System Builder Marathon: Low Cost System

[Stabby]

Awesome, this new builders marathon is just in time 😛 I've been looking at building myself a new system for a while now, and I was basing a good portion of my decisions off the Mid-Price system of the last marathon. This new marathon seems like a good chance to revise my parts list, maybe mix up the low and mid price systems to get something in the 1200-1400 range.

I've been having trouble deciding about OS and monitor, however. I can't decide if I should stick with tried and true XP or plan for the future and get Vista..

also, I'm unsure about widescreen LCD or regular LCD.. I've seen a lot of games struggle with widescreen (bioshock apparently just clips off the bottom and top instead of actaully widening your FOV?) What kind of monitor is used during the system testing for these Marathons?

In any case.. looking forward to the rest of this marathon 😀

 

[snyper]

Since this Article is titled Low Cost System:
The 3 most expensive performance determining componants would be the video card, CPU and monitor. When deciding on your system parts it is necessary to balance these parts to get the best value. No sense having a 26" widescreen if nothing left in the budget to buy the GPU to drive it.
To assist those planning a new "system" it would really help if the results catered to max performance at given monitor resolutons which would allow builders to budget total system including monitor.

Parts to easily play a game at 1280X1024 maxed candy vs 1920x1200 maxed will be drastically less expensive, especially if you factor monitor cost. With prices of parts continuosly dropping per performance - I don't believe in future proofing too much more than 6 months if at all. A "Matched" system will give greater value over the long haul

 

[03flat4]

agreed, at $500 you are hard pressed to build a better system (including OS and monitor) than what you can get from HP or Dell.

Yah, I built a budget system for my friend, including monitor, and that came to 800. The monitor was 150(somehow found a 19 inch monitor for cheap with a decent picture lol) so overall 650. But it was a decent computer with a a gig of RAM and a slightly OCed E4300 on stock cooler. Overall I was happy with the value. It's nice to compare what I did with this system and the 500 dollar system

 

[fumuthabeotch]

Yeah, we're in the middle of updating our benchmarking suite now so this is probably one of the last roundups using the old guard.

Still, Oblivion and FEAR aren't too easy on the hardware.

Cool, good to know that your updating the benchmarking suite. Can't wait for the rest of the builds!

 

[utahraptor]

Is there any chance we can get a bioshock benchmark?

 

[cleeve]

To assist those planning a new "system" it would really help if the results catered to max performance at given monitor resolutons which would allow builders to budget total system including monitor.

This is a valid way of looking at it and I see your point, but it's no more or less valid than the way we've done it I think.

These are not gaming-only builds - but multi-purpose boxes. We could recommend some, or folks could add the cost of the monitor of their choice. Either way the cost is going to go up some.

 

[snyper]

would it be possible to plunk the e4300 into the new box?
- then putting the 6750 into the old box as well for comparison -

I would think it would be an apples to apples test then
If you were to use the least expensive parts from the two systems gives you a total ~$860 saving an additional $130 over new system and $315 over old system - for how much of a performance hit?

 

[cleeve]

Sure it's possible, if I wanted to do a pure CPU comparison.

But what I wanted to compare is the budget OC system of a couple months ago to the low-cost system from this marathon. It's foir interests sake, really. The budget OC system is included only as a baseline to compare the new system with, and it did it's job.

The real comparisons will be between the mid-range and high-end systems in this marathon, and we'll be doing that in the conclusion articles.

 

[sojrner]

and could you be sure to do that while wearing a pink tutu and standing on your head?


j/k snyper... couldn't resist... it was compulsion really... just had to do it.

 

[snyper]

for clarification;
by swapping CPUs ALL componants would be tested
ie how much is the GPU being held back by CPU and the reverse as well

It seemed a reasonable request as a simple 5 min hardware change, but I appreciate that the testing would be doubled 🙁

I'm looking forward to the next installment and the upcoming 'real' comparison.

And as a side note Cleeve - you might want to pull the blinds while you do your testing as it appears that someone can see you and would like to see MORE of you - you have to watch out for those ..... compulsive types who can't ......uhmmm..... control themselves.

j/k sojrner - I didn't have to do it but since you intend to make this forum a comedy site - I might as well make it funny

 

[sojrner]

no offense taken at all man... I am all about seriously discussing comp hardware, mods, tweaks on it, etc... I however also think there are many times that we all just need to laugh a bit and take life a little LESS seriously. This forum is but a minute subset of the world and yet is full of proportionally more, uhh, "intense" individuals. Apparently you are one that can receive some humor w/o freaking out. That is good. We can use more ppl like that here. 😉

plus, I am in a whacked mood today... so the humor fits for me. lol. 😛

 

[Brolbazar]

I thought an AMD CPU would fit in the low cost category???
I have built the following for about 565 USD in retail
AMD BE2350,
ASUS M2AV,
ASUS ATI 2600 XT DDR4,
2GB DDR 800,
coolermaster case,
HD 250 Gb
far less than 1000 USD and this system flies...

