System Builder Marathon, Q3 2013: $650 Gaming PC

[cmi86]

Microcenter sells the 6300FX bundled with a free motherboard for 110$

not everyone has access to a microcenter. most people might end up paying more to drive to one. mc sometimes charges more than other retailers for other components.

Still applicable for those who do live near a microcenter right ??? I do like MC for CPU's/MB's and sale deals other than that most things are over priced. $300+ for 760/7950

 

[ingtar33]

I'm with Onus... coolmax is not close to a trustworthy psu brand imho. Without some independent review i wouldn't trust any psu from them without it being extensively tested first.

 

[itzsnypah]

For an AMD gaming build I would rather prefer a Athlon X4 760K, Gigabyte A85X-UP4 and a cheap 120mm cpu cooler like Xigmatik's gaia for around the same price.

 

[Onus]

I wasn't criticizing the VP-450; it's a very good unit. I was just pointing out that a rig like this one is getting close to the most demanding PC you'd want to run on it full time, since it pulled up to 413W.

Actually, since that was from the wall, and this PSU is >80% efficient, you were probably pulling a little less than 75% of its capacity. You might go a little higher, but when HardOCP torture-tests PSUs, they run them at 80%.

 

[slomo4sho]

An Athlon 760K paired with the new A88X board would be a nice option for the next roundup.

 

[chaospower]

Hi all! Thanks for the comments! I’m tied up all day today, but real quick, just to address a few:

As bemused_fred pointed out, the text mentions the GTX 760 was cheaper than a HD 7950 at the time we picked our parts. There was no money to save there unless stepping way down.

Moving forward, fingers crossed I’m banking on cheap 7950 allowing more platform options next time. Should we stay at $650, we could likely net a more-overclocked FX 6300, or a rather stock FX-8320. And I agree, to do either right, they deserve better cooling, or at least a mobo upgrade anyway. So we’d have to wait and see what’s available when Q4 discussions surface. State what you’d like to see though, especially on day 4, as budgets aren’t set until later.

I ‘m always concerned, but wasn’t alarmed about the VRMs actually, as I knew going in this would be a mild OC of a 95W part at stock voltage. Numerous IR readings at worst hit 65C under loads, with room temps between 76-80F. Not great, but acceptable IMO. But I did put thought into this, with the case selection and a VGA blower (lowering internal temps for free). The budget I wanted to attack this time really didn’t allow more money into the Mobo or CPU cooling. A rig like this deserves 8GB RAM, etc. and I wanted a direct comparison to Core i3, budget-wise, for now.

DarkSable, same budgets as last round. That was a quick and easy decision. My concern has been $650 isn’t really budget these days, which is why I volunteered another cheap build this time also. Yes, it will be compared to the $400 Mini-ITX, though it’s a very different build.

I don't understand why a person would go for an AMD cpu when he can get an I5 at about the same price (considering motherboard+cpu price), since a good AMD motherboard that'll support a decent OC will also cost quite a sum of money... Plus most people I believe just want a nice stable PC to game on, they don't need all the hassale of OCing. I believe that's especially true in the case of building a budget PC such as this, since only true enthusiasts will go for something much more expensive.
For example I built this PC for less than 650$ including all the MIRs, and I don't think it's even possible to get something cheaper and more powerful at this current time:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1H3JZ

I really don't think any AMD processor, non overclocked, can take on the i5 for performance and value, even if Intel barely raised the performance over the years since sandy bridge, Which is sad but apparently they don't need to, as even you tomhardware guys (In your gaming cpu hierarchy chart) rank the I5 above all AMD cpus as far as gaming is concerned.

 

[Novuake]

I don't understand why a person would go for an AMD cpu when he can get an I5 at about the same price (considering motherboard+cpu price), since a good AMD motherboard that'll support a decent OC will also cost quite a sum of money... Plus most people I believe just want a nice stable PC to game on, they don't need all the hassale of OCing. I believe that's especially true in the case of building a budget PC such as this, since only true enthusiasts will go for something much more expensive.
For example I built this PC for less than 650$ including all the MIRs, and I don't think it's even possible to get something cheaper and more powerful at this current time:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1H3JZ

I really don't think any AMD processor, non overclocked, can take on the i5 for performance and value, even if Intel barely raised the performance over the years since sandy bridge, Which is sad but apparently they don't need to, as even you tomhardware guys (In your gaming cpu hierarchy chart) rank the I5 above all AMD cpus as far as gaming is concerned.

