System Builder Marathon: Performance and Value

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
What about taking the approach from the other end of the spectrum?

Find what benchmarks are "acceptable" for most gamers in your evaluation categories, and then see how cheap you can build a machine for that will meet your performance specification?

How much can you pull out of various components and get the desired levels of performance?

Then what you might do as a follow-up, if it wasn't too much to ask...set them up in a "burnout" mode to see how long those performance levels can be held before you burnout the hardware.

I'd like to not only know what a system can do performance wise, but how overclocking and what not will affect the durability of that hardware.

Just a suggestion...however long-winded I might be. lol
 
I agree with the idea that a $700-800 price point would be nice. Price points of $750, 1500, and 3000 would also be nice and symmetrical. On the other hand, if everyone else is building in these price points, as others have pointed out, there are plenty of posts in the forums about them, just nice to have Toms seal on it sometimes (ie you know at least someone has gotten the components to work together). Always love the SBM articles, cheers.
 
Heya,

I liked this series. Kept me coming back to read over and over.

My one complaint is that the benchmarking of the 3d games is showing mostly off in Crysis. There are a lot of other games out there. Lots. And I think it would be a huge selling point to people to see that while yea, that $500 and $1500 system don't rock Crysis as hard as dual 4870x2's will, but they will play virtually every other game out there at highest settings and maxed resolution just fine. Very few games actually require more than what that $500 system is capable of. And I think it's very silly to spend $4500 or even $1500 to get `playable' frame rates at Highest settings in Crysis, when a $500 computer runs nearly all other games just fine. I'd be more likely to say "just don't bother with Crysis".

Cheers, :)
 
My one complaint is that the benchmarking of the 3d games is showing mostly off in Crysis. There are a lot of other games out there. Lots. And I think it would be a huge selling point to people to see that while yea, that $500 and $1500 system don't rock Crysis as hard as dual 4870x2's will, but they will play virtually every other game out there at highest settings and maxed resolution just fine. Very few games actually require more than what that $500 system is capable of. And I think it's very silly to spend $4500 or even $1500 to get `playable' frame rates at Highest settings in Crysis, when a $500 computer runs nearly all other games just fine. I'd be more likely to say "just don't bother with Crysis".

I agree with you on your benchmarking statement, but won't I don't agree with you on is that $500-1500 PC's can't max out Crysis. This isn't true at all my $1500 rig can play Crysis on Very High settings with 4x AA.

My build -

Q6600 @ 2.4ghz, MSI P7N 750i Platinum, 4GB OCZ PC8500 Platinum Ram, 2x XFX 9600GT's in SLI


 
That $1500 build is being totally embarrassed by the $500 build. The decision to use a Q6600 didn't really work out -- a dual-core processor with air cooling would have worked much better, saved some money, and maybe even allowed some other upgrades (other folks suggested graphics card upgrades in the original $1500 build article).

I do hope people read these articles fully before deciding they're going to plonk $1500 down on an experimental Tom's Hardware build, because the components chosen really aren't the best bang-for-buck in this case. I'm now reading these things as much more of an experiment than a system building guide.
 
Can't believe such a wrong and miss leaded review by such a big web site as Tom's Specially for the mid and low budget systems.

Tom's articles are going like "roller coaster" lately.
 
I'm now reading these things as much more of an experiment than a system building guide.
Click to expand...

I agree. I would like to see them not listed "gaming" builds etc, but rather just set price points and see what benchmark scores you can hit. (Within reason, obviously no one is going to spend 4500 and put one SSD drive w/ minimal storage.) It would seem that anyone who would be building their own PC would be doing so for a reason, most likely to get the most performance for their budget range. The most usefull information to the consumer would seem to be what speeds certain components can achieve together, not what interesting bits can be purchased with X dollars. Anyone who is going to build their own PC will most likely be able to extrapolate the benchmarking information into their own build and modify it with the peripherals/HD space/etc to fit their needs. It is always good to broaden your horizons though, and I can appreceate a little different flavor the the builds from time to time.
 
Just my two cents... I think it was a pretty good article but I think the benchmark spread was skewed by a bad choice of componants in the $1500 "mainstream" system. While I spent a lot more on case and power (and all the extras like a monitor left out of the article) below is similar and w/ my 8500 at 4.37 the $4500 system would not have looked as good except in some synthetics and encoding. I just don't think there was any reason to compromise using a a Q6600, X38, DDR2-800 and obsolete Seagate .10 drives to keep a 1500 budget. IMO if your on a budget money is best spent on CPU, Mobo, memory, graphics and HD's first. Saving a little on fluff you can also have a 4870X2 instead of the two 4850's. Some of these prices are even a bit cheaper now.

