System Builder Marathon, March 2012: $1250 Enthusiast PC

EzioAs · Mar 27, 2012

The i5-2400 is also a great choice as seen in the benchmark results. This is also the main reason why I always suggest this cpu to people in the $1000 range build but do not want to overclock rather than getting the 2500 or 2500K. At stock speed the difference is very minimal especially in games.

I still agree with their choice to spend as low as $20 on an aftermarket cooler no matter what other people here said as Intel stock coolers are terrible.

I'm guessing that since the 680 is out of stock now, the 7970 was chosen for this build. Nevertheless, to be able to cramp one into a $1200 build is pretty good. Great choice there.

ojas · Mar 27, 2012

hey i've been looking up stuff on newegg,

there's an ATX Biostar board for $80, Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB kit for $50 and you could crossfire 2 7850s for about $520, and perhaps see better or at least comparable performance to a 7970.

Saved funds (~$60) could go elsewhere like this.

Not bashing the build, everyone's got their own style, just sharing a thought

noob2222 · Mar 27, 2012

The results in Sandra are much closer, as AMD's FX-6100 earns its share of wins in the Arithmetic and Multimedia tests. Note the poor memory bandwidth from our current build, which is easily explained by the single-channel memory configuration we are forced to use due to this platform's uncooperative motherboard. The FX-6100 system's dual-channel bandwidth is much higher than what we reported in last quarter's System Builder Marathon, as an update to the software now properly reports the Bulldozer architecture's throughput.

looks like updating the bios for the 6100 allowed it to run in dual-channel mode instead of single channel. Too bad everyone is already convinced the entire problem with last quarters build was just the cpu.

James296 · Mar 27, 2012

woh, talk about a fugly looking case and for a 1250 build, you could of at least picked a half -decent one.

Luay · Mar 27, 2012

1)I know Gigabyte have discontinued P67 boards but the GIGABYTE GA-P67X-UD3-B3 is still selling on Newegg for $115, $95 after rebate and has 1x16/2x8 CF SLI. Just needs a Bios Flash to work. It should overclock better, if only you picked the right CPU for it for $30 more. For a locked CPU I would only get H67

2) I don't know yet why websites such as this keep ignoring, or aren't aware of the 30nm $48 Samsung 8GB 1600 MV-3V4G3D/US.

3) It must have hurt to review the GTX 680 after you finished up benching this rig. With that extra $60 I would use $40 for the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120GB SSD.

spookyman · Mar 27, 2012

Why not get the i5 2500k? Could save some money and buy a GTX 680.

borden5 · Mar 27, 2012

[citation][nom]spookyman[/nom]Why not get the i5 2500k? Could save some money and buy a GTX 680.[/citation]
Reader why u no read first page....

Scotty99 · Mar 27, 2012

I want to punch whoever is building these atrocities in the nuts. I didn't think you could build a worse system for the money than yesterdays 650.00 build, but somehow this dude managed to do it.

1. Horrible case
2. Horrible CPU cooler
3. P67 motherboard, really?
4. A 64gb SSD, are you fucking crazy you can get a 120gb mushkin for 120.00 bucks, 60gb are terrible.
5. Ive never had ANY luck with hitachi HDD's, id rather throw a maxtor in my system.
6. And to top it all off he puts a 7970 in it ROFLMAO (I HOPE this was before the 680 release, even so he had to know they were coming out very soon and should have waited).

cknobman · Mar 27, 2012

As with 90% of the comments made so far I agree.

THIS BUILD SUCKED, way too many compromises and severely odd/illogical choices.

Worst mid range build I have seen in a long time (and I thought the last AMD build was bad but I think this one is even worse).

I did like the $650 build though.

bourgeoisdude · Mar 27, 2012

Another typo in optical drive section. I'm guessing you meant "read-only device" instead of "real-only device".

Pedrovsky · Mar 27, 2012

1) Drop that ugly case get yourself any good one in the same price range.(there are tons of options) People who spens 1000+ dollar on a desktop will never choose a case like that.