Why only focus on the Intel CPU that costs more than the cool and overclockable BE2350?

 

[randomizer]

Yes, but for gaming at any decent resolution and with lots of eye candy, that 2600XT will crumble. The 8800GTS (not exactly budget I guess) would absolutely annihilate it. The last low-cost system they spent around 500 on and people complained about it, now you are telling them to do it again?

 

[wowisdabomb]

they left a few things out, that puts the setup over 1,000.

the OS. costs about 100 or more.

no monitor>?

no keyboard or mouse?

It is a incomplete job at best, and an attempt to squeeze in the $280 dollar video card is plain stupid.

Incomplete job.

 

[shadowmaster625]

*sigh*

We're comparing it because the price is similar, shadowmaster, as explained in the article.

As also explained, the overclocking tests are coming later in the week.

Please, read the article before insulting it. Throwing out an insult because you don't understand what's going on isn't flattering... trust me on that.

what's going on is that it looks like you're trying to sell computer components. You're the one who billed the older system as an OC system. So it should have been OC'd. Who here is going to build their own E4300 system and not overclock it? It just seems like you're trying to make the old one look bad so as to convince people to spend their hard earned cash on something new. When in reality the E4300 system when overclocked would perform very closely to the 6750 system, even when comparing them at the price each system costed when it was first built! I feel you are trying to obscure the fact that budget system price/performance ratios have not changed much in the last 6 months. Certainly not by the rediculous amounts shown in that article.

What you need to do is assemble a system with an E2160 (+stock HSF OC) and an 8800GTS and compare that with an E6750 (+ stock HSF OC) system with an x1950pro. They will cost about the same and I think that's really the question most people are asking when trying to build a budget gaming pc.

 

[cleeve]

what's going on is that it looks like you're trying to sell computer components.

Heheh. You failed to read the article, made yourself look silly by slamming facts you were off base about, and now you're deflecting blame for your comments instead of taking responsibility for them.

At this point lad, it's become hard to take you seriously. I don't have a contractual obligation to give the time of day to anyone who jumps in calling names and pointing fingers. I communicate with forum members as a courtesy because I'm genuinely interested in opinions and would like to give the readers what they want, and to explain the rationale for my decisions, not because I have to.

I guess the moral of the story is, if you truly would like a dialogue about the decisions I made in this article and would like to suggest change for the future, you can do it in a respectful way and I'll be glad to talk about it with you. Alternatively, you can be ignorant about it, throw accusations and disrespectful comments, and be completely ignored.

Your call.

 

[tj_the_first]

I noticed on a hardware retailer's website here in Australia http://www.scorptec.com.au/ that the two most common resolutions for visitors were 1280x1024 closely followed by 1680x1050 thirshalf those was 1920x1200. The 1280x1024 would be most office staff plus a lot of home users. 1680x1050 is all the 20" and 22" widescreen users gaming and watching movies and 1920x1200 is the 24", 26", and 30" elite crowd. Sadly enough the steampowered hardware survey http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html lists 1024x768 as the second most common? 🙁

Given the push toward - and higher incidence of - widescreen is there a chance 1680x1050 could be substituted for 1600x1200 for reviews? If possible both could be included since widescreen would have more work for the card to do per avg pixel because a greater % of the screen is where the action is instead of sky and feet. Also 1680 gives a nice point in the total screen pixels.

1280 x 1024 = 1.344 MP
1680 x 1050 = 1.764 MP
1600 x 1200 = 1.920 MP
1920 x 1200 = 2.304 MP

TJ

 

[cleeve]

Given the push toward - and higher incidence of - widescreen is there a chance 1680x1050 could be substituted for 1600x1200 for reviews?

We're one step ahead of you!

We only used 1600x1200 to compare against the old systems. In the upcoming overclocking section and summary section later this week, we bench 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1680x1050, and 1920x1200.

