System Builder Marathon, March 2010: $750 Gaming PC

[pauldh]

Also, thanks to all for the comments on future budgets! $400 builds a decent budget system, and every $50-100 more makes it that much better. There likely will only be one sub-$800 PC each quarter and your comments will shape the decision. Keep 'em coming!

 

[RazberyBandit]

Uhm, the power supply is upside down in the photos!!!

It can't breath!!! Hope this was done for photos and not a design flaw.

Actually, there's about a 1/4" gap under the PSU, so it can actually breathe. I actually have an EA-650 (and EA-430) installed in an Antec 300 case in this exact same fashion.

As for my earlier comment... Installing the EA-650 wasn't much fun. I ended up with a huge knot of cables tucked and tied to the right side of the HDD bays to keep them outta sight. This is why I said I'd go with the Antec TP-550 or TP-650 instead.

 

[tigerwraith]

Pauldh sorry no Ive never gamed using dual cards unless of course you want to consider my 4mb gfx card and my 3dfx card I got so I could play Mechwarrior 2 Merc on my P200 back in 98. For now Ive been using a 8800 GT 512 and while I have an SLi MB Ive never thought about getting another gfx card. Im not big on dual cards when you can get one card that can do the job. And you said 2 4850s vs 1 5850 you could get 38 fps in Crysis with the 4850s and 35 with the 5850, Im sorry but to me thats close enough to almost be the same. The human eye wont tell the differance between 35 and 38 fps. Now granted yes the 5850 is way over priced I wish ATI would lower them back down to the Orginal MSRP of 260.

 

[rambo117]

Nice build, but I really think its time to stop straying from the budget PC's original price of $500-$650. Sure, the $750 is well spent, but its not a budget PC anymore. Please do the original budget again.

Nice build nontheless though

 

[loneninja]

Great article, I say drop the budget to $600 and see what kind of performance you can come up with.

 

[bustapr]

I never thought this would happen, but the Unlocking Success! page was exilerating. lol

 

[notty22]

Nice build. In regards to psu mounting, what is upside down.
Go to page 3 of the Atec 300 manual. They advise to install psu fan UP.
http://www.antec.com/pdf/manuals/300_EN%20manual.pdf

 

[Yoshinoya]

[citation][nom]zelannii[/nom]a $500 budget gaming system is a PS3...[/citation]

i wonder how many people are reading these articles because they want to play on a gaming PC but are tempted to go for a PS3 for budget reasons. tbh i think it makes for a really good comparison.

 

[cadder]

You can look at the component list and knock a few dollars off here and there. You probably have to go to one GPU to get close to $500-600. In any event at the rock bottom price level you have to make a lot of compromises.

So considering compromises, is it reasonable to run games at lower resolutions than the native resolution of your panel? When I first started buying LCD monitors for home use I noticed that if they weren't run at their native resolution then the image wasn't very good. But more recently I've experimented with some newer high resolution panels and the results were different. My current 20" office monitor has native resolution of 1600x1200, but if you run it at lower resolutions such as 1200x1024 or even 1024x768 it still creates a smooth and crisp image. So for a person that is using a lesser GPU due to budget compromises maybe they could drop their resolution down a bit to gain good framerates. I wonder if there is really that much difference in the image. Somebody else will have to do those experiments and tell us.

 

[shiva7663]

I see the article was sponsored by Newegg. Do they offer these system builder marathon systems as bundles? If they don't, they should.

 

[youssef 2010]

I suggest you keep to the $750 Price.I think this proves again that AMD dominates this sector in processing power & performance.

 

[Onus]

If a budget builder needs a monitor, he/she may well choose an inexpensive 19" 1440x900 widescreen, or possibly something even a little smaller. If he doesn't need a monitor, he probably also already has a case to re-use, possibly an optical drive and some other parts. So, for the SBM, I think that $600 can be quite reasonable; likely at least $100 can be subtracted with unneeded parts, and / or dropping the GPU down to something that will work nicely at the lower resolution, if that's what it takes to meet an actual builder's $500 budget.

 

[pauldh]

Nice build. In regards to psu mounting, what is upside down.
Go to page 3 of the Atec 300 manual. They advise to install psu fan UP.
http://www.antec.com/pdf/manuals/300_EN%20manual.pdf

IMO it's flexible and that will vary system to system. Mounting as per instructions is the way to go, but with multi-graphics cards would often put the GPU fan of the lower card and the PSU exhaust fan too close for my liking (both would compete for same air). It's not as bad with these cards as the GPU is offset further than the old version (used in Sep 09). But, there is still plenty room below the PSU in the 300 for PSU exhaust. The two hundred seems to have less room under the PSU. I suppose hot ambient temps, a loaded PSU, and a ramped up exhaust fan could restrict fan draw and/or increase noise.

 

[soulbro]

I see the article was sponsored by Newegg. Do they offer these system builder marathon systems as bundles? If they don't, they should.

