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

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I like the juice you pulled out of this build Mr. Woligroski but time after time has been mentioned that unlocking the 4th core out of an AMD chip is merely luck... so I would take this specific set of results with a grain of salt

I'll add myself to the list of people who would've gone with a Phenom II X4 955/core i5 750 and a couple of 5770s or a single 5850 if simply for the more reliable and consistent results
 
stock march 1500$ is stronger than overclocked june 2010 1000$..
overclocked march 750$ is stronger than stock june 2010 1000$ in games!!
 
Meh, I'm disappointed with this build. 5830s suck from a price/performance standpoint.

Phenom II X6 1055 $200
GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H $140
G.Skill Ripjaws 4GB $110
Samsung F3 1TB $70
DVD Burner $20
CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W 90$
Antec 300 60$
ATI 5770 x2: 310$

1000$

Pros:
Twice as many CPU cores, plus turbo.
Current-gen motherboard.

Cons:
Worse GPU performance, only capable of beating a 5870.
 
I'm not excited about this build, either. My $1000 rig would look something like this:
Newegg Combo ($602):
i5-750 CPU
ASUS P7P55-M (not the best mobo, but you can find something similar around that price)
Seagate Barracuda 1.5 TB (again, not the greatest, but large. Can sub something smaller)
OCZ 700 Watt power supply
NZXT LEXA S LEXS case
G.Skill Ripjaw 4 GB ram

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 ($40)
XFX HD-585X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5850 1GB ($280)
LG DVD Burner ($25)
Total Price: $947 with another $30 in mail in rebates.

You can even upgrade a couple of these parts and still be under toms reasonably priced car... err, system.
 
[citation][nom]alikum[/nom]When you say SBM: Enthusiast System, I am expecting this to be more than just another gaming rig. You may have your own reason for sticking to a Phenom II x3 720 and HD5830 crossfire but I believe a Phenom II x4 955 and HD5770 crossfire would make more sense or more well-balanced (instead of trying your luck by unlocking cores). In fact, we could also grab a HD5870 and downgrade our mobo a little and that would make a truly well balanced enthusiast system.[/citation]
The author already addressed this point. The next $1000 build will the the counterpoint with more money on the cpu and less on the graphics cards.
 
I would like to see the prime 95 pass on the core unlock, as well I would like to see the results of just the 3 cores at stock and overclocked: that way I can find out what the "runner up prise" is for a failed unlock.

I would have gone the $5-10 more for a 500GB WD black, but this isn't about balance, this is about power!

Great information on the crossfire-x / CCC version, very good to know.
 
How about this one for a Reasonably priced system:

CPU: i5-750 + EVGA P55 ($365)
Cooler: Artic Cooling Freezer 7 ($40)
GPU: Radeon 5850 ($280
HD: WD Caviar Black 640GB ($75)
Mem: G.Skill 4 GB ($98)
Power: Antec ea650 ($75)
Case: Raidmax Smilodon ($75)
DVD: ($25)
Total: $1,032
Mail-in Rebate: $65
 
stock march 1500$ is stronger than oced june2010 1000$ and overclocked march 750$ is stronger than stock june 1000$...

MSI 790X-G45 AM3 100$
Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition 90$
Cooler Master HyperTX 3 20$
G.SKILL ECO Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 115$
(X2)POWERCOLOR AX5770 Radeon HD 5770 440$
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 75$
Antec Three Hundred Illusion 60$
Corsair CMPSU-650TX 650W 90$
Lite-On iHas124 23$

Total cost-1013$

 
Hope the editor reads this:

I have the same power supply (and Cpu)and a Radeon hd 4890, I'm planing to add another 4890 and do crossfire BUT the psu only has 2 pci-e x6 connectors. Did you use 2xmolex to Pcie-6 converters to power the cards?
 
I think this build is fine, in one sense: it benchmarks a different type of system and we can learn a lot from it.

It is not the system I would build -- I would have done the i5-750/5850 (could you actually squeeze a 5870 in the price? Doubt it!) route. That would be a much more balance system for how I would use it (games being only a portion of what I need the computer for).

I would never have gone for the 5830 as it always seemed both too expensive (compared to 5770) and too slow (compared to 5850) -- a somewhat awkward product -- but it's nice to have statistical evidence of how it would work in a real system.

Can I propose that you, Don, do an addendum to this article performing these benchmarks with the exact same system but only using three cores and a possible higher overclock? The consensus seems to be that that would be a better option and, in the interest of learning, this could be a great example of which route offers better performance. Please?

Thanks for the great article -- I always look forward to these system builder articles.
 
