System Builder Marathon: Mid-Cost System

[razrak]

I agree; $2000 is NOT a mid-range system.

I hardly post and had to post about how poor the pricing is for their build. $2,000 is not a mid-range system. The owners of the site should read their own forums to understand the consensus on mid ran

 

[tank_atlantis]

Wow, I agree with most of the posts here and instead of just reading others input this time I feel I should speak up as well saying the article was way off. Perhaps I am just stuck in the past but the previous builds were much more helpful then the new low and high end. I could not believe what I was reading just under $2000 for mid range? Don't get me wrong I enjoy most of the articles at toms and browse the forum daily, and used to recommend their builds to friends, cannot say I would for either of the new builds, and since the high end tomorrow will likely be at a monster price I will not be telling friends about it either. Maybe once again it is just me but it seem like the articles should cater to the readers and just from the builds people request it would seem no one spends over $2000 for most systems. Most just seem to want to build systems for under $1000. To bad, wanted to get some ideas for my new build from the articles, but even my "stranger" butt can tell I am not getting my moneys worth from them builds.

 

[LuxZg]

I too think 2000$ is way too much for a midrange. Specialy once you "convert" it to some 2000€ in most european shops for these same components. I think it should be like .. 1200-1300 for midrange (hey, it's without peripherals! AT ALL), and more like 800$ for low part.

As much as I know, most hardware is grouped like this:
low-end: Celerons/Semprons/C2D E2xxx series; non-gaming graphic cards; Windows Home
mid:E4000, Athlons, E6000 for higher-mid configs; 9600 GT/HD38xx; 8800GT/GTS for high-mid parts; integrated sound; Windows XP Pro; 4GB RAM
high: higher E6xxx models and quads (both amd and intel); 8800GTX, 9800GX2, HD3870X2; raptor for system+terabyte drive for storage;Vista Home Premium 64bit; 4GB high-perf RAM; DEDICATED SOUND CARD!
ultra-high: extreme edition CPUs, tri-quad sli/crossfire, raptor raid, sound card with rack, vista ultimate 64bit sp1; 8GB RAM; etc

BTW - 2000$, AND NO DEDICATED SOUNDCARD?! This is absolutely biggest miss in there...

 

[LuxZg]

Tried to edit, but didn't let me post, so here:
EDIT: Oh, and few days ago, I was reading legionhardware.com, they made just 900$ config WITH monitor/speakers/keyboard/mouse (no windows), and it's still almost as fast as your "low" configuration, as it uses same HD3870, and only huge difference is C2D 4500 vs your quad Athlon. But it's WAY cheaper, as you DO GET EVERYTHING for 910$!

And oh, EVERYONE likes to go out and put 600-700-800W power supplies in their "building-a-pc-review", and every time they bench something they confirm that "whole system" runs under 300 for similar hardware.. let's give it 20% of wasted energy, it's still no more than 400W power supply needed, 450W if you want to be sure its all fine and dandy.. So why on earth if (for example) C2D E6700+8800GTX XXX edition+raptor+DVDRW spend 300W as a WHOLE SYSTEM (google it! try it!) does every single reviewer offer us 600+W power supply. You did the same with both "low" config (600W? for what? 55nm GPU and an athlon quad?) and this so-called "midium" one (750W? LOL! Even 550W is more than enough here, even with GTX and Quad CPU, and even if you overclock like hell you won't waste double the power than). Your own Skulltrail review measures 2x quads with 8800GTX OVERCLOCKED TO 4GHZ (!!) to draw 630W. So you can probably power well overclocked Skulltrail system with this 750W power supply.. So again to the start - why using 600+W power on low-mid configs with SINGLE CPU, and SINGLE GPU?

 

[jevon]

Well a PSU won't draw more power from the wall than the system needs, so really the only thing being wasted is $ when buying 750W PSU's for systems that only need 500W. Although, keep in mind that the majority of PSU's run most efficiently when they're under ~75% load; if you're someone who keeps the computer on all day/night, it may actually not be a bad investment since 'more' of the wattage drawn from the wall will actually be used to power the system and not wasted.

But anyway.. I'm just glad Don and the staff are reading and posting in these follow up posts! They SHOULD have been reading and paying WAY more attentiong to their own message boards (and/or others around the 'Net) before starting these builds because they would have gotten a much more realistic budget range just from that.