180 CPU E8500 (or spend a little extra for E8600 and ~do 4.6+)
65 CPU Cooler Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme/Scythe Slipstream 110CFM
290 Motherboard Asus Rampage Formula X48
95 Ram 2x2gb Ocz 1066 5-5-5-15 2.1V
180 HD 2 x WD Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB in Raid 0
28 Optical Samsung 22X LightScribe, SATA SH-S223Q
480 Graphics Radeon 4870 X2 (lowest I have seen w/rebate)
80 Case Any number of cheap cases
100 Power Some ~750
-----
1498
 
[citation][nom]charlesalexandre[/nom]Can't believe such a wrong and miss leaded review by such a big web site as Tom's Specially for the mid and low budget systems.Tom's articles are going like "roller coaster" lately.[/citation]

Can't do much about that unless you list examples.
 
[citation][nom]fadirocks[/nom]this should be called "Intel system building marathon"[/citation]

Tell your buddies at AMD to step it up, last time Tom's built an AMD system for builder marathon, it was obliterated by the others, and everyone cried.
 
Hey I really like these comparisons. I do think that maybe you guys should add one more system tho..

Something like High End > Medium High > Medium Low > Low end.. There is just to big of a gap between the builds.
 
[citation][nom]xlastshotx[/nom]Hey I really like these comparisons. I do think that maybe you guys should add one more system tho.. Something like High End > Medium High > Medium Low > Low end.. There is just to big of a gap between the builds.[/citation]

Something like 500/1000/2000/4000? Or maybe 600/1200/2400/4800?
 
I think $650 would be a good price point for the lower end system. Raising it by $150 brings the overall performance of the system up in all benchmarks and games by a noticeable amount. Not only that, but the $650 total system would come closer to $550 after rebates. Newegg also has tons of "combo" deals where you can get a videocard + ram or Mobo+Cpu or any other type of combo at an even better price bringing total costs down.
For system price points I would say $650, $1300 and $3500. I think these price points are a bit more realistic.
A comparison of full system power consumption would be great.
Watercooling on the $1500 system was overkill, a good air cooling solution at less then half the price would of been just fine.
Thank you for the articles, you guys did a nice job. I really like the benchmark comparisons of all 3 systems.

 
One of the things I like about building my own machine is that individual components often have rebates. I just built a $1500 machine but ended up with about $200 in rebates.

Also, I bought my parts from Mwave and paid to have them assembled. It cost be an extra $79 but they do a nice job and they still send you all of the original packaging so you can still submit rebates.
 
[citation][nom]luciiacob[/nom][/citation]
So you're saying that an E6600 on a good P965 mobo from a year and a half ago won't stand up to a E2180 on a P35? I beg to differ. The biggest improvements between these 2 rigs might be that the video cards have gotten slightly better with a much lower price today. DDR2-800 is cheaper now, but still clocks the same.

I will concede that I'm disappointed that my $500 7800 GTX gets beat by my new $110 9800GT.....that's $400 I'd like to have back!

























 
i strongly agree to that. it just shows the profit margins on those more expensive components. it goes the same with all tech products.
there's a lot that can be save on video cards, someone who wants bang for the buck should stay away from cards more expensive than $200.
 
[citation][nom]Slomo4shO[/nom]Well in general, the "Super PC" users usually end up paying for the R&D costs involved to improve technology. [/citation]

Well someone has to really, so I suppose it's only fair taht those who want the most pay the most :)

And to be realistic - the g92 chip costs them the same to produce no matter which board they put it on - so the faster you buy your card the more of a profit they make. But that's fair too really.
 
I would go for this:

CPU: intel C2Q Q9650
RAM: 2x2GB DDR3-1xxx
Graphic: ATI HD4870x2
HDD: 1.0 TB Samsung x1
and etc...
 
but if you like gaming in general, it may be sensible to have a computer that can actually play the games the way the developers expect them to be played. A budget system just can't if you prefer games that aren't 3 years old.
Click to expand...

That is pretty funny, I usually play the games the way I want to play them. To me being sensible is buying a system that can meet your individual needs and then can be upgraded as needed. Also my system, AM2 6000+ and my 3850 can play Farcry2 and Grid at 1280X1024 with all the settings maxed out. Those are not 3 year old games. I could play Crisis with medium settings. I played the demo and really did not think the game was all that great.
 
True, but you have to remember you're playing the new games on a rather old monitor. If you'd bought a monitor at the time you got your 3850 you'd have a 22" running 1680x1050, and then your sensible choice would've been a waste of money.

Anyway, as you point it out, you buy what you deem right. That's a good thing, but it does mean you're not running the software as the developers had expected.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom