System Builder Marathon, March 2010: $750 Gaming PC

[nate226]

good build, but i wish the real BUDGET builds would come back! I can't afford this when i need a monitor too

 

[flyinfinni]

I vote for going with the $500 budget next time around. It would also be interesting to see more than one person do it and what the differences would be- see how a couple different people would approach a $500 gaming machine.

 

[pauldh]

I vote for going with the $500 budget next time around. It would also be interesting to see more than one person do it and what the differences would be- see how a couple different people would approach a $500 gaming machine.

This probably wouldn't happen. It's too time consuming for each author to do multiple systems, and we don't want to skip price brackets.

So far $500-600 seems to be winning out for next round. I'd like to rotate between the two ($500/$750), refreshing each price bracket every 6 months.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]shiva7663[/nom]I see the article was sponsored by Newegg. Do they offer these system builder marathon systems as bundles? If they don't, they should.[/citation]I've been asking for that...forever, but I don't think Newegg fully understands. Perhaps if enough readers ask them, they'll figure out a way to publish the wish-list on-site? Just a suggestion.[citation][nom]Hothr[/nom]It would be nice to make these a wishlist on newegg and link to it (this is sponsored by newegg, right?). That would give us an easy way to have the parts all listed together and click on each to quickly get full specs / reviews, then tweak to our personal tastes.[/citation]That's another way to do it, perhaps a reader-lead petition for Newegg to do one-or-the-other would be beneficial? Again, just a suggestion.[citation][nom]sojrner[/nom]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.[/citation]The $3000 PC was built with the idea of fitting most reader suggestions into
a $2500-3000 system. Perhaps everyone should try to address "best for the money" within a range rather than maxing out the budget to get the most performance?

 

[qwertymac93]

very similar to what I'd build myself. i think $750-$800 is the sweet spot between too little gaming performance and too much money. a $600 would most likely have half the gaming performance, and a $1000 system would only be slightly better at gaming. heres a newegg wishlist with up-to-date prices and slightly better parts for those thinking about this SBM.

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/2038/sbmmarch750.png

 

[Guest]

damn, here in israel the price for even lower parts are so much higher.
for example:

AMD ATHLON II X3 435 AM3 (2.9GHz) - BOX - 107$
GIGABYTE GA-MA790GPT-UD3H - ~201$
G.SKILL 4096MB (2048MBX2) DDR3 1600 CL9 - RIPJAWS - F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL - ~162$
ASUS HD4850 512MB DDR3 - EAH4850/HTDI/512M - RETAIL - ~170$ * 2 = ~340$
LG DVDRW GH-22LS50 X22 - LIGHT SCRIBE - SATA - RETAIL - ~40$
ANTEC TWO HUNDRED w/o PSU - ~70$
HEC RAPTOR 450W - RETAIL - ~65.5$
OCZ VENDETTA CPU COOLER - ~25$
WD CAVIAR BLACK 640GB 32MB SATA2 7200 RPM : WD6401AALS - ~103$

Total: ~1113$!


With the same parts, 650W PSU, ANTEC 300, CPU Cooler,
its double the price!

 

[duk3]

Personally, I would go for a 7200.12 500GB, ASUS M4A79XTD EVO and the 10$ more set of ripjaws (F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM) for a $745 ($754 with shipping) build.

 

[Guest]

It should always be assumed that the 4th core will not unlock in these kind of tests. I'm glad you kept the test results for the locked case, as some people are interested in budget gaming but are not comfortable or willing to fiddle with BIOS settings in order to overclock/unlock. It would be nice to see the un-overclocked results for this test, as you say that the pc performs well "out of the box."

 

[rpmrush]

I wonder with the money saved going AMD vs Intel and adding an SSD how it would affect things. I'm an Intel fan, but with the AMD value shining through here, hell an SSD would really speed things up vs going Intel.

 

[duk3]

However, SSD's don't show up on benchmarks.

 

[Guest]

not sure if my comment was already posted...
i got an AOC F22 monitor for my x3 435 system. not an excellent performer but enough for my purposes for INR 7950 (that's Indian Rupees).

may be that i dint do a proper enough research but i feel i might have been able to make a better monitor choice if there was stronger guides on the net for monitors...

 

[RazberyBandit]

Crashman. When it comes to the Wish List part, I have an idea.

Prior to making your actual purchase, move all the items in your cart to a Wish List and email it to yourself. You should be able to copy and paste the html code of the body of that email somewhere within the article. Just remember that you cannot add "combo" items to the Wish List.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]RazberyBandit[/nom]Crashman. When it comes to the Wish List part, I have an idea.Prior to making your actual purchase, move all the items in your cart to a Wish List and email it to yourself. You should be able to copy and paste the html code of the body of that email somewhere within the article. Just remember that you cannot add "combo" items to the Wish List.[/citation]

I never thought about using the HTML code like that! Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Guest]

some problem with my net connection - so not sure if my comment was already posted...
i got an AOC F22 monitor for my x3 435 system. not an excellent performer but enough for my purposes for INR 7950 (that's Indian Rupees).

may be that i dint do a proper enough research but i feel i might have been able to make a better monitor choice if there was stronger guides on the net for monitors...