None of us will take you seriously with your choice in PSU...

 

[Simu]

great budget build for gaming!!

 

[pauldh]

There have been a few references to Core i5, or towards upgrading the Q1 $600 PC with more graphics muscle as a better solution. I do agree, when you start adding a more enthusiast class AMD motherboard with beefier power components, plus after market cooling, yes you pretty much enter Core i5's starting point. So these points are valid in that regards. This is a very real situation I face if I move up from a $120 CPU budget.

Here's the deal though, you are looking at $180 for the processor alone, and at least $15 more into the motherboard to squeeze a Turbo-multiplier OC out of it (like the $600 PC). That's $75 MORE than this $650 PC outfitting FX-6300, the stock cooler, and a $70 Mobo. They are not in the same class at all, and in no way could have left me with as competent an array of supporting components. It would have been a $700 PC without an optical drive.

Yes, graphics and high speed RAM kits have dropped in price, and new options are within reach now. But We'd have been looking at GTX 660 or 7870 Pitcairn at the most to make a plunge into the most basic i5 setup. Those are fine, but GTX 760 or HD 7950 are more able to max out 19x10 gaming if that's the goal, and a cheap FX-6300 or Core i3 can make that happen at a lower overall cost. There's no arguing that.

 

[de5_Roy]

Still applicable for those who do live near a microcenter right ??? I do like MC for CPU's/MB's and sale deals other than that most things are over priced. $300+ for 760/7950

ofc. mc offers nice cpu+mobo combo deals, great for people who live near one.

I don't understand why a person would go for an AMD cpu when he can get an I5 at about the same price (considering motherboard+cpu price), since a good AMD motherboard that'll support a decent OC will also cost quite a sum of money...

cheap intel motherboards tend to be anemic in features as the cpus cost quite a bit more.

Plus most people I believe just want a nice stable PC to game on, they don't need all the hassale of OCing. I believe that's especially true in the case of building a budget PC such as this, since only true enthusiasts will go for something much more expensive.
For example I built this PC for less than 650$ including all the MIRs, and I don't think it's even possible to get something cheaper and more powerful at this current time:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1H3JZ

i agree about most people not wanting to o.c. still, it's a nice option to have, down the line.
your build has some issues:
it's not an all-newegg build. sbm uses newegg prices.
your pc actually costs over $700, over-budget. sbm builds don't count m.i.r.
you're comparing past prices to present prices.
cooler master's psus have highly variable quality, especially lower end ones. they're well known for cheating.
mobo features are lacking. h81 is a barebones chipset, 2 ram slots...
ddr3 1333 ram. haswell supports ddr3 1600 ram. no reason to use slower spec.

if you change the psu for a better one, a different case like corsair 200r, at least a cheap b85/h87/z87 mobo, ddr3 1600 ram.... only good part is the cheap radeon 7950... although i like sapphire or gigabyte more...

 

[givememetal]

While I believe this build touches the reasonable capacity limit of the VP-450, in the absence of a competent technical review, I would not trust anything with a "Coolmax" label on it. In particular, I don't see that one listed at http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80PlusPowerSuppliesDetail.aspx?id=24&type=2 so the claim of certification may be an outright lie.

Thank you for the heads-up, I didn't know Coolmax had such a sullied reputation. Learn something new everyday.

 

[ingtar33]

lets stop feeding the intel trolls. Talk about the builds please. Intel chips have been in every SBM rig for the past year. One rig sports the budget cpu of choice (for calender year 2013) an fx 6300, it's show to play on par with past i3 and i5 rigs and all hell breaks loose. Apparently THG committed a sin in the fanboys minds daring to show an fx 6300 pacing and in many cases beating i5 and i3 rigs.

Frankly this rig is a long time coming, the fx6300 has been the chip of choice in $600 builds in most of the building community for a long time... it only took THG 9 months to catch onto what the rest of the community has known since last Christmas. Let the fanboys have their rants. We all know intel cpus will be featured in every other rig in this marathon, because frankly, they're better cpus and the budgets will make more sense to go with an intel. What i find interesting is how much better the fx6300 was over past intel options in everything not titled skyrim or sc2.