[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]You know it's entirely possible to do a xfire 5850 build for a little over $1k if you're using combo's. Optical $20http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827118039Antec 300 Case $49.50http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811129042G Skill Ripjaw DDR3 1600 7-8-7-24 4gb $100http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231303GPU/PSU ComboXFX 5850 and OCZ 700w Stealthxstream $320 w/ $15 MIRhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.419382GPU 2 and free stuffXFX 5850 $277http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.422132CPU/MOBOPhenom II x3 720 and MSI 790XT-G45 $179http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.405957HDSpinpoint F3 500gb $55http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822152181HSFCM RR-H101-22FK-RA $15http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835103075Total comes to $1020.87 before $15 MIR and shipping[/citation]

You gave incorrectly low prices and other respondants were uninformed enough to give you a thumbs up for this deception or mistake. Please double check next time, things like listing $120 RAM at $100 can't be done by the build team.
 
$1K is a bit light for a gaming rig. This would have been more fair with a $1200 or $1250 system. For that, you could have slid in an X6, maybe a beefier GPU pair, and couple of upgrades anyway, and it might have actually beaten the $1500 machine.

For being able to meet "basic playability" I'd say this is a fine build, but very small amounts of money could have made this a great build.

I really wish Tom's would start working on building the BEST machine in a price RANGE instead of making saccrifices to fit inside an arbitrary budget. I liked the approach a few rounds ago where you suggested "upgrade options" around a solid base build, can we have that done again? maybe in the summary for this round?
 

I'm sorry but did you see March 750$ build it was an amazing build. Please dont say stuff like that I'm building a rig for 1000$ now. Also the X6 are usless in gaming.

On a side note: You people really love the Three Hundred huh?
 
[citation][nom]zelannii[/nom]I really wish Tom's would start working on building the BEST machine in a price RANGE instead of making saccrifices to fit inside an arbitrary budget.[/citation] You mean like the $2000 machine that costs $1800 or the $1000 machine that costs $1020? Check the builds again?
 
funny how blind and twisted the comments get. These articles are here to discuss the possible build options for everyone, not just Intel fanboys who think that Intel should own the world. This build runs 25% of the speed of a machine costing 50% more, overclocked narrows it to 35% to 50% cost, but it holds its own well enough.

The options for building a $1000 machine are limitless, constantly posting that this sucks because I can build this for the same, well, good for you, go do it, post the results, and see how many people complain about how they could have done better.

As far as all the comments for one company is better than the other, its all personal prefrence or past experience. I have had 2 WD drives go bad in the last 2 years (out of 4 builds), and currently have 8 seagate drives that I have had for 6+ years on some of them. Guess which company I will be buying another hdd from when I need more storage?
 

That's the best way to describe it.
 
Two 4890's would give you FAR better performance, and be $80 cheaper, allowing an upgrade to a 955 or 965. The resulting machine would give you more than TWICE the FPS in most games.

Bad choices.
 
I like how every single person (even me sometimes) is always like:
It sucks I can chose better parts.
even tough the people at Tom's Hardware actually have been working for years in computers while some 12-14-etc. year olds say they can build better. If you can congratulations go build and test and upload the results. These are build suggestions made by pros to help non-experts.
 
Two 4890's would give you FAR better performance, and be $80 cheaper, allowing an upgrade to a 955 or 965. The resulting machine would give you more than TWICE the FPS in most games.
Click to expand...

That's interesting... even though it was compared to the $1500 machine with an i7-920(>p65) and crossfire 5850's (also >4890) and still only 32.8% better (stock to stock). Hardly TWICE the FPS.
 
[citation][nom]pinkfloydminnesota[/nom]Two 4890's would give you FAR better performance, and be $80 cheaper, allowing an upgrade to a 955 or 965. The resulting machine would give you more than TWICE the FPS in most games.Bad choices.[/citation]
The 4890 Xfire plus 965BE/i5 750 have been done many times before, we need Tom's to try different options and take risks.
 
[citation][nom]dsarchs[/nom]Can I propose that you, Don, do an addendum to this article performing these benchmarks with the exact same system but only using three cores and a possible higher overclock?[/citation]

i would LOVE to do that, and if I had the time to have done it I would have included those results in the article. The sad fact is that I only have so long to spend on each article and I'm squeezed for time. I apologize but I don't think I'll be able to make this happen.
 
[citation][nom]erdinger[/nom]Hope the editor reads this:I have the same power supply (and Cpu)and a Radeon hd 4890, I'm planing to add another 4890 and do crossfire BUT the psu only has 2 pci-e x6 connectors. Did you use 2xmolex to Pcie-6 converters to power the cards?[/citation]

Yes I did, I'm sorry for not mentioning that in the build notes. :)
 
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