 

[Onus]

The general public would probably consider $400-$500 a "low-end" price, $700-$800 to be "mid-range," and perhaps $1200-$1500 to be the "high end." Look at mass-marketers like Best Buy and Dell for the stuff they sell (their $2500 "gamer" systems would be over the top).
Tom's audience, however, is not the general public. The point being that the price points Tom's used, while arbitrary, might not be that out of alignment with an enthusiast audience. I do think though, that a much stronger focus could have been placed on bang-for-buck, which any enthusiast does, rather than forcing the build to an arbitrary price point regardless of value; a case of "what's the best I can get for $XX," vs. "what can I include in order to spend $XX." Hopefully Cleeve's assurances of a better future cycle will be justified.

 

[sojrner]

^good to know there are others that can look past $X and see the point.

 

[piasabird]

I look at this from a different point of view. You chose to use a Q6700 Quad. I looked at your CPU charts and the Benchmark difference between the Q6600 and Q6700 is mimimal at best. I dont think it is worth the extra $250.00 you are paying for it. The question I pose is for $250.00 how much increase in performance are you receiving? If the answer is almost none, then maybe you should spend it on something else or not spend it at all.

Then you chose a 750 watt power supply. If you are not building an SLI system that is just too much power. Apparrently you dont believe in saving energy.

You might want to consider RAM rated slightly higher than 800 Mhz.

If you just want to spend more money what is the point? There is only so much performance that can be considered Mid-range.

For a higher quality than this you plan on building a Dual Xeon Core 2 Quad? That would be pushing it out of the range of Desktop and into the range of High-End Commercial Workstation.

 

[sojrner]

...[random repetition of earlier stuff]...

wow, just read previous posts... they prove your conclusions wrong or redundant, especially about the psu.

 

[digme]

I think the choice of the Q6700 makes a LOT more sense in light of the fact that on April 20 it will be dropping in price to below $300. Yeah, you could still argue for other procs but it makes more sense in this system at that price. Taking that into account if you just swap the GPU out for an 8800GT then you'd have more of a true mid-cost system IMO.

I'm actually happy to see that they're going to OC the Q6700 because I just bought a Q6700 + QW:ET for $299.99 through a one-day sale at ClubIt.com. Should be here tomorrow. I was going to go 6600 but for the price I just said what the heck...

brad

 

[Shadow703793]

What price drop? I haven't heard about any? Can some one fill me in please?

 

[zenmaster]

The Q6600 is Scheduled to Drop in Tray Price from $266 to $224 on April 20th.

That being said I was waiting for this too until Fry's graced me with a $179.99 Sale on the Q6600 Today.
Unfortunately, it's now over.

Microcenter has it for $199, however.

 

[Shadow703793]

^ Thanks for the heads up. What else are supposed to go down? What about the E6x50s etc.?

 

[San Pedro]

Don't mean to pile on the crew at Tom's too much, but I'll echo the sentiment that $2000 is too expensive for mid-end. Hell, when I built my PC I put about a $1000-1100 into it, and I thought that was mid-range, hell I think it is a damn good performing mid-range machine.

 

[digme]

^ Thanks for the heads up. What else are supposed to go down? What about the E6x50s etc.?

brad

 

[Shadow703793]

^ Nice. thanks. I haven't had the time to check up on the prices, cause of school work and spending too much time on the Forums 😉.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Using the 150GB Raptor allows us to get some very high transfer speeds, and we were interested in seeing how this configuration will stack up against the RAID system that will be used in the high-end machine later in the marathon. The Raptor is a pricey experiment at $170 for the drive, but we're willing to pay the price to see what the Raptor can do. For increased storage we've added a regular 500GB Caviar as a secondary drive for $95, giving us a total of 750 GB of storage.

Huh ? Didn't the author read the Tom's Hardware site ?

Using the 150GB Raptor allows us to get some very high transfer speeds

The Raptor is a pricey experiment at $170 for the drive, but we're willing to pay the price to see what the Raptor can do.

Maybe they saw this ? If they did, they should already know what it can do ?

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/21/samsung_overtakes_with_a_bang/page9.html

Transfer Speed (Peak / Average)
Samsung F1 (118.7/ 91.7)
Seagate (100.3 / 89.0)
WD Raptor (87.0 / 75.3)

Now I know TH is happy that WD gave them 15 free HD's

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/21/toms_reference_system/page7.html
"Western Digital provided the 15 test hard drives for our test systems."

But I would think that they would read their own tests and not be wondering what it can do.....especially when it puts a significant hit on the budget.