The irony is with the price of gpus crashing right now, the fx6300 is becoming a LESS attractive budget option; if the 7950 or 760 drop much more in price you'll start to see competitive i3 and i5 alternatives to the fx6300

 

[Onus]

As quick as I am to lambast CM for the willful dishonesty with which some of their products are liar-labeled (PSUs in particular, but also fans), their "i" series PSUs are I believe all made by Seasonic. While I won't recommend anything they offer until nothing they offer isn't dishonestly labeled, quality shouldn't be the issue with the i-series.
I also liked that the FX-6300 was used. It appears to be a perfectly competent CPU. The only thing I didn't like was the mobo, which I would not trust not to have a short life.

 

[Outlander_04]

That G43 motherboard has had a few failures when overclocking .Its cheap because of that , I suspect . I'd urge AMD builders to pay a little more for a motherboard .

 

[alextheblue]

I think this time you chose the perfect balance of cpu and gpu at this price point. The Athlon 750k is far too weak, please don't use it next month, even an fx41xx or 43xx would be a better choice. The Haswell i3 would be interesting as we might be able to get some overclocking wby increasing base clock strap settings

Well since you mentioned it, the 760K is out now and it's only $5 more. It performs very close to an FX-4300, and being based on Richland should have slightly better headroom than the older Trinity 750K. You should check it out.

Plus if you get an A88X FM2+ board to go with it, you open the door for future Kaveri upgrades (and when you drop a Kaveri into that A88X FM2+ board, you get PCIe 3.0 as an added bonus). Not that these Builder Marathons factor in future upgradability... but interesting to keep in mind.

Oh, and i3 overclocking via base clock is very limited. You'll have more luck pushing the 760K or any Piledriver FX chip.

 

[cmi86]

That G43 motherboard has had a few failures when overclocking .Its cheap because of that , I suspect . I'd urge AMD builders to pay a little more for a motherboard .

I have seen it first hand. I got that board bundled with a 6300 from microcenter and brought it back the next day lol. I always say the bare minimum for an OC capable board is the Gigabyte 970A-UD3, actually has an 8+2 VRM surprisingly.

 

[Outlander_04]

Hi all! Thanks for the comments! I’m tied up all day today, but real quick, just to address a few:

As bemused_fred pointed out, the text mentions the GTX 760 was cheaper than a HD 7950 at the time we picked our parts. There was no money to save there unless stepping way down.

Moving forward, fingers crossed I’m banking on cheap 7950 allowing more platform options next time. Should we stay at $650, we could likely net a more-overclocked FX 6300, or a rather stock FX-8320. And I agree, to do either right, they deserve better cooling, or at least a mobo upgrade anyway. So we’d have to wait and see what’s available when Q4 discussions surface. State what you’d like to see though, especially on day 4, as budgets aren’t set until later.

I ‘m always concerned, but wasn’t alarmed about the VRMs actually, as I knew going in this would be a mild OC of a 95W part at stock voltage. Numerous IR readings at worst hit 65C under loads, with room temps between 76-80F. Not great, but acceptable IMO. But I did put thought into this, with the case selection and a VGA blower (lowering internal temps for free). The budget I wanted to attack this time really didn’t allow more money into the Mobo or CPU cooling. A rig like this deserves 8GB RAM, etc. and I wanted a direct comparison to Core i3, budget-wise, for now.

DarkSable, same budgets as last round. That was a quick and easy decision. My concern has been $650 isn’t really budget these days, which is why I volunteered another cheap build this time also. Yes, it will be compared to the $400 Mini-ITX, though it’s a very different build.

I don't understand why a person would go for an AMD cpu when he can get an I5 at about the same price (considering motherboard+cpu price), since a good AMD motherboard that'll support a decent OC will also cost quite a sum of money... Plus most people I believe just want a nice stable PC to game on, they don't need all the hassale of OCing. I believe that's especially true in the case of building a budget PC such as this, since only true enthusiasts will go for something much more expensive.
For example I built this PC for less than 650$ including all the MIRs, and I don't think it's even possible to get something cheaper and more powerful at this current time:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1H3JZ

I really don't think any AMD processor, non overclocked, can take on the i5 for performance and value, even if Intel barely raised the performance over the years since sandy bridge, Which is sad but apparently they don't need to, as even you tomhardware guys (In your gaming cpu hierarchy chart) rank the I5 above all AMD cpus as far as gaming is concerned.

You could make the same kind of savings with an FX 6300 build and be cheaper again . Whats your point exactly?

 

[Sangeet Khatri]

Everything is really good, I just don't trust the Motherboard. The G43 does not have heatsink on the VRM, Asus M5A97 is really cheap board with good features for a good price. Other than that Awesome build.

