System Builder Marathon: Performance & Value

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[citation][nom]spearhead[/nom]indeed i find tomshardwar becomming crap too because they all keep excluding AMD from the game, and its not im pro AMD or something i personaly own intel configs too, maybe they get some sort of benefit from it if they do in money or hardware who knows i find it pretty disturbing that they do that.[/citation]

The problem here is that, frankly, you're an idiot. THG tried to do the same thing with AMD hardware a few months back and the system was a dismal failure because it simply couldn't overclock well enough to beat a low-end Core 2 based processor in most benchmarks. But, rather than learning from that mistake, you keep pushing an agenda. AMD hadn't gotten any better between the time the last SBM-AMD system was built and the time these systems were built. Maybe Phenom II for next time, but it wasn't available yet when these systems were built. And you can say "you should have waited then", which is BS because the same Phenom II that "could have been waited for" can instead be used in the next SBM.
 
"At $800, the SSD drives made the system boot super-fast but they had little to no effect on gaming, encoding, or productivity benchmarks."

though this is true, the high speed SSD drives make a huge difference in overall feel of the system, when starting the encoding task, or launching your game, booting up, or shutting down. Everything will just run faster. Sure the actual encoding isnt any faster, but the luxury of having things just open up as fast as possible is what you are paying for. Anyone spending $5000+ on a pc would understand this and if its what they want, they would buy it. If you're worried about value, don't even bother with a $5000 build, because honestly there isnt much 'value' there.
 
Hey Crash, you might be right, but your tone is wrong. don't stoop to their level.

I'm sure it gets frurstating telling people 20 times the same thing because they don't bother to read throught the other comments (or even the review) still though, IMHO, it's better to keep a respeftful tone, even if they don't.
 
performance/value results are usually quite predictable: the cheapest overclocked system win because of diminishing returns. but cpu, mb, ram, etc are one-time fixed cost. what about the time saved, electric bills, and other intangibles from using a faster system over its life span? they're not factored-in into the "value" thing.
 
[citation][nom]sleepychink125[/nom]they should just do whatever gives the best performance/price... people only care about how far their money will get them, not this AMD fanboy crap. If TH feels that a AMD chip will get them farther than an intel chip of the same price, then they should by all means go for it... if not, please stop complaining.[/citation]

Exactly... best price/performance = that's what I would like too. ... But seriously... Are you sure that this months $5000 build complies with that. ;-p
 
[citation][nom]dirtmountain[/nom]Great article, but some of the suggestions by posters is pure garbage. I love the one that says if you build an AMD build your budget is $1,250, but if you choose i7 you get $1,5000! Yeah, sounds fair to me.[/quote]
Learn to read. The budget difference is used as an example to show that “best bang for buck” is not a fixed dollar amount for every system.

Well, least you are the only one who doesn’t get my message.
 
[citation][nom]ifko_pifko[/nom]Exactly... best price/performance = that's what I would like too. ... But seriously... Are you sure that this months $5000 build complies with that. ;-p[/citation]

Increase the budget and you end up buying performance parts that don't make a difference in the benchmark set, such as SSD's, and stuff that high-end buyers demand in spite of performance, like BD-RE drives.
 
[citation][nom]Dax Corrin[/nom]Yo Gkay and spearhead, learn to spell, reading your comments is giving me a headache.[/citation]
Well no one asked u to read those comments 😛...And if u can keep away frm them...I feel everyone can express their views here...So express ur view on the article and nt on my comments...
 
The comments we post here is not to find fault wit the articles but just requests that could put more light into 2day's competition...I don understand why people get irked when there are any comments wanting to see an amd SBM...
Instead of just shouting or passing worthless replies, it would be nice if u people can give reasons why not to have them in the SBM as some people have...grow up and stop complaining...
 
[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Excuse me, but you're misinformed.I tried a Phenom system in a marathoin a few tries ago and it failed miserably compared to the Core 2; there's no anti-AMD sentiment going on here, it's just that their CPUs didn't have much to offer until the Phenom 2.We ordered the parts for these machines weeks ago, and frankly the Phenom 2 wasn't available yet.Now that it's available, we'll be looking at the Phenom 2 hard, but probably for the ~$600 system. In the $1250 system we'll be able to afford an i7 though, and I don't think you're arguing the Phenom 2 is better than that...Do you guys really want us to put together a $1250 Phenom 2 system instead of an i7? Be vocal about it, because I'll be counting on you to be just as vocal about it to defend us in the comments when we're trash talked for choosing the Phenom 2 over the i7.[/citation]


Are you referring to the System Builder Marathon you did back in March of 2008? Where you used the Phenom 9500?
 


It's been said a few times, but the Phenom simply doesn't stand up to Core 2 Duos when both are overclocked in a large enough number of benchmarks. Core 2 Duo overclocks to a much higher frequency and completes more operations per core per cycle, and the majority of benchmarks are single or dual-threaded.
 
[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]It's been said a few times, but the Phenom simply doesn't stand up to Core 2 Duos when both are overclocked in a large enough number of benchmarks. Core 2 Duo overclocks to a much higher frequency and completes more operations per core per cycle, and the majority of benchmarks are single or dual-threaded.[/citation]
Hmmm...jus some dejection tats all 😛 Well all hail the King(I mean intel) They have jus shown wat they are capapble of and expect much more from them...Hope AMD tried to keep the competition alive...
 
Although I think Intel is better than AMD right now I would also be interested in seeing both Intel and AMD builds for all 3 Price ranges or at least the $1250 range.
 