2) Remember that for a build like this you won't need more then 500w PSU so you'll probably be able to get a 80 plus bronze PSU for around 50 bucks saving 40 dollars

3) Now you saved 40$ you can go and pick i5 2500k which (and i'm not saying i'd like to see something new) is honestly what everybody is going to end up buying when you consider "giving it up for gaming performance"

4) Theres really no reason to waste money on a SSD, the MB is P67 which won't allow srt...everybody who reads tom's articles knows theres lil to no gain in gaming performance. Save youself the money and wait 15 second more when booting and defrag every 7days you should be just fine.

5) Personally i'd use the money i just saved on the ssd and get a z68/77 micro atx MB and good aftermarket CPU cooller. But just the cooler will do fine for all intents and purposes. Thing is if you get a z68 will be able to use srt once ssds are actually in a good price range, and most allow pcie 3.0 which wont be noticed but still good to have.

6) Now unless you going to play at 1080p + resolutions (which is just doll) i dont see the point on going for a 7970. Because you can get way with 350$ dollar card...lets say 7870=). and if you going for multi monitor configs or 3D playing you must defenetly gor for at least 2x560ti or more or 2x6950 or more which will end up being better then a single 7970. But thats not enthusiast pc anymore. so get a GTX570 or a 7870 or a 560 ti 448 and save the money.

phenom90 · Mar 27, 2012

Guest · Mar 27, 2012

Holy crap that is an ugly case.

ojas · Mar 27, 2012

phenom90 :

People usually get to win these rigs iirc, so no point including something you can't actually put in (because they're sold out).

Plus even if the 680 was out by then, these guys would have had to buy it first, and since they're all sold out, i guess they skipped it.

So i think bashing them on the lack of a 680 is a bit dumb at this point.

senimol · Mar 27, 2012

from newegg.com:

ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3

i5-2500K

Hyper 212 EVO

SLI (2x) GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 448

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB)

WD 500GB blue

LITE-ON DVD Burner

CORSAIR TX750 V2 750W

NZXT GAMMA

$1,199.90 Instant + shipping

de5_Roy · Mar 27, 2012

nice article. enjoyed reading it.

based on power efficiency alone, previous build's fx6100 lost badly to i5 2400. i blame it for cfx 6950's inconsistent performance. the new benchmark suite has more gpu bound games, to it might seem like the older pc is doing better than before. i'd still like to see how the new fx4170/6200 or now-cheaper fx8120 fares in one of the sbm builds, with crossfired gfx cards.
gtx 680 became available (and got sold out fast) in the market barely 5-6 days ago. i assume that it takes longer than that to pick out parts, assemble, benchmark and then write an article. may be that's why gtx 680 wasn't chosen.

jaquith · Mar 27, 2012

I would have shopped the GPU, HDD, PSU, and RAM and squeezed-out of it all with no performance impact to yield an i5-2500K. Yeah, I read the 4GHz comparison, but it's easy breezy to get 4.5GHz+ out of the i5-2500K with a decent vCore. The Mushkin are pretty easy to OC as well; what 'MOBO issue' killed Dual Channel!? Raise the VCCIO and DRAM Voltages or nix the MOBO.

Also, Crossfire HD [strike]7950[/strike] 7850's!

BTW - I really don't like a top mounted PSU; blocks the heat in the case. Hopefully the PSU is positioned to be useful and is aimed down and out.

jaquith · Mar 27, 2012

Oopsy, I meant Crossfire HD 7850's! (no edit options)

Nice Article!

BTW - I'm not bitching at the 'idea' of the components chosen, well maybe the MOBO and Case, it's about beating the older system per the budget.

ojas · Mar 27, 2012

jaquith :

lol was wondering how you'd get 2x7950s for that price.