That is a fantastic idea! Tom's Hardware Official SBM Combo Deals. I love it.

-Will

 

[xizel]

[citation][nom]xizel[/nom]One question, is it mandatory or does it give more performance to use 2 crossfire bridges?[/citation]
i dont understand why people voted my post as thumbs down... cant they juist answer the question?
the reson is because i noticed that in the pics there are using both bridges.

thank you

 

[DjEaZy]

... great value...

 

[xizel]

[citation][nom]bounty[/nom]I find myself building extremely cheap systems for people who would also like to play some games if they can. You guys don't have to struggle when building 1600$ machines. I want to see you struggle. I want to see you stuck with 1 GPU. I want to see you dig through the cheap motherboards. I want you to 'discover' the cheap power supplies. muahahahaha A budget so low, you will be blessed to have the power supply last 1 year. I want you to debate whether to get an aftermarket cooler v.s. 3rd core v.s. 30$ better video card. And not just one of you. Maybe 375, 450 and 575. It would be fun to read about smoking power supplies when you try to OC to 4Ghz.Another way to mix it up would be to set a target, say 30fps in crysis @ 1680x1050 with 4xaa build the cheapest system that can do that. Maybe each builder has same target or different. Maybe take that crysis target and add Handbrake under 8 min. Then finally some benchmark that also stresses storage or something.(Then for anyone moaning about giving away cheap systems, they can build 3 each and give many systems away... or do the upgrade thing mentioned earlier.)[/citation]
thank you

 

[cadder]

I think this proves again that AMD dominates this sector in processing power & performance.

Right now the cheapest Intel quad-core is around $170 and it probably won't run any faster than the AMD in this build. But step up another $30 for the i5-750 and you pick up a big increase in performance. So yes Intel is pretty much left out in the low end of CPU's beyond 2 cores.

 

[foscooter]

Me too...I REALLY like skora's idea: Build a baseline PC, test it, then shove some upgrades at it. Test, and repeat.
This would only be limited by the number of processors available in a given platform (i.e. LGA1156 vs. LGA1366).
Evolve a LGA1166 from iC3 to iC5 (and further?).
Evolve DDR3 tests from 1066, 1333, 1666 to 2000.
Hard drive evolution from single SATA into RAID 0, and to RAID10.
And of course, single graphics card, into a dual, and then possiblly triple (to see if it's worth it).
I'd like to see that!

 

[JohnMD1022]

"start with three old Dells and throw" them out

Replace a Dell MB with anything other than another Dell and you replace the PSU also.

And if it's one of those weird form-factor PSUs that Dell is fond of, you are SOL.

It's not that I consider Dells to all be junk. In fact, most of the Dells that end up on my workbench could become junk, with a lot of improvement.

 

[notty22]

I notice a trend with video cards available at newegg , and its getting worse lately. ATI cards are being shipped without crossfire bridges. I have the xfx 4770 , bought in 10/2009. It was then feature(picture) with bridge, I received mine. But now that model and many others are being sold without them. They charge 12.99 for the cheapest available. In many vendors manuals with a 2 gpu setup, they recommend installing both(2). These costs need to be considered when pricing value of card. Since newegg is sponsoring this article , I figure its worth mentioning. Because many wonder if they need 1 crossfire bridge or 2 with a 2 card setup. Historically crossfire bridges come with ATI video cards and sli bridges come with motherboards with nvidia sli certification.
This is just what I know.

 

[foscooter]

The drawnback I see with upgrading a Dell system is the case. Dell case require mods to get "any" airflow, as the 2 I've dealt with only have 2 exhaust fans, PSU & Processor. Bit it is due-able. Maybe as part of the evolution of the system. I don't think I've seen THG ever do case mods?

 

[Guest]

nice unlock of the l3 cache and extra core!

 

[efficentD]

How about limiting all 3 configurations to one slot graphics solutions next month...maybe a 5750 ($650 build), a 5870 ($1000 build) and a 5970 ($1500 build) box and try to balance them with appropriate CPUs. You could even use the $500 you save from the money you save to make a $500 build. That way there would be even more winners.

 

[sojrner]

well done on all 3 builds... I thought they adjusted to the last suggestions well and showed a good direction for each budget.

I don't think you need to try and "best" this $750 build next time, I agree w/ many here that you should lower the budget back down. $600 seems good to try and squeeze blood from a stone so-to-speak. I like the middle budget right where it is, I don't think you should drop to $1k as I think we are all smart enough here to figure out what we could build between the two... the high build is just that, "sky's the limit" kinda thing and I like it.

You guys are doing well, details are good and show what you could do w/ a given amount. (complete w/ surprises like the unlocked core) It will never please some here, who seem to exist simply to complain that you did not put component X in there or used dual X's when a Y would get you better bungholio marks for only $Z more.

Keep up the good work, these are informative to read and keep us up-to-date on what a particular budget can build.