 

[ojas]

Well, to be fair, Q!'s build would have been in an entirely different league with $50 more.

 

[rwinches]

So, we will never know how 500-600mHz more per core would have translated into performance, because we needed to add a OD instead of a 3rd party fan.
Sorry, the OD and whatever else, could have been purchased later, a fan would have been a priority in my build.

Power draw gets to much weighting in these comps. Ever since Intel jumped ahead with smaller nm tech power and efficiency became super important here in all testing.
Dollars in and perf out is what builders want. They also want AMD around to have choice and to keep Intel challenged.
As to OCing this site is supposed to provide guidance and give the readers confidence to take that step. Paul's comment about the wide range of choice for the 760 being a crap shoot was not appreciated. This site was founded on OCing and being well informed about technology, not being afraid.

Oh, and don't think we didn't notice that all te builds just happened to have an EVGA card.

 

[pauldh]

Well, to be fair, Q!'s build would have been in an entirely different league with $50 more.

Back then it would have only allowed 7870 Pitcairn instead of 7850. That's all. But, to be fair I do wish we'd have had that configuration for comparison.

Had we gone that route this time, the first $20/$30 had to soak up price hikes on RAM (4GB/8GB) and an adequate power as those totaled just $60 back then. It's not so simple as just adding $50 to graphics budget now.

The hurdle is the CPU and Mobo together cost $75 more, which hasn't changed. We'd need to buy a cheap mobo without any OC support and let i5 compete as is, right out of the box. And then we'd still have roughly $30-50 less remaining vs. this tamely overclocked FX-6300 build.

 

[pauldh]

So, we will never know how 500-600mHz more per core would have translated into performance, because we needed to add a OD instead of a 3rd party fan.
Sorry, the OD and whatever else, could have been purchased later, a fan would have been a priority in my build.

Power draw gets to much weighting in these comps. Ever since Intel jumped ahead with smaller nm tech power and efficiency became super important here in all testing.
Dollars in and perf out is what builders want. They also want AMD around to have choice and to keep Intel challenged.
As to OCing this site is supposed to provide guidance and give the readers confidence to take that step. Paul's comment about the wide range of choice for the 760 being a crap shoot was not appreciated. This site was founded on OCing and being well informed about technology, not being afraid.

Oh, and don't think we didn't notice that all te builds just happened to have an EVGA card.

1) Sure, we absolutely already know, and without graphics being a variable either. Just look at the two articles I linked on page 1 of this story that compare 4.5 GHz FX-6350 to Core i3 & i5 (3570K which is basically equal to OC'ed 3350p). Same apps, same games, plus 4 more games too. Been there done that, and it requires more money to duplicate.

What we didn't know is how well FX-6300 could compete in our suite at $120 without being bolstered by big air or a big OC mobo. There' a reason the stock cooler and $70 mobo made sense as a starting point stock/lightly overclocked.

2) I'm really not sure what you mean by the 760 crap shoot part. I never said that. All I said was we had a huge range of sliders available now in Precision, far more than we could need. Look at early reviews, they topped out at 109% power. Forget the +1000 MHz GPU boost, I had 115% power available and NEEDED 110 % to not throttle at these clocks. You can crank clocks higher sure, BUT they would then throttling back lower than I tested here. Unless you monitor this in-game you won't even know it's happening.

3) I picked EVGA because only they offered me a blower for $250. I didn't want a "better" cooler, I wanted to exhaust the heat and help out the puny boxed cooler. Plain and simple

 

[nael]

You should try each time the perfect AMD vs. INTEL and AMD vs. NVidia combination.

 

[pauldh]

Oh and btw, As a dad with 3 young gamers in the house, I value efficiency, heat, and noise FAR MORE on a personal level than I let slide into any articles. Multiply each by numerous PC's running at once, and there's a good reason aging power hungry parts are continually replaced in my home. It all adds up, and being able to dial back the AC a bit is a big help in paying the energy bill.

 

[bustapr]

I love that you decided to use the fx-6300 but I don't see the point of using the stock cooler. We want to see the fx processors overclocked to their limits. Also, I'd rather get 4 GB of RAM and a better PSU, just for peace of mind. And where are you going to include Guild Wars 2 in your benchmarks? That is a cpu heavy game that most people are playing now.

I think that if you don't want to OC you should buy i3. It's much better choice.

Im pretty sure the last page of the article proved otherwise.