 

[Guest]

may be that i dint do a proper enough research but i feel i might have been able to make a better monitor choice if there was stronger guides on the net for monitors...

i mean to say the SBM series can include some monitors as well... apart from that really a treasure of information

 

[Guest]

btw, those three were my first comments here on toms. pls pardon my teething troubles

 

[Guest]

This is a great article and I love the side by side by side comp. Very interesting they have the same CPU for the $1500 system, and the $3000 build. Do agree with a single 5850 instead of cross fire. For those dumb F#@$s asking for a $650 build. Are you joking? Look at the performance numbers again. To every tight A$$ that mentions it, your d!&k shrinks an inch every time you smile

 

[RazberyBandit]

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.

While I agree with the last part, there is a slight flaw in what you said... I say that because the i5-750 isn't anywhere near the Athlon II X3 435's price. You mentioned the cheapest Intel Quad cost being $170, with the i5-750 being $30 more. The AMD CPU in this build is less than half the cost of the initial $170 cost of "said" quad. Having to spend $125 more to find an Intel CPU that offers a noticeable performance increase, while keeping on budget, is quite likely out of the question. That is, unless you're willing to sacrifice GPU prowess doing so. You are right, though: Intel cannot compete with AMD here. But, what about overall performance-per-dollar?

Since you brought up the i5-750, maybe instead we could compare the differences between the $180 AMD 965BE and a $200 Intel i5-750, since they're much closer in price?

Did you see the Intel i7-980X hexa-core article? In that comparison, the AMD 965BE system actually won a few portions of the gaming tests, while coming in a close 2nd or 3rd in the vast majority of them. Yeah, it got spanked in the workstation/productivity portions of the test. I'll concede that. But, when it comes to gaming, the two makers are far closer in performance than you may realize.

When building a system on a tight budget with the primary purpose of that system being gaming, AMD holds it's own, and then some.

 

[sojrner]

[citation][nom]pauldh[/nom]This probably wouldn't happen. It's too time consuming for each author to do multiple systems, and we don't want to skip price brackets. So far $500-600 seems to be winning out for next round. I'd like to rotate between the two ($500/$750), refreshing each price bracket every 6 months.[/citation]

Now that is a cool idea. Like it... rotate from 500-1000-2000 to 750-1500-3000? That would certainly keep variety while still refreshing a bracket enough...

 

[miloo]

HD 4850 ~~~ now is cheap nice ~

 

[bliq]

[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]Except for the CPU cooler, you usually sacrifice nothing to go Micro ATX. Tom's Hardware even did a micro-ATX SBM...where the Core i7 system sucked because it had to use the stock cooler. You can find semi-small micro-ATX cases that fit mid-sized coolers.Antec also makes a MICRO ATX MID TOWER which REALLY sux since it misses the point of Micro ATX completely, so I don't want to hear about that one.And of course there's Micro ATX mini-towers with the same layout as full-ATX. You get all the performance of ATX and the big cooler, with a case that's around 14-15" tall.[/citation]

A really good one is CoolerMaster's Elite 342 and 360. The 360 is a full ATX case in mini-tower (actually, mini-desktop but since the logo rotates, you can use it either way. don't know if the 5.25 bays also rotate- i don't think they do) and 342 is a good looking microATX case.

 

[branflakes71]

Throwing in my 2 cents. I like the build to stay in the $700 range. Under $600 seems too extreme to get real gaming. I like the headroom $700-750 allows, so one can get a good gaming machine with quality parts. This is the kind of build I'd do for someone like my brother, who has a tight budget, but still likes to play games.

Kudos for doing Crossfire in a $750 rig. I think this proved the value in a Crossfire rig.

I like the suggestion thrown out about doing an "Upgrade"-type SBM. Have a basic system and throw different upgrade price brackets at it. So many people on the forums ask about the best way to spend an extra $200 on upgrades. Such an SBM might give some good pointers.

Great job on this build, btw. If I won it, I would give it to my brother. It's a perfect gaming machine to last him for several years.

 

[dweebmaster]

it looks great i guess i need to do some rethinking because my build came up to right around that price but i was planning on using 2X 250 gts nvidia gpu's so can some one tell me which is better those radeon cards or mine.

 

[bsasser]

seeing as the following is the reason i read the article and subsequently signed up for the site, this is what i'd like to see: 3 rbm's for home theatre type machines. I'm talking about online gaming, 1080p playback and speedy web browsing. HDD wont be much concern but being able to support an external drive nicely would be a plus. I was thinking the 6-700 dollar range compared to the 750-1000 dollar and lastly a 1050-1500 extreme machine. Topic may have been covered but this is gonna be the next machine i build and as always, toms hardware is an excellent starting point.

 

[pkan51]

with 2 graphic cards I can set up duel monitors right?

Also is there any coupons or codes I can use for neweggs? Right now I am paying CA tax and 10$ for shipping.