[citation][nom]jcknouse[/nom]I hope they show some AMD too. I would just like them to wait til the Phenom II 945 is out. I want to see how it compares to the i7...especially in gaming...with a hoss video card setup...and decked out with smoking RAM.[/citation]

Intel's Current Low End i7 (the 920) beats AMD Top Phenom II. The 945 better be a huge leap if it wants to compete more.
 
[citation][nom]cruiseoveride[/nom]haha, on iTunes, the oc'd $625 PC is almost as fast as the oc'd $5000 PC !No wonder Apple uses crap hardware.[/citation] Apple does not use "Crap Hardware" If you say that than you are saying that Core 2 Duo's, DDR3 ram and Nvidia Graphics are crap.
 
[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]It's been said a few times, but the Phenom simply doesn't stand up to Core 2 Duos when both are overclocked in a large enough number of benchmarks. Core 2 Duo overclocks to a much higher frequency and completes more operations per core per cycle, and the majority of benchmarks are single or dual-threaded.[/citation]

Lol... guy, you're right on target. These people just don't get the gist of what a fact is and an opinion is.
___I don't mean to be snide, nor rude, but come on people — you CANNOT ARGUE FACTS. What don't you get about this? You may like so-called "variety," for the sake of it, or your own subconscious bias; this site, the staff, are based on REVENUE. Playing around with machines proven to be slower may satisfy a small minority of people. But the bottom-line is that it's a waste of time and money. Yes occasionally it's nice to get a refresher of who stands where. BUT it's poor business practice to cater to a few. Yes OMG I said “business” and "bottom-line," get clued in, something/one has to pay for this site and staff. Doing sub-par reviews on even more sub-par machines = LOSING to the competition. B/c these review sites ARE in serious competition for ads, hardware etc.

This silly game about “OMG SHOW AMD stuff too” (frequently) is a farce. AMD has been proven slower overall, for the money (you have to include future proofing into this). WHY would you get a slower performing AMD platform, that's going to socket-lock you into future, slower performing hardware roadmap (highly ambiguous) Vs a few pittance more with Intel and its future proofed socket (775 at the time)? For the money (not at the finite moment) spending a slight tad more for Intel is the logical choice b/c it offers an unmatched performance roadmap, based off previously demonstrated DOMINANCE…

Oh and for the nay-sayers, this is being typed on my XP2500M@2.42/NF7S-2, along side my Turion X2 Laptop... so no “I'm an Intel-zealot” type retorts please. I just recognize the facts from the opinions and bias. Intel is faster, and regardless if you save $50 or what not with AMD builds, you'll be locking yourselves into a much slower (overall) hardware platform. Argue all you want, but anyone can pull up MORE proof positive reviews of Intel's winning performance more so than a few of you pointing out 5 out of 20 specific tests showing AMD "winning" by negligible figures. WAKE UP.

Flames away. *Jump*
 
[citation][nom]v12v12[/nom]Lol... guy, you're right on target. These people just don't get the gist of what a fact is and an opinion is.___I don't mean to be snide, nor rude, but come on people — you CANNOT ARGUE FACTS. What don't you get about this? You may like so-called "variety," for the sake of it, or your own subconscious bias; this site, the staff, are based on REVENUE. Playing around with machines proven to be slower may satisfy a small minority of people. But the bottom-line is that it's a waste of time and money. Yes occasionally it's nice to get a refresher of who stands where. BUT it's poor business practice to cater to a few. Yes OMG I said “business” and "bottom-line," get clued in, something/one has to pay for this site and staff. Doing sub-par reviews on even more sub-par machines = LOSING to the competition. B/c these review sites ARE in serious competition for ads, hardware etc.This silly game about “OMG SHOW AMD stuff too” (frequently) is a farce. AMD has been proven slower overall, for the money (you have to include future proofing into this). WHY would you get a slower performing AMD platform, that's going to socket-lock you into future, slower performing hardware roadmap (highly ambiguous) Vs a few pittance more with Intel and its future proofed socket (775 at the time)? For the money (not at the finite moment) spending a slight tad more for Intel is the logical choice b/c it offers an unmatched performance roadmap, based off previously demonstrated DOMINANCE… Oh and for the nay-sayers, this is being typed on my XP2500M@2.42/NF7S-2, along side my Turion X2 Laptop... so no “I'm an Intel-zealot” type retorts please. I just recognize the facts from the opinions and bias. Intel is faster, and regardless if you save $50 or what not with AMD builds, you'll be locking yourselves into a much slower (overall) hardware platform. Argue all you want, but anyone can pull up MORE proof positive reviews of Intel's winning performance more so than a few of you pointing out 5 out of 20 specific tests showing AMD "winning" by negligible figures. WAKE UP.Flames away. *Jump*[/citation]


Hey numb nuts how are we supposed to know what the hell AMD can do when they have not included an AMD build in over a year.
 
[citation][nom]caamsa[/nom]Hey numb nuts how are we supposed to know what the hell AMD can do when they have not included an AMD build in over a year.[/citation]

You mean over nine months? It's easy when AMD hadn't produced any new cores over the same period of time. Phenom II wasn't released until after these systems were built.

And you call other people stupid?
 
[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]You mean over nine months? It's easy when AMD hadn't produced any new cores over the same period of time. Phenom II wasn't released until after these systems were built.And you call other people stupid?[/citation]

Yeah... right huh? People quit the name calling games, the facts are clear, AMD IS slower, but also on a road to come back — a very long road, but none the less. Until then, fantasizing that they are even remotely competitive for your own bias — is futile, costing you money, and time wasted speculating.

It's nothing personal against AMD, I'm typing on my FAV OC'ing machine of all time! 2500M/NF7-S v2.0! My Laptop is AMD also... My intel, ahha Is a Mac! Hows that for ironic? I can still see the facts through the fog of hype and speculation.

Salut!
 
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