 

[randomizer]

Why do they make standard LCDs in 5:4 instead of 4:3? Theres about a 6% difference in the number of pixels, so it's not like you are gaining a huge amount of extra working space.

 

[nukemaster]

Why do they make standard LCDs in 5:4 instead of 4:3? Theres about a 6% difference in the number of pixels, so it's not like you are gaining a huge amount of extra working space.

Thats a good question

@ op - They should fix the psu thing...after all 36 amps of 12 volts is like 432 watts....if that was so it would not leave allot for 5 and 3.3(not that you need allot...but at least 100watts for those...+ and 5-10 watts or so of sb5 power and some more negative voltage...)

 

[dark41]

I noticed on a hardware retailer's website here in Australia http://www.scorptec.com.au/ that the two most common resolutions for visitors were 1280x1024 closely followed by 1680x1050 thirshalf those was 1920x1200. The 1280x1024 would be most office staff plus a lot of home users. 1680x1050 is all the 20" and 22" widescreen users gaming and watching movies and 1920x1200 is the 24", 26", and 30" elite crowd. Sadly enough the steampowered hardware survey http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html lists 1024x768 as the second most common? 🙁

Given the push toward - and higher incidence of - widescreen is there a chance 1680x1050 could be substituted for 1600x1200 for reviews? If possible both could be included since widescreen would have more work for the card to do per avg pixel because a greater % of the screen is where the action is instead of sky and feet. Also 1680 gives a nice point in the total screen pixels.

1280 x 1024 = 1.344 MP
1680 x 1050 = 1.764 MP
1600 x 1200 = 1.920 MP
1920 x 1200 = 2.304 MP

TJ

I'm not sure I understand your point. I use 1024x768 for my desktop because I get eyestrain trying to see the smaller web pages, icons, etc., at higher resolutions. But my games are set to the max resolutions because there I don't have to sacrifice size for quality. (Sure, you can change dpi and other settings to make things on your desktop easier to see, but many apps still conflict with that so not a valid option for most people.)

Are the visitors from these sites manually filling out what resolutions they use to play games, or are the sites just logging the current resolution? Because if they're logging the current resolution, I'd think anyone using over 1024x768/1280x1024 either has a huge monitor or uses reading glasses on their computer. 😉

Also, we're system builders in Australia and have never sold a wide screen monitor to date. I realize the industry has been pushing wide screens for some time now, but so far our customers and us have managed to avoid being forced into hardware that we're not happy with. Pretty silly to me that a 20" wide screen has less viewable vertical screen than a regular 19" LCD.

Anyway, I'm not against the reviews showing the wide screen resolutions in tests as obviously many people are using them. I just want to make sure I understand what the statistics from these websites are trying to show, and that the information is being interpretted correctly.

 

[dark41]

I also have one question regarding the author's comment:

Editor's Opinion
The results I'm personally looking forward to the most will be the comparison between this budget e6750 machine and the midrange q6600 machine brought to life by Shelton Romhanyi and Thomas Soderstrom. With a $500 price difference, will the extra two cores in the Q6600 CPU allow the midrange system to surge ahead in applications? Or are the applications we use in our test suite not yet sufficiently able to take advantage of quad core optimizations? We'll have to see.

I take it there's much more than just the CPU being upgraded in the midrange system to make the difference $500? I show the price difference between the E6750 and Q6600 to be less than $100AUD and $80USD.

I think this point has been made on the forum often, but apparently not often enough. If you want to compare the performance of the CPUs, simply change the CPU only and compare results. Changing anything else distorts the conclusions.

 

[sojrner]

Pretty silly to me that a 20" wide screen has less viewable vertical screen than a regular 19" LCD.

For office apps and the like, the vertical difference is very noticeable... for games and movies the widescreen is more enjoyable IMO.

If you get a monitor (like the Dells or others) that can rotate to where the width becomes the height then you get the best of both worlds... max width for movies/games, max height (much more than the vanilla 19) for office apps and web surfing.

JMO of course.

 

[wowisdabomb]

I agree with shadowmast, there is no 'one' setup that best fits a budget with the amount of variety out there. A comparison and benchmarking would be most helpful instead of just throwing a bunch of parts together.

 

[cleeve]

If you want to compare the performance of the CPUs, simply change the CPU only and compare results. Changing anything else distorts the conclusions.

I think we all know that's the ideal situation, but this marathon was created to compare systems, not strictly CPUs.

However, the non-gaming benches still function really well as a real-world CPU comparison in this marathon, IMHO.