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System Builder Marathon, March 2010: $1,500 Enthusiast PC

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I too was stung by ASRock and just RMA'd my board back to Newegg. I wish I had done my homework a little better, after reading more reviews about the board, I should have really gone another route. I also experienced bad ram slots. Osiguy is correct about their service and support, it was obscenely horrible. Thank god for Newegg and their RMA policy.
 
[citation][nom]Nintendork[/nom]In gaming i5 750 and PII 955 compete in equal terms.I would put in the $1300 setup a 965BE + a 890GX mobo + Coolermaster Hyper 212+ heatsink.[/citation]

Well then, it's unfortunate the games only count for 1/3 of the system's value! It's also unfortunate for Hyper 212+ fans that the FORT120 outperforms it, though you could make an excuse to use the less-expensive part if you're on a seriously tight budget.
 
I just recently had a new PC built for me, similar to this build.
I got an Asus P6X58D motherboard for about $320 and it also has USB 3 and SATA-III. Along with a Asestek LCLC120 water-cooler, I can hit 4.1Ghz with i7-920 set to 205 Bclck and 20x multi, and only had to go up to 1.3435V. It certainly appears that better motherboards, with better CAPS and passive cooling certainly allows better OC. The big heatpipe helps a lot along the ICH... as my temps never go above around 60C in Prime95 (stable for 6 hours) since I added a second fan to the water-cooling. Worth it to have better than 50% OC full-time....

But buying the great mobo limited me to just ONE 5850 for my budget...oh well I can add another 5850 soon IF they ever drop back below 300 again!

Soon I get to experiment with the REALSSD C300 256GB too...amazing fast already for $1800 will only get faster moving up from HDD to the fastest SSD!

 
IMO, the 920 makes sense over the 750 for anybody that would rather have 6GB Ram instead of 4GB, and a big, easy overclock. The 920 can run easily and reliably on air at 4GHz (although I run mine at 3.8). Maybe someone can share why this system has to go for graphics overkill with dual 5850s? Spending nearly half the budget on graphics seems hard to justify, especially when it would be hard in-game to tell the difference from using just one 5850. Save that money and put it toward an 80GB SSD.

If you really want to save money, just get an i3 with similar stuff (including a 40GB SSD) for under $1000. My brother did that... he didn't feel like pushing his overclock, but it's still at 3.6GHz.
 
[citation][nom]Gupeez[/nom]IMO, the 920 makes sense over the 750 for anybody that would rather have 6GB Ram instead of 4GB, and a big, easy overclock. The 920 can run easily and reliably on air at 4GHz (although I run mine at 3.8). Maybe someone can share why this system has to go for graphics overkill with dual 5850s? Spending nearly half the budget on graphics seems hard to justify, especially when it would be hard in-game to tell the difference from using just one 5850. Save that money and put it toward an 80GB SSD.If you really want to save money, just get an i3 with similar stuff (including a 40GB SSD) for under $1000. My brother did that... he didn't feel like pushing his overclock, but it's still at 3.6GHz.[/citation]

Graphics overkill...check.
 
It depends on what the person wants to do.
If the person doesn't care about gaming or overclocking or using advanced graphic programs like Adobe products that have multi core ability or don't care about using Win vista or 7 64 bit then an i3 chip would be fine and save a lot of money. The majority of people in Tom's Hardware probably are either using AMD Phenom 2's or i5 or i7 with the Quad core because of what you can do with a quad core. The original quad cores were kind of like having a gold plated cadillac with tires that couldn't drive on Asphalt or cement. It looked nice and it sounded exciting but you couldn't really do anything with it because it couldn't go anywhere because all the streets are asphalt or cement.

With Win 7 or Vista 64 bit there is a certain amount of playing back and forth amongst the cores. You're not just using one core while the other three sit waiting for an application to use all four at once.