You can, click "read comments on the forum" at the top of the comments section, and click "quick edit" at the bottom right to edit your comment on the spot.

godfather666 · Mar 27, 2012

Just one correction: 7-zip is very heavily threaded! Which is the opposite of what you said. So it's no surprise there that the 6-core did well.

greenrider02 · Mar 27, 2012

[citation][nom]pedrovsky[/nom]1) Drop that ugly case get yourself any good one in the same price range.(there are tons of options) People who spens 1000+ dollar on a desktop will never choose a case like that.2) Remember that for a build like this you won't need more then 500w PSU so you'll probably be able to get a 80 plus bronze PSU for around 50 bucks saving 40 dollars3) Now you saved 40$ you can go and pick i5 2500k which (and i'm not saying i'd like to see something new) is honestly what everybody is going to end up buying when you consider "giving it up for gaming performance"4) Theres really no reason to waste money on a SSD, the MB is P67 which won't allow srt...everybody who reads tom's articles knows theres lil to no gain in gaming performance. Save youself the money and wait 15 second more when booting and defrag every 7days you should be just fine.5) Personally i'd use the money i just saved on the ssd and get a z68/77 micro atx MB and good aftermarket CPU cooller. But just the cooler will do fine for all intents and purposes. Thing is if you get a z68 will be able to use srt once ssds are actually in a good price range, and most allow pcie 3.0 which wont be noticed but still good to have.6) Now unless you going to play at 1080p + resolutions (which is just doll) i dont see the point on going for a 7970. Because you can get way with 350$ dollar card...lets say 7870=). and if you going for multi monitor configs or 3D playing you must defenetly gor for at least 2x560ti or more or 2x6950 or more which will end up being better then a single 7970. But thats not enthusiast pc anymore. so get a GTX570 or a 7870 or a 560 ti 448 and save the money.[/citation]

So what you're saying is that he should have built essentially the same machine as last month? I think he made the point first page that it's not as fun to do the same thing again.

PEOPLE: You may not have grasped this, but this is not a Best Possible Machine for the Money, nor is it a Best Gaming Machine Contest. They just want to try out fun builds and see how they perform compared to the others.

I MAY ADD, that it is -written-in-the-article- that they ordered these parts well before the GTX680 came out.

PLEASE, read the article, most of you're comments can be answered/refuted by information already there.

AS SUCH, half of all of your criticisms are pointless and have no meaning.

Thanks Toms! I remember when, instead of a single card at this price range, you did the 4x4850 Crossfire rig, I definitely thought that was crazy at the time.

jaquith · Mar 27, 2012

ojas :

Duh, after ALL this time I had No Idea you could edit these Article comments! Learn something new everyday.

Thank You!

Scorpionking20 · Mar 27, 2012

I agree with a lot of posters on here about the 2500k. I understand why this build was done, to test the 2400, but I'm sure you guys would recommend the 2500k for somebody that really had to build on this budget. My biggest gripe was the case! Holy cow...how ugly and nonfunctional. I got my wife a Cooler Master HAF 912 for 40 to 50 (can't remember), and its built like a tank, I can't stress that enough...its SO solid, has bottom psu mounting, expansions for fans everywhere (including the top and a side intake) and is just SO much better than the case picked here. I'd ask a decent case be chosen next time...all these high heat producing components ought to be put into a case that's up for the task, after all. That's my 2 cents!

pauldh · Mar 27, 2012

[citation][nom]greenrider02[/nom]...I MAY ADD, that it is -written-in-the-article- that they ordered these parts well before the GTX680 came out. PLEASE, read the article, most of you're comments can be answered/refuted by information already there.[/citation]
Thank you for pointing this out!!!

[citation][nom]greenrider02[/nom]...Thanks Toms! I remember when, instead of a single card at this price range, you did the 4x4850 Crossfire rig, I definitely thought that was crazy at the time.[/citation]
Yeah, Don certainly likes to shake things up, and his 4 * HD 4850 build was awesomely unexpected! Glad you also appreciate looks into those extreme configurations. He likely took some heat for exploring that option, but it isn’t fun re-building the “same ole, same ole” just because its bang hasn’t been beat.

The_OGS · Mar 27, 2012

Another build from the boys at Tom's Radeons...

System Builder Marathon, March 2012: $1250 Enthusiast PC

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Guest

Guest

Distinguished

Honorable

Splendid

Glorious

Glorious

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Glorious

Distinguished

Illustrious

Distinguished

Share this page