my two considerations. I would then pair that with a single 5850 and call it done.

That wouldn't give as good performance in games, but to me it's a more attractive system. I would also have chosen a faster HDD.

Tom's can't please every builder out there though. You guys still did a good job of getting a great gaming system built. Most naive people probably didn't think this system would game that well.
 
I LOVE these articles. The only bad thing is they only come out once every quarter!

While I agree it would have been safer to choose a X4 or i5, i can see why they went with the AthIIx3. They gambled on a cheaper processor, hoping it would unlock an overclock like a beast and putting the extra money into some awesome graphics. In this case, the results may have been underwhelming, but a good counter-example is the $750 build from last quarter using an unlocked/overclocked AthIIx3 435 and getting amazing results.
 
Am I the only one that remains totally unimpressed with the 5830?
It seems the best thing I've ever read about them is "They're OK" (paraphrasing)...
I understand you wanted to use newer tech (DX11), but if the real goal is best bang for the buck it would seem 2 4890's would have been a no-brainer over these lumps.
I just keep feeling the 5830's are made up of left over sub-par parts.
The money saved could have easily gone towards a WD Black....
But then again, I dont build computers for a living....just for fun.
Great article nonetheless. Even though the results left us a little wanting.
 
I'll admit trying your luck with a unlocked core for the sake of buget is a little strange but with few apps and games able to use a 4th core I can see it like a bounus. Great build IMO, really shows just how little cpu power you need to get your crysis on at max settings maybe not at 2560x1600 but you would need to shell out another few hundred dollars for a monitor anyways. Ive been messing around on newegg experimenting on differnet bugets and I have 2 builds, cheap as possible without sacrifice of quailty and best performance per dollar and for my P/D build i spent about the same amount as you did on all the components except for graphics I would slide that around base on how much graphics muscle I wanted. I used AMD X3's for both builds they are just so powerful but so cheap. If I were to build the $1000 system I would save money by using a cheap base $60 X3, overclocking it and change from the dual gpu setup to a 5870 to save some more money. Im not sure with the 1 gpu I could downgrade the PSU to save more money. I think I could knock $100 off that price and still end up with about the same power maybe a tiny bit less but this isn't my build so to each his own. Tumbs up Tom
 
[citation][nom]one-shot[/nom]The i7 embarrasses the PII X3.[/citation]
Yes, it does, but compare it to a Core i3 that is in the same price class as the PII X3. You'll see a different story then.
 
In real life I would pick a pair of GTX 465, since they are unlockable into GTX 470.

Also, nVidia scales better than crossfire, and have PhysX.
The power source is enough. Congratulations for not wasting money on it.
 
To the person that felt like the 5830s were subpar parts... that is because they are. (The 5870s are the "5% of the best," the 5850s are the "mainstream," and the 5830s are the "bad, but will work" chips.)

As for the overall build, I am yet another builder that would have gone for a single 5850 or 2x 5770s in the build instead of 2x 5830s. Crossfire's ability to increase fps is not as "steady" as that of SLI, and relying on 5830s to potentially overclock...

I would have kept the Crossfire capable system board, even in a build with a single 5850. Why? The ability in the future to add a 2nd card and Crossfire. (And, if 2 5770s had been chosen, you would have needed it anyway.)

The extra money saved from the reduction in graphics muscle could have been spent on a decent hard drive (WD Blues are good for data storage, but that is about it.) Maybe a single or dual platter WD Black or Samsung Spinpoint in the 500 GB or 1 TB range. (Depending on whether you spent the money with the idea of a media user or a pure gamer.)

As for the CPU choice, I rather liked it. However, I would have also liked to have seen what the overclock would have been without unlocking the 4th core. (I have used Athlon x3s in my past two builds, thus... I love the chips. However, I never unlock the cores since I use GB boards... which don't offer the option anymore.) Your own testing many months ago showed that you did not get the same linear gain going from a x3 to a x4 as you did from a x2 to a x3. (And, most gamers know to not run any aggressive programs except "the game" while they play. Thus, this makes the 4th core of a gaming system nearly pointless.) Speed in this case would have been better than 4 cores.

In short, a $1k build from me would have been:
1. Phenom x3 720 BE
2. Crossfire capable system board. (Potentially a 890 series for USB3 and Sata3 if could fit in budget.)
3. Same ram.
4. 1 500GB or 1 TB "good mechanical" hard drive. (Note: Not a Seagate.)
5. Same case.
6. Same cooler.
7. 2 x 5770 or 1 x 5850, with a strong leaning to the 5850 for future upgradability.
 
You know it's entirely possible to do a xfire 5850 build for a little over $1k if you're using combo's.

Optical $20
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118039

Antec 300 Case $49.50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042

G Skill Ripjaw DDR3 1600 7-8-7-24 4gb $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231303

GPU/PSU Combo
XFX 5850 and OCZ 700w Stealthxstream $320 w/ $15 MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.419382

GPU 2 and free stuff
XFX 5850 $277
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.422132

CPU/MOBO
Phenom II x3 720 and MSI 790XT-G45 $179
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.405957

HD
Spinpoint F3 500gb $55
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181

HSF
CM RR-H101-22FK-RA $15
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103075

Total comes to $1020.87 before $15 MIR and shipping

 
^ Well technically for a balanced $1k build, the best idea would be a i5-750 + 5870 build. Add in a 500gb Spinpoint F3, Ripjaw RAM, and you'll be able to fit it in under $1k.

[strike]Use a SATA 6.0 USB 3 GA-790x-UD4 which is xfire capable, and you're basically set for future xfire 5870's.[/strike]

ok I was totally not thinking when I wrote that lol. You'll have to go with an ASUS P7P55D-E, for xfire.
 
Since not everyone can unlock the 4th core, and you didn't get too far in overclocking with it, I would have liked to have seen what overclock you would get with just 3 cores and compare with those numbers. After all, this site has shown that many games don't benefit much from 4 cores over 3, and thus a higher CPU speed would probably have been more beneficial overall. It would have been interesting to see, but of course that would eat up alot more of your time running all those benchies again, but hey that's what we come here to see 😀.
 
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