I usually buy AMD chips because I fight for the underdog but after doing all the research I went with the i7 920. It's cheaper than the 965 and even thought the 965 is rated stock at 3.45 ghz the i7 920 holds its own on everything except about 2 games.
As far as graphics overkill, it depends on what you want. The big thing in fast computing these days is graphics graphics graphics for games and video/photo manipulation.
Personally I think that if they were going to run two 2u video cards they should have stepped up one more step and gotten the Sapphire 5870's for a little bit more. Personally I would love to be able to afford a couple of 5870's but I have to get budgetary approval from my person boss (aka my wife) so I have to make do with a single 5670. I've never had dual or triple video cards so I wouldn't know the difference. I don't have enough time to play that many games anyway.
What I don't understand is why someone would want to spend the money on an SSD card when you can get 4 platter hard drives for the same price. I can understand them in laptops so you don't lose data if you drop the laptop but for a hard drive? people that pay games and download movies have hundreds of gigs and the average SSD is around 900-1000 for 30-40 gbs. Doesn't make sense until they go down in price. I like cutting edge technology but I want the bleeding edge in the technology not my pocket book. I mean if you wanted one for backup of very important data I could see it because it's so fast but how much of a back up could you keep at only 40GB? It's all a matter of what you want.... what makes sense to one, might not make sense to others.
Like for instance I purposefully went and spent $185 on a box because I wanted a big tower so I didn't have to fight for space and the Thermaltake Armor + series has a slide out motherboard tray which is fantastic for installing a motherboard and comnponents and testing before putting in the box. And for cable management the only thing that comes close is the new Corsair 80 series. I still like the Thermal take better as it is all toolless and has the plate for the power supply on the top which I think runs better for cable management and the hot air of the PS goes straight out the top. All cables are tucked away beautifully. I'm going to install the corsair p50 cpu cooler because I've read the reviews and it appears to be a great hybrid of electric and water cooling. I'm really surprised that so many people pick a great motherboard and ram and cpu and video card and skimp on a box, then kvetch about not having any room to work or put stuff. It just doesn't make any sense. It's like buying a yugo body and trying to put captains chairs and dvd players and a booze bar and a caddy v-8 in it and complaining there is no room to sit and drive the car.
I've had to make space for this Thermaltake because it is such a huge monster but it is a very clean install, never bang my knuckles or scrape my fingers and never have to squint in the dark to install something new on the mobo.
 
ps... to the silly person who made the comment about the monitor...
The monitor is never considered as part of the package of a computer. It is a seperate entity. Unless you're a Mac user then they bilk you for a $900 22 in monitor that you can get anywhere else for 250 🙂.
Most reviewers typically don't include a monitor because anyone can chose a monitor and read the reviews. It isn't a central part of the computer. It either turns on and gets bright and has a pretty picture or it doesn't. Whereas PC's can have a million different configurations and act in a trillion different ways. What this article is about is a computer not a monitor, they are two different parts of a package. There are numerous reviews of monitors on the internet however.
 
I am currently looking to buy a new computer within that range. I had fixed my eyes on a I5-750, but still had some questions.

First, I don't plan on pairing two graphic cards. On this side, i was looking for something more mainstream, like a HD5770.

I was wondering if that would hamper the results of any of those 2 systems using a single card instead of a dual setup, and would it be preferable to go with a setup using less expansive/performant components?
 
[citation][nom]Guillaume99[/nom]... i was looking for something more mainstream, like a HD5770. I was wondering if that would hamper the results of any of those 2 systems using a single card instead of a dual setup, and would it be preferable to go with a setup using less expansive/performant components?[/citation]

A single 5770 won't perform as well as a couple of 5850's of course, but it'd be great for a 1680x1050 and could even handle 1920x1080 on many games.

As far as the system, if all you're doing is gaming you'd probably be better served saving even more cash with an Athlon II X3 based system.
 
The article says you used the CM 690 case but the link takes me to the RC-690-KKN1. The picture also looks like the RC-690-KKN1.
 
Sorry, I hit submit before I asked my questions about the case. Here they are: 1) which case did you use for this build? 2) will the RC work for this build? Thanks.
 
Thanks Crashman. I read a little more of NewEgg's description and realized that they were one and the same. Sorry for the Noob mistake.
 
[citation][nom]kinneyb[/nom]Why did you recommend memory that is not on the ASRock QVL list?[/citation]
Why would anyone who already knows what works best even bother reading the QVL list? Have you ever thought that Tom's Hardware might know something about a certain combination of parts that ASRock doesn't?
 
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